Monitors - StatusStack Documentation

What are Monitors?

Monitors in StatusStack allow you to track the health and performance of your own websites, APIs, and custom endpoints. Unlike Sources (which monitor third-party services), Monitors check endpoints that you own and control.

Key Features

HTTP/HTTPS Health Checks

Ping your endpoints at regular intervals to verify availability

SSL Certificate Monitoring

Track certificate expiry dates and get alerted before they expire

Response Time Tracking

Monitor performance trends and detect slowdowns

Uptime Percentage

Calculate and display historical uptime statistics

Monitor Types

Website Monitors

Monitor public or private websites:

GET https://www.yoursite.com/
Expected Status: 200 OK
Check Interval: 60 seconds

Use Cases:

Monitor your company website
Track landing page availability
Check documentation sites
Verify blog accessibility

API Health Checks

Monitor API endpoints with custom validation:

GET https://api.yourservice.com/health
Headers:
  Authorization: Bearer your-token-here
Expected Status: 200
Expected Body: {"status": "healthy"}
Check Interval: 30 seconds

Use Cases:

Monitor production APIs
Track microservice health
Verify webhook endpoints
Check database connectivity

Custom Endpoints

Monitor any HTTP/HTTPS endpoint:

Admin Panels - Verify dashboard accessibility
CDN Endpoints - Check asset delivery
Load Balancers - Monitor routing health
Internal Services - Track private network endpoints

Creating a Monitor

Navigate to Monitors

In your dashboard, go to Monitoring → Website Monitors

Click Create Monitor

Click the “Create Monitor” button in the top-right

Configure Basic Settings

Fill in the monitor details:

Name: Production API Health
URL: https://api.yoursite.com/health
Description: Monitors production API availability (optional)
Team: Select your team

Set Check Interval

Choose how often to check the endpoint:

30 seconds - Critical endpoints
60 seconds - Production services
5 minutes - Standard monitoring
15 minutes - Less critical endpoints

Configure Validation

Define what “healthy” means:

Expected Status Code - 200, 201, 204, etc.
Response Timeout - Maximum wait time (default: 10s)
Follow Redirects - Enable/disable redirect following
Verify SSL - Check SSL certificate validity

Add to Stack

Select which Stack(s) to add this monitor to

Save Monitor

Click Create to start monitoring

Monitor Configuration Options

Basic Settings

Field	Description	Example
Name	Display name for the monitor	”Production API”
URL	Endpoint to monitor	`https://api.example.com/health`
Description	Optional notes	”Main API health endpoint”
Team	Which team owns this monitor	”Engineering Team”

Check Configuration

Setting	Options	Recommended
Check Interval	30s, 1m, 5m, 15m, 30m, 60m	60s for production
Timeout	5s, 10s, 15s, 30s	10s
Retry Count	1-5 retries	3 retries
Failure Threshold	1-10 failures	3 failures

Advanced Options

Custom Headers

Add authentication or custom headers:

Headers:
  Authorization: Bearer sk_live_abc123...
  X-API-Key: your-api-key-here
  User-Agent: StatusStack Monitor

SSL Certificate Monitoring

Track certificate expiry:

Monitor Expiry - Get alerted before certificates expire
Warning Threshold - Alert 30 days before expiry
Critical Threshold - Alert 7 days before expiry

Response Validation

Validate response content:

Status Code - Expected HTTP status (200, 201, etc.)
Response Body - Check for specific text or JSON
Response Time - Alert if slower than threshold

Maintenance Windows

Schedule maintenance to pause monitoring:

One-Time - Specific date/time range
Recurring - Weekly maintenance windows
Manual - Pause/resume manually

Monitor Status Levels

Monitors report one of four status levels:

Operational

All checks passing, endpoint is healthy

Degraded

Some checks failing, but threshold not met

Critical

Failure threshold exceeded, endpoint is down

Maintenance

Scheduled maintenance, monitoring paused

Status Calculation

// Monitor status logic
if (consecutiveFailures >= failureThreshold) {
  status = 'CRITICAL'
} else if (consecutiveFailures > 0) {
  status = 'DEGRADED'
} else if (maintenanceMode) {
  status = 'MAINTENANCE'
} else {
  status = 'OPERATIONAL'
}

