Choosing a monitoring tool usually comes down to a trade-off between simplicity and depth. Sentinel vs Better Stack is a comparison that captures this well: Sentinel is a lean uptime, SSL, DNS, domain and heartbeat monitor with a genuinely free tier, while Better Stack is a broader observability platform that layers uptime monitoring on top of incident management, on-call scheduling, status pages and log/trace telemetry. Both offer free plans, but they are built for different jobs. This article compares the two on features, free-plan limits and pricing, using official data from both vendors, so you can work out which one fits your setup.
Sentinel vs Better Stack at a Glance
| Category | Sentinel (Free) | Better Stack (Free) |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, £0/month | Yes, $0/month |
| Uptime monitoring | Included | Included |
| SSL monitoring | Included | Included |
| DNS monitoring | Included | Included |
| Domain expiry monitoring | Included | Included |
| Heartbeat monitoring | Included | Included (10 heartbeats) |
| Minimum polling interval | 5 minutes | 30 seconds |
| Historical data retention | 7 days | Not publicly confirmed for uptime checks specifically |
| Incident management | No (included on all paid plans) | Included (basic single-channel integration, on-call scheduling for responders) |
| Maintenance windows | No (included on all paid plans) | Not publicly confirmed on free tier |
| Status pages | No (included on all paid plans) | 1 status page included |
| Teams | 1 login user, 1 notification user | Unlimited viewers; paid “Responder” seat required for on-call/incident response |
| Best suited to | Solo developers and small sites needing straightforward, no-cost monitoring | Teams that need incident response, on-call and status pages alongside monitoring |
What Is Sentinel?
Sentinel is a website and infrastructure monitoring product from Elbah Group focused on the core checks most sites need: uptime, SSL certificate validity, DNS resolution, domain expiry and heartbeat (cron/job) monitoring. It’s built around a straightforward free tier that covers the essentials without requiring a credit card, aimed at developers, freelancers and small businesses who want reliable alerting without an unnecessarily complex setup. Sentinel deliberately keeps its free plan simple — three monitors, a single login and a single notification recipient — rather than gating core monitoring types behind paid tiers. Incident management, maintenance windows and public status pages are included on every one of Sentinel’s paid plans (Individual, Team and Agency); only the free plan goes without them.
What Is Better Stack?
Better Stack is an observability and incident response platform that combines uptime monitoring with log management, distributed tracing, metrics, on-call scheduling and status pages under one roof. Its uptime product checks websites and APIs as frequently as every 30 seconds and supports SSL, DNS and domain expiry monitoring alongside heartbeat checks for scheduled jobs. Where Better Stack differentiates itself is in what happens after something breaks: incidents can be created automatically from alerts, escalated through on-call schedules, and communicated to users via a public status page — all within the same platform. This makes it a fit for teams that want monitoring and incident response unified, rather than stitched together from separate tools.
Sentinel Free vs Better Stack Free
| Feature | Sentinel Free | Better Stack Free |
|---|---|---|
| Price | £0/month | $0/month |
| Monitors | 3 | 10 (monitors and heartbeats combined) |
| Login users | 1 | Unlimited viewers (responder seats are paid) |
| Notification users | 1 | Slack and email alerts included; recipient limits not publicly confirmed |
| Minimum polling interval | 5 minutes | 30 seconds |
| Historical data retention | 7 days | Not publicly confirmed for uptime data |
| SSL monitoring | Included | Included |
| DNS monitoring | Included | Included |
| Domain expiry monitoring | Included | Included |
| Heartbeat monitoring | Included | Included (shares the 10-monitor allowance) |
| Incident management | No (included on all paid plans) | Basic incident management included |
| Maintenance windows | No (included on all paid plans) | Not publicly confirmed on free tier |
| Status pages | No (included on all paid plans) | 1 status page included |
On raw monitor count and check frequency, Better Stack’s free plan is more generous — 10 monitors versus 3, and 30-second checks versus 5-minute checks. Sentinel’s free plan is narrower but has no functional gaps in the monitor types it supports; every monitor type in the product (uptime, SSL, DNS, domain expiry, heartbeat) is available from the free tier, whereas incident management, maintenance windows and status pages sit outside the free plan specifically — all three are included from the Individual plan upward. If you want to try Sentinel’s free plan and see how it fits your stack, try Sentinel free — no card required.
