PingWise vs updown.io
updown.io and PingWise both sell prepaid credits with no subscription. The difference is confirmation: two more checks with at least one other location there, 10 of 15 probes on 3 continents here.
Which one should you pick?
updown.io is the service closest to ours: prepaid credits, no subscription, 15-second checks and a small, focused product. If it already works for you, the reasons to move are narrow, and we’d rather say so.
On price, the table below shows 10 monitors every minute free here and €4.32 a month there. updown.io’s 100,000 free credits are a one-off at sign-up, while our 650,000 renew every month, which matters most for small accounts.
The real difference is how a failure becomes an alert. updown.io documents three failures, with at least one from another location. We check every scheduled round from several cities at once and page you only when 10 of 15 probes, on at least 3 continents and 3 providers, fail two rounds in a row. We also report WAF and Cloudflare challenges as “blocked” instead of down. If false alarms are your problem, that is what you are paying for; if they aren’t, updown.io is a fine choice. Our switch page imports your updown.io checks and runs alongside for 14 days.
Import your updown.io monitors and run both side by side for 14 days.
Price per month
HTTP monitors at the given interval, on each service's cheapest plan that covers it. Annual billing where it's cheaper. Prices in each vendor's own currency, not converted. Checked 26 Oct 2026.
| Service | Cheapest paid | 10 × 1 min | 50 × 1 min | 50 × 5 min | Free tier | Locations | Before alerting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PingWise | credits from €5 | free | €7.55 | free | 650,000 credits every month | 15 cities, 6 continents | Two thirds of 15 probes (10), 3 continents, 3 providers, 2 rounds in a row |
| updown.io | €5 pack · 200k credits | €4.32 | €21.60at the 10M pack rate | €4.32 | 100,000 credits, once | 10 cities, 5 continents | 3 failures, at least one from another location |
PingWise prices use the rate of the credit pack a year of that usage would use up.
Features
On each service's cheapest paid plan, as documented by that vendor.
✓ documented by the vendor · – documented as not offered · n/d not found in the vendor's public documentation · text = yes, with that limit
| Feature | PingWise | updown.io |
|---|---|---|
| Every check from several locations at onceon every scheduled check, not only when confirming | ✓ | n/d |
| Confirmation before pagingwhat the vendor documents happens after a failed check | 2 rounds, all 15 probes | 2 more checks, ≥1 other location |
| Confirmation must span continentsa failure in one region can't page you | ✓ | ≥1 other location |
| Confirmation must span providersone provider's network trouble can't page you | ✓ | n/d |
| Broken probes removed automatically | ✓ | n/d |
| WAF challenge shown as “blocked”, not down; Cloudflare allow-list managed for youconnect your Cloudflare account; we keep the skip rule in place | ✓ | n/d |
| What each probe saw, in the alert | ✓ | n/d |
| Prepaid credits, no subscription | ✓ | ✓ |
| Unlimited team memberson the cheapest paid plan | ✓ | n/d |
| Telegram and webhook alertson the cheapest paid plan | ✓ | ✓ |
| Slack, Teams and Discord alertson the cheapest paid plan | ✓ | ✓ |
| PagerDuty alertson the cheapest paid plan | ✓ | n/d |
| 15-second checks | verified domains | ✓ |
| Ping (ICMP) to any host | ✓ | ✓ |
| SMS and phone alerts | soon | SMS |
| Public status pageswith your logo and colours | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monitor groups: a status page, an alert channel and a maintenance window per groupone group per monitor; the dashboard shows a section per group | ✓ | n/d |
| Bulk changes across every monitor that matches a filterinterval, channels, group, pause, delete; the monthly credit cost is shown before you confirm | ✓ | n/d |
| Import from other monitoring tools, with a preview firstwhat the vendor documents it can read in | UptimeRobot, updown.io, Uptime Kuma, CSV | n/d |
| Heartbeat / cron monitoring | ✓ | ✓ |
| Domain expiry alertsregistrable domain of every monitor, checked daily | free · date by hand where the registry hides it | ✓ |
| Slow-response alerts | median of all probes, not one slow city | n/d |
| Public APIkeys, monitors, incidents, groups; an OpenAPI document | ✓ | ✓ |
What updown.io users ask for, already here
updown.io publishes its feature requests with votes. These are the most-voted ones still open there on 28 October 2026, and what PingWise has for each. Votes and status are updown.io’s own and may have changed since; many other requests updown.io has already shipped.
