Create your first uptime monitor

Set up continuous HTTP monitoring for a URL in under two minutes.

An uptime monitor checks a URL at a regular interval and opens an incident when it stops responding correctly. You'll need a WatchCat account — the free plan supports up to 5 active monitors with 3-minute checks.

Step 1 — open the new monitor form

From the monitors list, click Create Monitor. This opens the uptime monitor creation form.

Step 2 — enter the URL

Enter the full URL including the protocol — for example https://example.com or https://api.example.com/health.

For most cases, monitoring a dedicated health endpoint (e.g. /health or /up) is more reliable than the homepage, because it can verify database connectivity and other dependencies — not just that the web server responds.

Tip: Avoid monitoring URLs that require authentication or redirect to a login page. WatchCat follows redirects but won't log in — you'll get false positives if the final response returns a non-2xx status.

Step 3 — choose a check interval

The check interval controls how often WatchCat sends an HTTP request to your URL.

1 minute Customer-facing services, payment APIs (Pro & Team plans)

3 minutes General use, internal tools (all plans including Free)

5–30 minutes Low-criticality endpoints, batch APIs

Step 4 — set the confirmation period

The confirmation period controls how long checks must fail continuously before an incident is opened. A short period means faster alerts; a longer period filters out transient blips that resolve on their own.

For most services, 5 minutes is a good default. For critical APIs where every minute of downtime matters, use 1–2 minutes.

Step 5 — assign a notification channel

Under Notifications, select one or more notification channels to alert when the monitor goes down or recovers. If you haven't set up a channel yet, you can create one from Notification channels in the sidebar — the simplest option is a channel that emails all team members. How notification channels work →

Save the monitor. WatchCat will run the first check within the next interval and begin tracking uptime from that point.

What happens next

The monitor appears on your dashboard with its current status
Each check result is recorded — you can see response times and status codes in the monitor detail view
If checks start failing, WatchCat waits for the configured threshold before opening an incident and sending alerts
When the service recovers, the incident is closed automatically and a recovery alert is sent

Start monitoring in minutes

Free plan available. No credit card required.

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