Monitor Analytics

Each monitor provides detailed analytics:

Uptime Metrics

Current Uptime - Last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days
Uptime Percentage - Historical uptime calculation
Incident Count - Number of outages in period
MTTR - Mean time to recovery

Performance Metrics

Response Time - Average, min, max response times
Performance Trends - Response time over time
Slowest Checks - Identify performance issues
Geographic Performance - If checking from multiple regions

Check History

Recent Checks - Last 100 checks with timestamps
Failure Details - Why checks failed (timeout, status code, etc.)
Recovery Timeline - When services came back online
Status Change Log - All status transitions

Integration with Stacks

Monitors seamlessly integrate with Stacks:

Adding Monitors to Stacks

During Creation
After Creation

Select Stack(s) when creating the monitor:

Monitor: Production API
Stacks:
  - Production Infrastructure
  - Public Status Dashboard

Stack Status Impact

Monitors contribute to Stack overall status:

Operational Monitor → Stack can remain operational
Degraded Monitor → Stack becomes degraded
Critical Monitor → Stack becomes critical

Notifications

Monitors trigger notifications when status changes:

Notification Events

Event	Description	Recommended Action
Monitor Down	Failure threshold exceeded	Immediate investigation
Monitor Degraded	Some failures, not critical yet	Monitor closely
Monitor Recovered	Back to operational	No action needed
SSL Expiring	Certificate expiring soon	Renew certificate
Slow Response	Response time threshold exceeded	Investigate performance

Configuring Alerts

Create notification rules for monitors:

Notification Rule:
  Name: "Critical Monitor Alerts"
  Triggers:
    - Monitor becomes Critical
    - Monitor becomes Degraded
  Monitors:
    - Production API
    - Production Website
  Channels:
    - Slack: #alerts
    - PagerDuty: On-Call Team
    - Email: ops@company.com

Best Practices

Check Interval Selection

Critical Services - 30-60 seconds

Production APIs
Payment processing endpoints
User-facing websites

Standard Services - 5 minutes

Internal dashboards
Admin panels
Documentation sites

Less Critical - 15-30 minutes

Development environments
Staging sites
Internal tools

Failure Threshold Configuration

Recommended: 3 consecutive failures

Prevents false positives from network blips
Balances detection speed with accuracy
Typically detects real outages within 2-3 minutes

Adjust based on criticality:

Ultra-critical: 2 failures
Standard: 3 failures
Low priority: 5 failures

Timeout Settings

API Endpoints: 10 seconds

Most APIs respond in < 1 second
10 seconds catches legitimate slowdowns

Websites: 15-30 seconds

Page load can be slower
Includes rendering time

Microservices: 5 seconds

Should be fast
Detect performance issues quickly

Organizing Monitors

Group by environment:

Production Stack
  ├─ Production API Monitor
  ├─ Production Website Monitor
  └─ Production Database Monitor

Staging Stack
  ├─ Staging API Monitor
  └─ Staging Website Monitor

Group by service:

API Services Stack
  ├─ Auth API Monitor
  ├─ User API Monitor
  └─ Payment API Monitor

Common Use Cases

Scenario 1: Production API Monitoring

Monitor a production API with authentication:

Monitor Configuration:
  Name: Production API Health
  URL: https://api.yourservice.com/health
  Method: GET
  Headers:
    Authorization: Bearer your-api-key
  Expected Status: 200
  Expected Body Contains: "healthy"
  Check Interval: 60 seconds
  Failure Threshold: 3
  Timeout: 10 seconds
  Stacks:
    - Production Infrastructure
  Notifications:
    - Slack: #production-alerts
    - PagerDuty: On-Call

Scenario 2: Website Uptime Monitoring

Monitor a public website:

