If you've ever Googled "how to monitor your app uptime", you’ve probably seen these two paths:
- 🧱 Self-host everything – Prometheus, Grafana, Alertmanager, maybe even custom scripts
- ☁️ Use a managed SaaS tool
I've done both.
Here’s what I learned — and why I now use Garmingo Status for most of my projects.
⚙️ Self-Hosting (The DIY Route)
Tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and Alertmanager are super powerful.
You get full control. Custom everything. Free software.
But you also get:
- Setup hell (YAML, configs, exporters, dashboards)
- Ongoing maintenance + hosting costs
- No real support unless you're an expert
- No built-in status page or incident comms
- Complex alerting integrations
Great for big teams with time & infra.
Overkill for solo devs, startups, or when you need it done yesterday.
☁️ SaaS Monitoring (The Done-for-You Route)
Tools like Garmingo Status give you:
✅ Simple UI
✅ Fast setup (15 minutes or less)
✅ Multiple monitor types (HTTP, Ping, DNS, Port, Keyword, …)
✅ Beautiful public & private status pages
✅ Alerts via Slack, Email, Telegram, Discord
✅ Built-in incident logs, SLA tracking, PDF reports
✅ And a forever free plan (no credit card needed)
It's everything you need — without needing to learn PromQL.
🤔 So, What’s Better?
It depends:
| You Should Self-Host If… | You Should Use SaaS If… |
|---|---|
| You love tinkering | You want it working today |
| You need full control | You need peace of mind |
| You already have infra | You don’t want more servers |
| You have DevOps budget | You’re a startup, solo dev, or SMB |
For me — as someone building products, not platforms — SaaS wins.
I don’t want my monitoring to become a side project of its own.
🎁 Want to Try the Easy Route?
Garmingo Status has a forever free plan.
You can set up monitoring + status page in minutes. No credit card, no nonsense.
👉 https://garmingo.com/status#free-demo
Curious what others use — self-hosted stack or SaaS?
Drop your setup below 👇
