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5 min read

How do I get started with UpCanary?

Go from zero to monitoring with a live status page in under 5 minutes.

Get your first monitor running and a public status page live in under 5 minutes.

Step 1: Create Your Account

Head to app.upcanary.io and sign up with your email and password, or use Sign in with Google or Sign in with GitHub for one-click registration.

When your account is created, you receive 100,000 free credits - enough to run a monitor checking every minute for over two months, or a 30-second monitor for about five weeks.

No credit card required to get started.

Step 2: Create Your First Monitor

After signing in, click New Monitor from the dashboard.

  1. Choose HTTP / HTTPS as the check type - this is the right choice for any website or API endpoint.
  2. Enter the URL you want to monitor, for example https://yoursite.com or https://api.yourapp.com/health.
  3. Set the check interval - start with 5 minutes for most sites, or 1 minute for production APIs.
  4. Under Regions, leave all regions selected. Multi-region consensus means UpCanary only fires an alert when 2 or more regions confirm downtime, eliminating false positives.
  5. Click Save Monitor.

UpCanary immediately begins checking your endpoint from 6 global regions.

Step 3: Verify the Monitor Is Running

Back on the dashboard, your new monitor will show a status badge. Within the first check interval, you’ll see:

  • Response time from each region
  • Status (Up / Degraded / Down)
  • A live response time chart

If the monitor shows a red or yellow badge, click into it to see which regions are reporting issues and what HTTP status code was returned.

Step 4: Create a Status Page

Click Status Pages in the left sidebar, then New Status Page.

  1. Give it a name - for example, “Acme Status” or “API Status”.
  2. Set visibility to Public so anyone can view it without signing in.
  3. Under Components, add the monitor you just created. Give the component a user-friendly name like “Website” or “API”.
  4. Click Publish.

Your status page is now live at a unique URL like https://status.upcanary.io/your-slug.

Step 5: Share Your Status Page

Copy the status page URL from the Status Pages section and share it:

  • Add it to your website footer: “System Status”
  • Pin it in your support channels (Slack, Discord, Intercom)
  • Link it from your error pages and downtime emails
  • Add it to your product’s help menu

When your monitor detects downtime, your status page automatically updates - no manual incident posting needed.

What’s Next?

  • Add more monitors - TCP for databases, DNS for domain health, Ping for servers
  • Configure notifications - set up email alerts so you’re notified the moment something goes down
  • Invite your team - go to Settings > Team to add colleagues
  • Explore check types - see the Monitors Overview for all available monitor types