50% bonus credits + 2x signup credits View Offer
Navigation
15 min read

How do I migrate from Better Stack?

Move from Better Stack to UpCanary for credit-based pricing and automated status pages.

Better Stack (formerly Logtail / Better Uptime) is a capable monitoring platform, but its per-seat pricing model means costs grow with your team rather than with your actual monitoring usage. UpCanary uses a credit-based model - you pay for checks run, not for how many people are on your team.

Why Migrate

Better StackUpCanary
Per-seat pricing - every team member costs moreCredit-based - pay for checks, not headcount
Status pages require manual or automation setupStatus pages auto-update from monitor state
Complex pricing tiers with feature locksThree clear plans, all features available
Log management bundled in (often unused)Focused on monitoring and status pages

If your team is growing but your monitoring needs are not changing dramatically, UpCanary’s pricing scales more favorably. Adding a new developer to your team does not increase your monitoring bill.

Step 1: Export Your Monitor List

In Better Stack, go to your Monitors list and note down for each monitor:

  • URL or host being monitored
  • Check type (HTTP, TCP, Ping)
  • Check interval
  • Regions (if configured)
  • Assertions (expected status codes, response body checks)
  • Which monitors feed into your status page

There is no automatic import - you will recreate these in UpCanary, which takes 10–15 minutes for most setups.

Step 2: Recreate Monitors in UpCanary

Sign in to app.upcanary.io and recreate each monitor:

  1. Click New Monitor.
  2. Select the check type - HTTP/HTTPS, TCP, Ping, or DNS.
  3. Enter the URL or host.
  4. Configure assertions to match what you had in Better Stack:
    • Expected HTTP status code (e.g., 200)
    • Response body contains (e.g., ok, healthy, true)
  5. Set the check interval and regions.
  6. Add notification channels.
  7. Save.

Tip: Start with your most critical monitors and get them verified before migrating the full list. This way you have coverage during the transition.

Step 3: Set Up Status Pages

If you were using Better Stack’s status pages:

  1. Go to Status Pages > New Status Page in UpCanary.
  2. Set the name, slug, and visibility.
  3. Add your monitors as components, using the same display names your customers see.
  4. Organize with groups if needed.
  5. Publish.

Unlike Better Stack, where status page state can require automation or manual updates, UpCanary status pages update automatically the moment a monitor changes state. No webhooks or integrations needed.

Step 4: Migrate Notification Channels

Recreate your notification configuration in UpCanary:

  • Email - add individual or shared team email addresses
  • On-call routing - if you use PagerDuty or OpsGenie, use their inbound email addresses as email notification channels in UpCanary

Apply notification channels to each monitor. Configure alerts for Down and Recovery events at minimum.

Step 5: Cut Over

Once all monitors are running and verified in UpCanary:

  1. Update any “System Status” links to your new UpCanary status page URL.
  2. Disable or delete your monitors in Better Stack to stop parallel billing.
  3. Cancel your Better Stack subscription if you no longer need it.

Run both platforms in parallel for a day or two if you want to compare alert behavior before fully committing.

Key Differences to Know

No per-user pricing. Starter includes up to 5 seats and Pro includes unlimited seats. Adding engineers to your team does not affect your monitoring costs.

Credits replace seat-based billing. Your monitoring cost is determined by how many checks run (interval × regions × number of monitors), not by how many people use the platform. This means a solo developer running 50 monitors at 1-minute intervals pays more than a 10-person team running 5 monitors at 5-minute intervals - which matches actual resource usage.

Status pages are fully automated. There is no configuration needed to keep status pages in sync with monitor state. The connection is built in.

No log management. UpCanary is focused on uptime monitoring and status pages. If you were using Better Stack’s log management features, you will need a separate tool for that (Logtail, Datadog, or similar).