| Requested at updown.io | Votes | Status there | PingWise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team accounts | 122 | In progress | Unlimited members per account, owner and member roles, and the account can require two-factor sign-in for everyone. |
| Maintenance windows | 91 | Under review | Once or recurring daily, weekly or monthly in your time zone, for one monitor or a whole group. |
| Text updates for incidents | 59 | Under review | Incidents with updates from investigating to resolved on your status page; a confirmed outage drafts one for you. |
| Custom logo on public status pages | 52 | Open | Your logo, name and link on every page; a page can carry its own brand and its own domain. |
| Grouping checks / tagging | 48 | Under review | Groups: a status page section, an alert channel and a maintenance window per group. |
| Pushover alerts | 36 | Under review | Pushover is an alert channel, next to ntfy, Slack, Teams, Discord, Google Chat, PagerDuty, Telegram, email and webhooks. |
| Bulk add and more bulk options | 25 | Planned / Open | Bulk changes across every monitor that matches a filter, with the credit cost shown first; import from CSV or your current tool. |
| JSON version of the status page | 19 | Under review | Every status page serves a status.json. |
| DNS record checks | 16 | Under review | A DNS monitor type: any name and record type, checked from the whole probe fleet. |
| PagerDuty integration | 16 | Under review | PagerDuty opens and resolves its own incidents; on-call stays in PagerDuty. |
| Google Chat webhooks | 16 | Open | Google Chat is an alert channel. |
| Dark theme | 16 | Under review | Light and dark theme in the panel. |
| Passkey or MFA | 14 | Open | Two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app or a passkey, with recovery codes. |
| STARTTLS check for SMTP servers | 13 | Open | An SMTP monitor with a STARTTLS certificate check. |
Votes and status as published by updown.io on 28 October 2026: updown.io/features.
Where updown.io is the better choice
Being honest about this saves everyone time.
Custom HTTP requests on any domain
updown.io documents GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE and OPTIONS with custom headers and a request body. We have them too now, but only for domains you have verified with us. If you monitor APIs on domains you can't verify, updown.io covers that.
SMS alerts
updown.io sends SMS alerts. We alert by email, Telegram, Slack, Teams, Discord, Google Chat, PagerDuty, ntfy, Pushover and webhook; SMS follows after launch. For people who want a text message on a phone that is otherwise silent at night, that is a real difference.
Apdex on every check
updown.io computes an Apdex performance score for each check. We show response times and a slow-response alert, but no Apdex. If you report performance to someone using Apdex, updown.io gives it to you without extra work.
You’re already set up
Same pricing model, similar intervals. If updown.io’s alerts have never woken you up for nothing, there is little to gain from switching. Switching has a cost in time, and we would rather you spend it where it pays back.
What PingWise does differently
- Every scheduled check runs from several cities at once, not from one place with a retry.
- The moment one probe sees a failure, every healthy probe checks again, free, before anyone is paged.
- Nothing pages you until two thirds of our 15 probes (10) fail, on at least 3 continents and 3 different providers, two rounds in a row.
- A WAF or Cloudflare challenge is reported as “blocked”, never as down.
- Every alert says what each probe saw: resolved IP, status code, timing and error.
- Prepaid credits, no subscription: 650,000 free every month, packs from €5, bought credits last 24 months.
More comparisons
PingWise vs UptimeRobot · PingWise vs HetrixTools · PingWise vs Cronitor · All services side by side
Sources
Compiled from each vendor's own pricing and documentation pages on 26 Oct 2026, linked under Sources. Vendors change plans and features; we re-check quarterly. All product names are trade marks of their owners and are used only to identify them. If you work at one of these companies and something here is wrong or out of date, email [email protected] and we will correct it within one working day.