Heartbeats plus uptime, SSL and watches

The Cronhub alternative with uptime in the same account

Cronhub monitors scheduled jobs and can schedule them for you as well. If you want a hosted scheduler, that is a genuine advantage we do not match. If you already have cron and just need to know when it stops, the comparison is closer.

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Is MonitoringDaddy a real Cronhub alternative?

For monitoring jobs you already schedule yourself, yes, and with uptime and page monitoring included. Cronhub is the better choice if you want it to run the schedule for you rather than only watch it — we have no scheduler at all.

The trigger

Why people look for a Cronhub alternative

You already have a scheduler

If your jobs run from crontab, systemd timers or a CI pipeline, the scheduling half of Cronhub is capability you are paying for and not using.

Monitoring is broader than cron

Jobs stopping matters; so does the site being down and the certificate expiring. A cron-only tool leaves both uncovered.

Cost per job

Plans scale by the number of monitored jobs, which gets expensive for teams with a lot of scheduled work.

Side by side

Cronhub vs MonitoringDaddy

Green marks the stronger option on that row. Third-party pricing and limits change without notice — treat the Cronhub column as a starting point and confirm current figures on their site before you decide.

Feature Cronhub MonitoringDaddy
Cron / heartbeat monitoring Yes — core product Yes — 1 on free, 25 on the $5 plan, 100 on Pro
Hosted job scheduling Yes — it can run the schedule for you No — we watch jobs, we do not run them
Free plan Limited free tier — verify on their site 1 heartbeat, 1 monitor, 1 watched page
Uptime monitoring No Yes, on every plan
SSL and domain expiry No Yes, at no extra allowance
Website change detection No Yes, with word-level diffs and images
Hosted status page No Yes, included on every plan
Job duration tracking Yes No — we record the check-in only
Entry paid price From ~$20/mo — verify on their site $5/mo for 25 of each monitor type
Alert channels Email, Slack, webhooks and more Email, browser push, Slack, Teams, Discord, Telegram, Flock, webhooks
Fair comparison

What Cronhub does better

Every comparison page on the internet claims the author's product wins on everything. Here is where it does not.

  • It can schedule jobs as well as monitor them, which removes the need for a crontab entirely in some setups.
  • Duration tracking, so a job getting slower is visible before it fails.
  • A clean, focused interface for people whose problem really is just cron.
  • Straightforward setup with clear documentation.

If any of those are load-bearing for your team, staying put is the correct decision and this page has done its job. Monitoring you actually trust beats monitoring that is marginally cheaper.

The product

What you actually get with MonitoringDaddy

Six monitor types and one dashboard. No add-on products, no separate SKUs for the features you assumed were included.

Uptime monitoring

HTTP checks from external infrastructure, as often as every 60 seconds, with downtime and recovery alerts. See the uptime setup guide.

SSL certificate expiry

A dedicated monitor type with configurable advance warnings, so a certificate never lapses because nobody owned the renewal. See SSL expiry monitoring.

Domain expiry

Registration expiry tracked as its own monitor, warning you months ahead. The outage nobody has a runbook for. See domain expiration monitoring.

Content change detection

Alert when a phrase appears or disappears on a page — defacement, stock changes, silent policy edits. See website change detection.

Price monitoring

Watch a competitor or supplier price string and get told the moment it moves. See the price monitoring guide.

Hosted status pages

Public status pages included on every plan, hosted independently of your infrastructure so they stay up when you do not. See hosted status pages.

Alerts from any of these can be routed to email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, Flock or a generic webhook, and a single monitor can carry several channels at once. Everything is available through the REST API on paid plans, so monitors can be created and torn down programmatically rather than clicked through a form.

The decision

Who should switch — and who should stay

Switch if…

  • You already schedule jobs yourself and only need the monitoring half.
  • You also want uptime, SSL, domain or page-change monitoring.
  • Per-job pricing is outgrowing the value.
  • You want a status page included rather than as another subscription.

Stay on Cronhub if…

  • You want a hosted scheduler — we do not have one and will not pretend otherwise.
  • Job duration tracking matters to you.
  • Cron is the whole of your monitoring requirement.
Pricing

What MonitoringDaddy costs

Flat monthly tiers. No per-seat charges, no credit top-ups, no usage meters — the number below is the whole bill.

PlanMonitorsFastest intervalAlert channelsAPIPrice
Free1Every 30 minutesEmail$0
Founding Member first 20 only25Every 5 minutesEmail + webhook & chatYes$5/mo
Basic10Every 10 minutesEmail + webhook & chatYes$8/mo
Growth50Every 5 minutesEmail + webhook & chatYes$19/mo
Pro100Every 60 secondsEmail + webhook & chatYes$34/mo

Annual billing is cheaper on every paid tier. The pricing page is the authoritative list.

