Healthchecks.io Alternative

Your backup ran successfully.
It backed up nothing.

Healthchecks.io would mark that green. DeadManCheck would alert you. That's the difference.

Healthchecks asks the wrong question

Healthchecks.io monitors one thing: did your job ping in time? If it did, everything is marked green. That model works — until your job runs, exits 0, and produces nothing useful.

# This is "success" to Healthchecks.io

backup.sh → exit 0

ping sent → ✓ received

files backed up → 0 # silent failure

The source directory was empty. The auth token expired. The upstream API returned nothing. The job handled it gracefully — and your data pipeline silently stopped working.

DeadManCheck lets you define what success actually means: rows exported, files written, exit status. If those assertions fail — even on an otherwise clean run — you get alerted.

Three failure modes. Healthchecks catches one.

Failure 1

Job stops running

The classic dead man's switch. Expected ping never arrives.

Healthchecks.io✓ catches it

DeadManCheck✓ catches it

Failure 2

Job runs too long

2-minute backup is now taking 45 minutes. Something is wrong but the ping arrives.

Healthchecks.ioManual grace period only

DeadManCheck✓ automatic baseline

Failure 3

Job runs but does nothing

Exit 0. Ping sent. Zero rows exported. Your data pipeline is broken.

Healthchecks.io✗ can't detect this

DeadManCheck✓ output assertions

How DeadManCheck closes the gap

1

Output assertions

Send your job's output as JSON with the ping. Set rules like rows > 0 or status == "ok". Alert fires if any assertion fails — even if the job exited 0.

2

Automatic duration baseline

DeadManCheck learns your job's typical runtime. When it drifts significantly — stuck backup, slow query, degraded infrastructure — you get alerted without configuring any thresholds.

3

Same ping model — zero migration effort

DeadManCheck uses the same /start and /end ping model as Healthchecks.io. Replace the URL. Done.

Feature comparison

Feature	DeadManCheck	Healthchecks.io
Missing job detection	✓	✓
Output assertions unique	✓ Developer+	✗
Long-running job detection	✓ automatic	Manual grace period
Duration baseline learning	✓ automatic	✗
Cron expression schedules	✓	✓
Period-based schedules	✓	✓
Email alerts	✓	✓
Webhook alerts	✓	✓
Slack alerts	✓ (Developer+)	✓
PagerDuty integration	✓ (Team+)	✓
Recovery alerts	✓	✓
Grace period	✓	✓
Self-hosting	✓ open source	✓ open source
20+ notification channels	✗	✓
systemd OnCalendar syntax	✗	✓
Website uptime monitoring	✓	✗
Public status pages	✓ free	✗
Prometheus endpoint	✓	✓

Pricing

	DeadManCheck	Healthchecks.io
Free tier	5 monitors	20 monitors
Entry paid plan	$12/mo — 100 monitors	$20/mo — 100 monitors
Mid tier	$39/mo — 200 monitors	—
Includes output assertions	✓ Developer+	✗
Includes duration monitoring	✓ all plans	Manual grace period