Three monitoring services, same pain
If you run a small web agency, you probably have accounts on two or three uptime monitoring services:
UptimeRobot Pro ($7/month). Pingdom Standard ($12/month). Better Stack ($10/month). Maybe a dedicated SSL monitor and a separate content-change watcher on top.
That's $84–$144 per year. For what? A green dot in a dashboard and an email when your site is down. You're paying for the cloud hosting, the billing system, the user management — features you don't need when you're the only person monitoring your sites.
What DeskUptime does
DeskUptime is a desktop website monitor that checks three things:
- Uptime — HTTP status code + response time + redirect tracking
- SSL — certificate expiry countdown, issuer, cipher, protocol
- Content changes — SHA-256 hash comparison between checks
It's universal. Works on WordPress, Shopify, Netlify, hand-coded HTML. It doesn't care what CMS you use, because it checks from the outside — exactly like a real visitor would.
Free CLI
The terminal version is free and requires no account:
$ npx github:mahope/deskuptime check https://example.com ✅ https://example.com Status: 200 OK Response: 85ms 🔒 SSL: 63 days ✅ — Content: 559 bytes
Watch mode runs in the background, stores state in ~/.deskuptime/state.json, and prints alerts on status changes — site goes down, SSL expires within 14 days, or content changes from the last check.
$ deskuptime watch https://mystore.com --interval 300 👀 Monitoring 1 URL(s), every 300s. [10:15 AM] ✓ all monitored sites OK [10:20 AM] 🚨 https://mystore.com is DOWN [10:25 AM] ✅ https://mystore.com is UP (200)
The free tier monitors up to 3 URLs and uses a minimum 60-second interval. State persists across restarts — stop and resume anything.
What Pro ($19) adds
| Feature | Free | Pro ($19) |
|---|---|---|
| URL checking | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSL expiry | ✓ | ✓ |
| Content change detection | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLI check + watch | ✓ (3 URLs max) | ✓ (unlimited) |
| Desktop app (system tray) | — | ✓ |
| Email & webhook alerts | — | ✓ |
| Lifetime updates | — | ✓ |
Pro unlocks via a Lemon Squeezy license key — pay once, get a key, activate on up to 3 machines. No phoning home, no DRM, no subscription.
Why buy vs rent
The case is simple math:
| Service | 1 year | 3 years |
|---|---|---|
| UptimeRobot Pro | $84 | $252 |
| Pingdom Standard | $144 | $432 |
| Better Uptime | $120 | $360 |
| DeskUptime Pro | $19 | $19 |
A single DeskUptime license pays for itself in two months. After that, every month is savings.
Licensing & privacy
Pro license keys are processed through Lemon Squeezy — Stripe-backed payment processing with built-in EU VAT handling and US sales tax. Your purchase generates a license key instantly. Validate it locally — the app only phones home to verify the key once during activation.
The open-source engine is MIT licensed. Review it on GitHub.
What we're still building
The desktop app with system tray, native notifications, and email/webhook alerts is under development. The CLI and watch mode are ready and tested today.