Uptime Monitoring
Both platforms cover standard HTTP(S)/ping-style uptime checks with multi-region checking and alerting on downtime. Sentinel’s free plan polls at a minimum of every 5 minutes, which is adequate for most small sites but will miss very short outages. Better Stack’s free plan checks as often as every 30 seconds, giving it a real edge in detecting brief blips — this is one of the more significant practical differences between the two free tiers for anyone monitoring latency-sensitive or high-traffic services.
SSL Monitoring
Sentinel includes SSL certificate monitoring on its free plan, alerting on expiry and validity issues. Better Stack also monitors SSL certificate expiration as part of its uptime product. Functionally the two are comparable here; the difference is less about capability and more about how many monitors each plan lets you dedicate to SSL checks (3 vs 10 total, shared across all monitor types).
DNS Monitoring
Both Sentinel and Better Stack support DNS monitoring on their free tiers. Sentinel treats DNS monitoring as one of its core, always-included monitor types. Better Stack references DNS monitoring as part of its uptime checks, though its own documentation gives fewer specifics on DNS-specific configuration than on HTTP/SSL checks — evaluate this one directly against your DNS setup if it’s a priority.
Domain Expiry Monitoring
Domain expiry monitoring is included free on both platforms, alerting before a domain lapses. This is a lower-differentiation area: neither vendor gates it behind a paid tier, so it comes down to the same monitor-count constraints described above.
Heartbeat Monitoring
Sentinel supports heartbeat monitoring for cron jobs and scheduled tasks on its free plan, within the 3-monitor limit. Better Stack includes 10 heartbeats on its free plan, but heartbeats share the same 10-monitor allowance as uptime checks — so a team using several uptime monitors and several heartbeats will hit that combined ceiling faster than the headline “10” figure suggests.
Alerts and Integrations
Better Stack’s product supports a broad range of integrations across its platform (Slack, email, and — on paid incident management tiers — richer on-call and escalation workflows). Its free plan explicitly includes Slack and email alerts. Sentinel’s free plan is limited to 1 notification contact with no confirmed channel beyond core alerting; paid tiers add real breadth here — the Individual plan (£12/month) raises the email limit to 500/month and adds Discord, the Team plan (£30/month) adds Microsoft Teams and Slack on top of a 5,000/month email limit, and the Agency plan (£65/month) adds SMS and call-based alerts (250 credits each) alongside a 25,000/month email limit. The distinction worth noting: a feature being supported by a product generally is not the same as it being available on that product’s free tier — this applies to both vendors, but is more pronounced on Better Stack, where several alerting capabilities (channel workflows, richer escalations) sit behind paid responder seats.
Incident Management and Maintenance Windows
Sentinel’s free plan does not include incident management or maintenance windows — these are disabled outright, not limited. Better Stack’s free plan includes basic incident management (single-channel integration, with on-call scheduling available for paid responder seats), which is a genuine advantage for any team that wants alerts to become tracked, escalated incidents rather than one-off notifications on the free tier. Maintenance windows are not clearly documented as a free-tier feature on Better Stack either, so that specific point is not publicly confirmed. Incident management and maintenance windows are confirmed as included on every Sentinel paid plan — Individual (£12/month), Team (£30/month) and Agency (£65/month) — so this gap only applies when comparing free plans; it is not a limitation of Sentinel as a whole.
Status Pages
Better Stack includes one status page on its free plan, with 1,000 subscribers, and is a recognised strength of the product — additional pages and white-label branding are available as paid add-ons. Sentinel’s free plan does not include status pages, but public status pages are included on all of Sentinel’s paid plans (Individual, Team and Agency) — this is now confirmed, not an open question. For a team on Sentinel’s free plan that needs to communicate uptime status publicly to customers, upgrading to a paid tier or using Better Stack’s free status page are the two options; for teams already planning to pay, Sentinel now includes this at every paid tier.
