Side by side

Distill Web Monitor vs Uptime Cairn

Both stand on website monitoring software. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

Distill Web Monitor

Free plan AndroidExtensioniPhone+4

Distill offers a broad set of monitor types, filtering controls, and notification routes. Check frequency and quotas vary by plan, and unused resources do not carry forward past the billing period.

Visit Distill Web Monitor

Uptime Cairn offers broad monitoring, alerting, reporting, and status-page features in a self-hosted package. Its lack of a hosted tier and the listed unshipped features matter if you need those capabilities.

Visit Uptime Cairn

The facts

	Distill Web Monitor	Uptime Cairn
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Not published	Not published
Runs on	Android, Extension, iPhone, Linux, Mac, Web, Windows	API, Linux, Self-hosted, Web
Lowest paid plan	Starter: $15 a month	Free or on request
Plans published	5	1
Maker	Not published	Not published
Website	distill.io	uptimecairn.dev
On website monitoring software	#2 of 55	#18 of 55

Distill Web Monitor: what it does well

Monitors webpages, PDFs, JSON, and other listed content.
Local checks can run every five seconds.
Offers email, SMS, app, and team notifications.
Supports visual selection and code-based refinements.

What to know first

Free cloud checks start at six-hour intervals.
Unused resources expire at the billing period’s end.
Cloud checks count in ten-second units.

Uptime Cairn: what it does well

Supports a wide range of network and service checks.
Status pages allow custom domains and branding.
Provides a REST API and scheduled reports.
No features are held back for a paid tier.

What to know first

There is no hosted tier.
Multi-region probing, SSO, and synthetic browser flows have not shipped.
The site recommends a reverse proxy before internet exposure.

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