Our take
Pick Better Stack if on-call teams who will stay on Free at $0 (10 monitors, 1 status page, 3 GB logs) while they open a first monitor, then buy a Responder seat at $29/month billed yearly ($34 monthly) when someone has to be paged. Pick Checkly if sRE / frontend teams who will stay on Hobby at $0 (10 uptime, 1k Playwright, 10k API, 6 locations) until they need Starter at $24/month or Team at $64/month for more
hosted uptime-plus-telemetry desk
Best for
Better Stack Monitors you start at $0
Checkly Playwright checks you start at $0
Free plan
Better Stack $0 · /month. 10 monitors & heartbeats. 1 status page. Slack & email alerts. 100,000 exceptions/month. 5,000 session replays. 3 GB logs and traces retained 3 days. 30 GB metrics. 3 GB web events / 3 days
Checkly $0 · /month. 10 uptime monitors, max frequency 2 min, 6 locations, 1,000 browser/Playwright runs, 10,000 API runs. Email, Slack, webhooks. No private locations
Lowest paid
Better Stack Uptime overage $25/mo
Checkly Starter $24/mo yearly
Next step up
Better Stack Telemetry Nano (Europe) $30/mo
Checkly
Runs where
Better Stack Hosted
Checkly Local or hosted
Watch out
Better Stack Free is 10 monitors and 3 GB / 3 days
Checkly Hobby is 1,000 Playwright runs and 10 uptime monitors
Last checked
Better Stack 2026-10-23 · betterstack.com/pricing
Checkly 2026-10-22 · checklyhq.com/pricing
on-call teams who will stay on Free at $0 (10 monitors, 1 status page, 3 GB logs) while they open a first monitor, then buy a Responder seat at $29/month billed yearly ($34 monthly) when someone has to be paged.
Read the Better Stack pagesRE / frontend teams who will stay on Hobby at $0 (10 uptime, 1k Playwright, 10k API, 6 locations) until they need Starter at $24/month or Team at $64/month for more runs, SMS alerts, or a private location.
Read the Checkly page