CheckFast vs Cronitor
an honest comparison
Side-by-side
| Feature | CheckFast | Cronitor |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing entry tier (as of 2026) | $9/mo Starter | Free / $14+/mo Pro |
| Free tier limits | 3 free monitors + one-off tools | 5 monitors |
| Tools / dimensions covered | Cron, uptime, SSL, email, speed, DNS, broken links + 14 more | Cron, uptime, page speed |
| Cron heartbeat (start + complete) | ||
| Missed-ping detection | ||
| p95 / p99 duration regression alerts | ||
| Job dependency graph | ||
| Full stdout/stderr capture | Capped ping payload only | via CLI |
| HTTP/HTTPS uptime | ||
| SSL expiry alerts | ||
| Email deliverability scoring | ||
| DNS monitoring | ||
| Broken-link sweeps | ||
| Uptime monitor cadence | 1m–5m by plan | 1m+ |
| Telegram alerts | via webhook | |
| Slack alerts | Pro+ | |
| Email / webhook cron alerts | ||
| Public status page | Pro+ at /status/[handle] | |
| Public API | Pro $29/mo | all paid tiers |
| White-label / agency | Team+ |
Why teams switch
Core heartbeats, broader bundle
Start, success and failure pings plus missed-window alerts cover the heartbeat core. We add SSL, email deliverability, DNS and page speed alongside.
One bill instead of three
CheckFast Pro bundles cron, SSL and email-deliverability monitoring under one published $29/mo plan.
Flat pricing
$9 / $29 / $79 covers monitor counts most teams ever need. Cronitor scales with monitor count, which gets steep around 50-100 jobs.
Cronitor is a strong cron monitor
Cronitor has been quietly building a serious cron + uptime monitor for years. The product covers all the cron heartbeat fundamentals — start and complete pings, hung-job detection, p95 / p99 duration regression alerts — and goes a step further with full stdout/stderr capture via its CLI and a dependency graph that lets you alert when job B fails because job A never finished. For pipeline-heavy setups with chained scheduled work, that dependency model is genuinely useful and we do not replicate it.
CheckFast started in 2025 with a different framing. Instead of going deep on cron telemetry alone, we built a broad bundle of external-check tools — uptime, SSL, email deliverability, page speed, cron heartbeats, DNS, broken-link sweeps, SEO snapshots and more — under one flat subscription. The cron surface is intentionally compatible with the “ping a URL when the job finishes” model, including start + complete pings, explicit failures and missed-window alerts. What we trade is the dependency graph; what we get back is breadth.
Where Cronitor wins
The dependency graph. Modelling “alert me when job B fails because job A did not run” is a real workflow we do not handle today. The Cronitor CLI captures full job output, not just a tail — for batch jobs that emit large logs you genuinely care about retaining, that is a meaningful feature. The product is also more battle-tested in the cron-only category, with years of edge cases ironed out. If cron is your only monitoring concern and you have multi-stage pipelines, Cronitor is the right answer.
Where CheckFast wins
Breadth at a flat price. The cron heartbeat surface is comparable for the typical job (start ping, completion ping, explicit failures and missed-window alerts). On top of that, the Starter plan at $9/mo already includes SSL expiry monitoring, email deliverability scoring across SPF / DKIM / DMARC / BIMI / MTA-STS / TLS-RPT / DNSSEC, selected-strategy Lighthouse performance monitoring, DNS drift detection, and single-page broken-link checks. Telegram is native, not webhook-based. The single-page audit at /check folds nineteen dimensions into one shareable report. None of that is in Cronitor at any tier.
The honest recommendation
Run a side-by-side trial. Pick three of your most important cron jobs and point both Cronitor and CheckFast at them for two weeks. Add CheckFast checks for the things Cronitor does not cover (an SSL endpoint, your transactional-email domain, a status page URL). At the end of two weeks, your alert history will have made the call. If Cronitor's dependency graph or full output capture have surfaced something CheckFast missed, stay. Otherwise, the bundled tools at $9-29/mo make the consolidation decision easy.
Migrate from Cronitor in 4 steps
Copy-paste this. We don't make migration painful.
# 1. Sign up at checkfast.io and recreate your monitors # /cron -> "New monitor" for each Cronitor job # 2. Replace each complete Cronitor URL with the new URL generated # for the corresponding CheckFast job, then review the result OLD_URL='https://cronitor.link/p/<token>/<id>' NEW_URL='https://checkfast.io/api/ping/<new-uuid>' sudo crontab -l | sed "s|$OLD_URL|$NEW_URL|g" > /tmp/checkfast-crontab cat /tmp/checkfast-crontab sudo crontab /tmp/checkfast-crontab # 3. Verify sudo crontab -l | grep checkfast.io # 4. Trigger one ping to confirm curl -fsS https://checkfast.io/api/ping/<your-uuid>
FAQ
Why switch from Cronitor?+
Cronitor is a serious cron + uptime monitor with strong telemetry (start/complete pings, output capture, environment context). CheckFast records start, success and explicit-failure pings plus missed windows alongside a 44-tool site-health catalog. If your only need is rich cron telemetry, Cronitor's deep features still win.
Are the ping URLs compatible?+
Not byte-for-byte. Cronitor's ping URL is /p/<token>/<id>, while CheckFast generates a new /api/ping/<uuid> URL per job. Replace each complete URL explicitly; both endpoints accept GET and POST success pings.
Does CheckFast capture stdout/stderr like Cronitor?+
Cronitor captures full job output through its CLI. CheckFast accepts an optional capped POST body on ping intake, but does not provide Cronitor-style structured output capture or retention.
Pricing comparison?+
Cronitor Hobby is free (5 monitors), Pro starts at $14/mo (as of 2026), Team and higher tiers add SSO and longer retention. CheckFast Starter is $9/mo (15 monitors), Pro $29/mo (50 monitors), Agency $79/mo (200 monitors). Where Cronitor charges per monitor, we charge flat.
What about dependencies between jobs?+
Cronitor models job dependencies (alert when job B fails because job A didn't run). CheckFast does not currently model dependency graphs — each monitor is independent. If your pipeline relies on chained heartbeats, Cronitor handles it more naturally.
Can I run both?+
Yes. During migration, point both services at the same job, trigger representative pings and compare the recorded events and missed-window alerts before disabling either service. CheckFast supports Telegram on Starter and Slack on Pro or Agency.