How to Setup Rest API Monitoring?

How to Set Up Your First REST API Monitoring

This step-by-step guide helps you set up your first REST API monitor. It is written for beginners and works well with dark-theme dashboards.

What Is REST API Monitoring?

REST API monitoring checks if your API endpoint is reachable and working correctly. If the API goes down or returns an error, you receive an alert so you can fix the issue quickly.

Before You Start

• Your API URL should start with https
• The API should return a 200 OK response when working
• Keep authentication details ready if required

Step-by-Step Setup

Step 1: Monitor Name

Enter a friendly name so you can easily identify this API later.

Step 2: API URL

Paste the full REST API endpoint you want to monitor.

Step 3: Monitoring Interval

• 15 minutes – Best for most APIs
• 5 minutes – Important production APIs
• 1 minute – Critical APIs

Step 4: SSL Certificate Monitoring

Keep this OFF. Enable it only if you want SSL expiry alerts.

Step 5: Domain Name Monitoring

Keep this OFF. This is not required for API uptime checks.

Step 6: Alert Condition

Select URL becomes unavailable.

• API is down
• Server error (5xx)
• Request timeout

Step 7: Alert Channels

Add at least one alert channel.

• Email alerts for beginners
• Webhook, Slack, or Discord for advanced users

Step 8: Request Method

Choose the HTTP method.

• GET – Recommended for first API
• POST – Only if your API requires it

Step 9: Headers (Optional)

Leave empty unless your API needs headers.

Step 10: HTTP Authentication

Leave empty unless your API uses Basic Authentication.

Step 11: Cache Buster

Turn Cache Buster ON to avoid cached responses and ensure real-time checks.

Recommended Final Configuration

Next Steps

Once your first API monitor is live, you can add advanced features like POST requests, response checks, authentication tokens, and webhook alerts.