Compare
Pulse vs. Dead Man's Snitch, Cronitor, and UptimeRobot.
Features, check cadence, alert channels, and true monthly cost — side by side.
| What's covered | Pulse $9 / mo | Dead Man's Snitch | Cronitor | UptimeRobot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cron heartbeats & SSL in one dashboard | Both included | Cron only | Add-on | Ping/SSL only |
| Cron & heartbeat job monitoring | Add-on | |||
| SSL expiry alerts | ||||
| Outbound ping (curl / wget / HTTP) | Limited | |||
| Public status pages | Included | No | Paid tier | Paid tier |
| Telegram push alerts | Paid tier | Paid tier | ||
| HMAC signed webhooks (Slack/Discord) | Paid tier | Limited | ||
| Free plan | 3 monitors | 1 monitor | 5 monitors | 50 pings |
| Paid plans from | $9/mo (25 monitors) | $29/mo (10 jobs) | $39/mo | $15/mo |
Cost Consolidation
Stop paying for two separate monitoring vendors.
Dead Man's Snitch for cron jobs ($29/mo) plus UptimeRobot for SSL expiry ($15/mo) is $44/mo. Pulse Pro gives you 25 monitors covering both with webhooks and status pages for just $9/mo.
Switching
Frequently asked questions
Why do developers switch from Dead Man's Snitch to Pulse?
Dead Man's Snitch only handles cron jobs and charges $29/month for 10 snitches with limited alerting. Pulse gives you 25 monitors for just $9/month, covering BOTH cron jobs and SSL certificates with webhooks and public status pages.
How does Pulse compare to Cronitor?
Cronitor is powerful but quickly becomes expensive ($39 to $99+/month) and complex with heavy SDK dependencies. Pulse provides lightweight, zero-dependency curl/HTTP ping URLs that work in any language and shell script.
How does Pulse compare to UptimeRobot?
UptimeRobot primarily handles inbound ping and HTTP requests. For scheduled background jobs behind private VPCs or firewalls, inbound pings don't work. Pulse provides outbound heartbeat endpoints along with TLS certificate monitoring.
How fast does it take to set up a monitor in Pulse?
Under 30 seconds. For cron heartbeats, generate a ping URL and add 'curl -fsS <url>' at the end of your script. For SSL, enter your domain and Pulse immediately inspects the TLS certificate.