Migration

Moving from Cronhub without a gap in coverage

There is no automated importer — monitors are re-created by hand, or scripted through the API on paid plans. Budget about a minute per monitor.

1

Audit what you monitor

List every active check: URL, interval, condition and alert recipients. Most teams find monitors nobody needs any more.

2

Re-create the critical ones

Start with revenue-critical URLs. Set the interval, add the condition, attach the channels your team already watches.

3

Run both for a week

Keep Cronhub live while the new monitors settle. Compare alerts and confirm nothing is missing.

4

Switch over and cancel

Move any public status page across, confirm a clean week of overlap, then cancel the old subscription.

Methodology

How this comparison was put together

This page is written by the team that builds MonitoringDaddy, so treat it as an informed argument rather than a neutral audit. What we can promise is that the claims about our own product are checked against what the software actually does, and the rows where Cronhub is stronger are marked as such rather than quietly omitted.

Details about Cronhub come from their public pricing and documentation at the time of writing. Monitoring vendors change plan limits and prices frequently and without announcement, so every third-party figure here carries a "verify on their site" caveat and you should take it seriously before making a decision on cost.

One thing worth stating plainly, because most comparison pages fudge it: MonitoringDaddy checks run from our own infrastructure, which is external to yours, but from a single origin rather than a global probe network. That is enough to catch outages and content changes independently of your stack. It is not enough to tell you a site is down in Frankfurt but up in Ohio. If regional verification is a hard requirement, a larger platform will serve you better and we would rather you knew that now.

Found something out of date or wrong? Tell us and we will correct it.

See it

What an alert actually looks like

Every recorded change is compared word by word and kept with a before-and-after image. This is the real output, shown with worked example data.

competitor.com/pricing Watching: Pricing table
Pro plan — $49 per month
+ Pro plan — $39 per month
+ Save 20% with annual billing

Price fell from $49 to $39, and an annual discount was added.

2 words added · 1 removed · 4.1% of the watched region

retailer.com/product/… Watching: Availability
Out of stock
+ In stock — ships tomorrow
+ Add to basket

The item is available again and the basket button returned.

6 words added · 3 removed · 12.5% of the watched region

supplier.com/subprocessors Watching: Subprocessor list
~ Data is processed in the EUthe EU and the United States
+ Added: Northwind Analytics Inc. (United States)

A new subprocessor was added in another jurisdiction.

9 words added · 2 removed · 1.8% of the watched region

Worked example — not live data. Start monitoring free
Alerts

Where we can reach you

The free plan sends to one email address. Every paid plan adds the chat and webhook channels below, with 2 to 10 destinations depending on the plan. However many alerts you receive, the price does not change — nothing here is metered or charged per alert.

Email Before and after images inline
Browser push On a phone or desktop lock screen
RSS feed Every recorded change, as a feed
SlackPaid Through an incoming webhook
Microsoft TeamsPaid Through an incoming webhook
DiscordPaid Through an incoming webhook
TelegramPaid Straight to a chat or channel
FlockPaid Through an incoming webhook
WebhooksPaid Post to anything you run yourself

There are no voice calls and no SMS. If a phone call at 3am is a hard requirement, say so before you subscribe — we would rather tell you now than refund you later.

FAQ

Cronhub alternative: your questions answered

Does MonitoringDaddy schedule jobs?

No. We watch jobs you schedule yourself — crontab, systemd, a CI pipeline, anything that can make one HTTP request when it finishes. If you want the tool to run the schedule, Cronhub does that and we do not.

Is Cronhub free?

There is a limited free tier with paid plans from roughly $20/month. Verify current limits on their site.

How do heartbeats work here?

Each heartbeat has a ping URL. Call it at the end of your job, tell us how often to expect it and how late it may be, and we alert you when the call does not arrive.

Does it track how long a job took?

Cronhub does. We do not — we record whether the check-in arrived on time. If a job gradually getting slower is the signal you need, Cronhub or Cronitor are the better tools.

Can I monitor websites too?

Here, yes — uptime, SSL expiry, domain expiry, page changes and status pages are all in the same account. Cronhub is cron-focused.

How many jobs can I monitor?

1 on free, 25 on the $5 Founding Member plan, 50 on Growth, 100 on Pro. Heartbeats have their own allowance separate from monitors and watches.

What if the job runs somewhere with no outbound internet?

Then neither tool works. Heartbeat monitoring depends on the job being able to make one outbound HTTPS request.

Is it easy to move across?

Yes — swap the ping URL in each job. One line per job, and you can run both in parallel while you confirm.

Keep reading

Compare other monitoring tools

Last updated August 4, 2026 · Written by Amit Gupta, founder of MonitoringDaddy

AG
Written by

Amit Gupta

Amit Gupta is the founder of MonitoringDaddy , a website and infrastructure monitoring platform built by TotosLocal One Private Limited. He writes about uptime, change detection, SSL and domain monitoring, and helps teams keep their websites fast, secure and online.

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