What are the key concepts in UpCanary?
Understand the core building blocks of UpCanary: monitors, status pages, credits, and regions.
UpCanary is built around a small set of concepts. Understanding them will help you configure monitoring that matches your needs and avoid surprises around credit consumption.
Monitors
A monitor is a scheduled check that tests whether a service is up, reachable, and behaving correctly. Each monitor runs on a configurable interval from every 30 seconds up to once per hour.
UpCanary supports four check types:
| Type | What It Checks | Typical Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| HTTP / HTTPS | URL returns expected status code and/or response body | Websites, REST APIs, health endpoints |
| TCP | Port is open and optionally responds with expected data | Databases, mail servers, game servers |
| DNS | DNS record resolves to expected value | Domain health, DNS propagation, MX records |
| Ping | Host responds to ICMP echo (ping) | Servers, network gear, homelab devices |
HTTP monitors can optionally enable SSL certificate expiry and domain expiry checks. These run on a fixed 24-hour schedule and consume no additional credits. See SSL & Domain Expiry for details.
Each check type has its own configuration options. See the individual monitor pages in the Monitors section for details.
Status Pages
A status page is a public-facing page that communicates the operational status of your services to users, customers, and teammates.
UpCanary status pages support three visibility modes:
- Public - anyone with the URL can view it, no sign-in required
- Protected - viewers must enter a password to access it
- Private - only signed-in members of your team can view it
Status pages contain components, which are user-facing labels mapped to one or more monitors. When a monitor reports downtime, the associated component automatically reflects that status - no manual updates needed.
Credits
Credits are the unit of consumption for monitor checks.
- 1 credit = 1 check, regardless of how many regions run that check
- Credits never expire - buy a bundle and use it at your own pace
- New accounts receive 100,000 free credits to get started
- Additional credits can be purchased in bundles from the Billing section
Example: A monitor set to check every 5 minutes runs roughly 8,640 times per month. That costs 8,640 credits, no matter whether you run it from 1 region or all 6.
Different plans include a monthly credit allotment. Purchased credit bundles roll over and do not expire. See Credits for the full breakdown.
Regions
UpCanary runs checks from 6 global regions:
- US Central
- South America East
- Europe West
- Asia South
- Asia Northeast
- Australia Southeast
When you create a monitor, you select which regions run that check. By default, all regions are selected.
Multi-region consensus is UpCanary’s false-positive prevention mechanism: an alert only fires when 2 or more regions independently confirm that the service is down. A single region failing to reach your service - due to a local network blip, a CDN routing issue, or temporary packet loss - will not trigger a notification.
This means you get alerted when something is actually wrong, not when the internet has a hiccup.
Notifications
Notifications tell you (or your team) when something changes. UpCanary sends notifications for:
- Down - monitor transitions from Up to Down
- Degraded - monitor is reachable but response time or status code is outside expected range
- Recovery - monitor transitions back to Up after being Down or Degraded
Notifications are sent through channels (email today; Slack, Discord, webhooks, and more coming soon). Rules let you control which monitors send to which channels and under what conditions.
See the Notifications section for setup details.
Teams
UpCanary uses a team-based access model. Every resource - monitors, status pages, notification channels - belongs to a team.
Team members have one of four roles:
| Role | What They Can Do |
|---|---|
| Owner | Full access; manages billing and can delete the team |
| Admin | Create and edit monitors, status pages, and team settings; invite members |
| Member | Create and edit monitors and status pages |
| Viewer | Read-only access to monitors and status pages |
A user can belong to multiple teams, with different roles in each. See Team Members for invitation and management details.