Teams and Agencies
Sentinel’s free plan is scoped to a single login user and a single notification recipient, which makes it a fit for solo developers or single-site owners rather than teams. Paid tiers change this materially: the Team plan (£30/month) supports 100 monitors across 10 login users and 20 notification contacts, and the Agency plan (£65/month) scales to 250 monitors, 25 login users and 50 notification contacts — both aimed squarely at teams and agencies managing monitoring across multiple clients or services, with the Agency plan also dropping the minimum polling interval to 30 seconds. Better Stack’s free plan allows unlimited team members as viewers, with paid “Responder” seats required only for people who need to be part of on-call/incident workflows — a structure that scales more naturally for agencies or teams managing monitoring across multiple clients or services, provided the incident-response features are actually needed.
Sentinel vs Better Stack Pricing
For a solo developer or early-stage project needing basic uptime, SSL, DNS and domain monitoring with no incident tooling, Sentinel’s free plan (£0/month, 3 monitors) is a workable starting point at zero cost. Better Stack’s free plan ($0/month, 10 monitors, 30-second checks, 1 status page, basic incident management) is more capable out of the box, at the cost of being part of a larger, more complex platform.
On paid tiers, Better Stack’s pricing is publicly documented: additional uptime monitors cost $25/month for 50 more (or $21/month billed annually), additional heartbeats are $20/month for 10 more, a Responder seat (required for on-call/incident response) is $34/month or $29/month billed annually, and additional status pages cost $15/month ($12/year). Sentinel’s paid tiers are also published: Individual is £12/month (7-day free trial, 20 monitors, 1 login user, 2 notification contacts, 60-second minimum polling, Domain and SSL monitoring without detailed history, email alerts up to 500/month plus Discord, 30-day historical data retention); Team is £30/month (100 monitors, 10 login users, 20 notification contacts, 60-second minimum polling, adds DNS monitoring and full Domain/SSL history, email up to 5,000/month plus Discord, Microsoft Teams and Slack, 90-day historical data retention); and Agency is £65/month (250 monitors, 25 login users, 50 notification contacts, 30-second minimum polling, the same DNS/Domain/SSL monitoring as Team, email up to 25,000/month plus Discord, Teams, Slack, 250 credits each of SMS and call-based alerts, and 365-day historical data retention). Incident management, maintenance windows and public status pages are included on all three of these paid plans — this is confirmed, not an inference. Annual pricing/discounts on paid plans are not publicly confirmed at the time of writing — worth checking directly before committing to a plan for cost comparison at scale.
Where Better Stack Is Better
Better Stack has a meaningfully faster minimum check interval on its free plan (30 seconds vs 5 minutes), a more generous free monitor allowance (10 vs 3), and includes incident management and a status page free — none of which Sentinel’s free plan offers. On a free-vs-free basis, this is a genuine, evidence-based advantage rather than a marginal one. Sentinel closes most of this gap on its paid plans, where incident management, maintenance windows and status pages are all included — but Better Stack’s versions of these features are the more mature, purpose-built implementation (native on-call escalation, larger subscriber-facing status pages, deeper integration workflows), built by a platform whose core focus is incident response rather than a monitoring tool that added the features. For teams that need on-call escalation, incident tracking and public status communication as part of their monitoring workflow — without wanting to pay for it — Better Stack’s free plan remains the stronger starting point.
Where Sentinel Is Better
Sentinel’s free plan makes every core monitor type — uptime, SSL, DNS, domain expiry and heartbeat — available without restriction, rather than spreading a shared allowance across monitors and heartbeats together. It’s a simpler product with less surface area to learn, which suits users who want monitoring and alerting without also adopting a broader observability/incident platform. For users who specifically want a lightweight, no-frills monitor without incident management, on-call scheduling or telemetry features they won’t use, Sentinel avoids the complexity Better Stack’s larger platform inherently carries — and for those who do want incident management, maintenance windows and status pages, Sentinel now includes all three on every paid plan rather than only on its most expensive tier.