Monitor Configuration:
  Name: Company Website
  URL: https://www.yourcompany.com
  Method: GET
  Expected Status: 200
  Check Interval: 5 minutes
  Failure Threshold: 3
  Verify SSL: Yes
  SSL Alert Threshold: 30 days
  Stacks:
    - Public Services
  Notifications:
    - Email: ops@company.com

Scenario 3: Multi-Region Monitoring

Monitor from multiple regions (Enterprise feature):

Monitor Configuration:
  Name: Global API Endpoint
  URL: https://api.global-service.com/ping
  Regions:
    - US East
    - EU West
    - Asia Pacific
  Check Interval: 60 seconds
  Aggregate Results: Any region passing = Operational

Troubleshooting

Monitor Shows as Down but Site is Up

Possible Causes:

Firewall blocking StatusStack IPs - Whitelist our monitoring IPs
Rate limiting - Exclude monitoring user-agent from rate limits
Authentication required - Add proper headers/credentials
Redirects - Enable “Follow Redirects” option
SSL certificate issues - Check SSL validity

False Positive Alerts

Solutions:

Increase failure threshold - From 3 to 5 consecutive failures
Increase timeout - From 10s to 15s or 30s
Check network connectivity - Verify endpoint is publicly accessible
Review expected status codes - May need to accept 201, 204, etc.

Monitors Not Alerting

Check:

Notification rules configured - Ensure rules exist for monitors
Notification channels working - Test webhook/Slack/Discord integration
Alert level thresholds - Verify degraded vs critical thresholds
Maintenance mode - Ensure monitor isn’t in maintenance window

Monitor Limits by Plan

Plan	Max Monitors	Check Interval	Regions
Free	1	5 minutes	1 region
Pro	25	30 seconds	1 region
Enterprise	Unlimited	30 seconds	Multi-region

Next Steps

Create Your First Monitor

Step-by-step guide to creating monitors

Notification Setup

Configure alerts for monitor changes

Stacks

Learn how to organize monitors into Stacks

Dashboard Guide

Master the monitoring dashboard

​What are Monitors?

​Key Features

HTTP/HTTPS Health Checks

SSL Certificate Monitoring

Response Time Tracking

Uptime Percentage

​Monitor Types

​Website Monitors

​API Health Checks

​Custom Endpoints

​Creating a Monitor

​Monitor Configuration Options

​Basic Settings

​Check Configuration

​Advanced Options

​Monitor Status Levels

Operational

Degraded

Critical

Maintenance

​Status Calculation

​Monitor Analytics

​Uptime Metrics

​Performance Metrics

​Check History

​Integration with Stacks

​Adding Monitors to Stacks

​Stack Status Impact

​Notifications

​Notification Events

​Configuring Alerts

​Best Practices

​Common Use Cases

​Scenario 1: Production API Monitoring

​Scenario 2: Website Uptime Monitoring

​Scenario 3: Multi-Region Monitoring

​Troubleshooting

​Monitor Shows as Down but Site is Up

​False Positive Alerts

​Monitors Not Alerting

​Monitor Limits by Plan

​Next Steps

Create Your First Monitor

Notification Setup

Stacks

Dashboard Guide

What are Monitors?

Key Features

Monitor Types

Website Monitors

API Health Checks

Custom Endpoints

Creating a Monitor

Monitor Configuration Options

Basic Settings

Check Configuration

Advanced Options

Monitor Status Levels

Status Calculation

Monitor Analytics

Uptime Metrics

Performance Metrics

Check History

Integration with Stacks

Adding Monitors to Stacks

Stack Status Impact

Notifications

Notification Events

Configuring Alerts

Best Practices

Common Use Cases

Scenario 1: Production API Monitoring

Scenario 2: Website Uptime Monitoring

Scenario 3: Multi-Region Monitoring

Troubleshooting

Monitor Shows as Down but Site is Up

False Positive Alerts

Monitors Not Alerting

Monitor Limits by Plan

Next Steps