Who Should Choose Sentinel?
- You want uptime, SSL, DNS, domain expiry and heartbeat monitoring in one simple tool
- You’re a solo developer, freelancer or small site owner who doesn’t need incident management or status pages right now
- You’d rather have a lightweight product than a full observability platform
- You don’t need more than 3 monitors or multiple team members right now
- You want to start monitoring at zero cost with minimal setup, with the option to add incident management, maintenance windows and status pages on any paid plan later
Who Should Choose Better Stack?
- You need incident management, on-call escalation or a public status page for free, without paying
- You want faster check intervals (down to 30 seconds) on the free plan
- You’re monitoring more than 3 endpoints and want that covered free
- Your team is larger and needs multiple viewers, with paid responder seats only for those who need on-call duties
- You anticipate needing log management, tracing or metrics alongside uptime monitoring in future
Sentinel vs Better Stack: Which Should You Choose?
Neither product is a strict upgrade over the other — they’re built for different scopes. Choose Better Stack when incident management, on-call scheduling, status pages or faster check intervals matter most on a free plan, and you’re comfortable with a larger platform. Choose Sentinel when you want straightforward, no-cost coverage of uptime, SSL, DNS, domain expiry and heartbeat monitoring without adopting incident tooling or telemetry features you won’t use — and note that if you later need incident management, maintenance windows or status pages, every Sentinel paid plan includes them. If you’re weighing the two for a small site or personal project, try Sentinel free and see whether its simpler feature set covers what you need before paying for a larger platform.
Related Comparisons
For a broader look at how Sentinel compares across the market, see our guide to the Best Uptime Monitoring Tools & Sentinel Alternatives.
- Sentinel vs UptimeRobot — worth checking if you’re weighing Sentinel against one of the longest-running names in free uptime monitoring.
- Sentinel vs StatusCake — useful if status pages and broader monitor types are on your checklist alongside uptime checks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Sentinel free?
Yes. Sentinel’s free plan is £0/month and includes uptime, SSL, DNS, domain expiry and heartbeat monitoring for up to 3 monitors, with a 5-minute minimum polling interval and 7-day historical data retention.
Is Sentinel a good alternative to Better Stack?
It depends on what you need. Sentinel is a good alternative if you want a simpler, no-cost monitoring tool, though its free plan doesn’t include incident management or status pages. If you need incident response, on-call scheduling or status pages for free, Better Stack’s free plan covers those and Sentinel’s free plan does not — but Sentinel’s Individual, Team and Agency paid plans all include incident management, maintenance windows and status pages.
Which has the better free plan?
It’s feature-dependent rather than a clear win for either side. Better Stack’s free plan offers more monitors, faster checks, incident management and a status page. Sentinel’s free plan offers unrestricted access to all its core monitor types (uptime, SSL, DNS, domain expiry, heartbeat) without the shared-allowance structure Better Stack uses for monitors and heartbeats.
Does Sentinel monitor SSL certificates?
Yes, SSL monitoring is included in Sentinel’s free plan at no extra cost.
Does Sentinel support heartbeat monitoring?
Yes, heartbeat monitoring for cron jobs and scheduled tasks is included in Sentinel’s free plan.
Does Sentinel offer status pages or incident management?
Not on the free plan — both incident management and status pages are disabled for Sentinel Free. They are, however, included on all of Sentinel’s paid plans (Individual, Team and Agency). Better Stack’s free plan includes basic incident management and one status page.
How many monitors does each free plan include?
Sentinel Free includes 3 monitors. Better Stack Free includes 10 monitors and heartbeats combined.
What’s the minimum check interval on each free plan?
Sentinel Free checks every 5 minutes at minimum. Better Stack Free supports checks as frequent as every 30 seconds.
How long does Sentinel retain historical monitoring data on paid plans?
Sentinel’s Individual plan retains 30 days of historical data, the Team plan retains 90 days, and the Agency plan retains 365 days — up from 7 days on the free plan.