Frequently asked questions

What is StatusOwl?

A hosted status page that runs its own checks. You attach services to a page, StatusOwl checks them, and — if you turn it on — opens and resolves incidents on the page without anyone having to remember to.

Does the status page update itself?

Yes, if you enable it per page. Three consecutive failed checks on an attached monitor opens an incident; the first successful check resolves it with a recovery update. See Automatic incidents.

Will StatusOwl alert me when my site goes down?

No, not today. This is the most important thing to know before you sign up.

A failing HTTP, ping or TCP check opens an incident on your status page and notifies nobody. The six notification channels — Email, Slack, Discord, Teams, ntfy, webhooks — are all real and in production, but the only thing that currently dispatches to them is a Watch Owl host-metric alert rule from an agent on a server you own.

Uptime alerting is the top item on the roadmap. Until it ships, if you need paging, keep whatever tool already does it and use StatusOwl for the page.

Can visitors subscribe to my status page?

No. There is no subscribe form, no subscriber list, and no notification when you publish an incident. This is on the roadmap.

It is also why StatusOwl's pricing has no subscriber tier — the plan ladder is priced per status page.

Is there a free trial?

No. There is no trial mechanism at all. The Free plan is the way to try StatusOwl: one status page, on your own domain, with automatic SSL, 25 monitors and automatic incidents. It does not expire.

Do I need a paid plan for a custom domain?

No. Custom domains with automatic SSL are on every plan, including Free. Point a CNAME at status-pages.statusowl.app and the certificate issues itself. See Custom domains.

Can I check from multiple regions?

No. Every monitor on every plan checks from one region. Multi-region checking is built and deployed but capped at one region per monitor until there is enough node capacity to promise it. See Monitoring regions — it says the same thing at more length, and names alternatives.

Are SSL and domain checks a paid feature?

No. Both are on every plan. SSL certificate checks are capped at 25 per organization, flat across all plans; domain expiry checks are not capped. Note that crossing an expiry threshold updates the dashboard and does not send you a notification. See SSL & domain expiry.

What does "private page" mean?

The page returns a 404. There is no password prompt, no access code and no SSO gate. Read Private pages before relying on it for anything sensitive.

How is uptime history displayed?

Ninety daily bars per service — green at or above 99%, amber at or above 95%, red below, grey where there is no data — with a 30-day percentage and the latest response time. Hovering a bar gives the date, uptime, average response time and check count. See Uptime history.

How often does the public page refresh?

Every 30 seconds. Polling pauses while the browser tab is hidden and resumes on return. If a poll fails the page keeps the last known data rather than going blank, and shows how old it is.

How long is data kept?

By plan: 30 days on Free, 90 on Starter, 180 on Growth, 365 on Scale. Older check data is removed automatically. Status pages always render 90 days of bars, so on Free the older bars read as no data.

Can I edit an incident after posting it?

Only by adding another update. An incident's title, impact, start time and affected services are fixed at creation, and individual timeline updates cannot be edited or deleted. You can post a correction, or delete the whole incident. See Incidents.

Does a maintenance window pause my monitors?

No. A maintenance window is an announcement on the page. It does not pause checks, does not stop automatic incidents opening, and does not mute alert rules. Set maintenance mode on the individual monitor to stop it checking. See Scheduled maintenance.

Can I monitor my own servers?

Yes. Watch Owl runs on Linux, Windows and macOS and reports CPU, memory, disk, network, host metadata and OS patch state, with a server-side rule engine that does dispatch notifications. Dockman does the equivalent for Docker containers.

Is there an API?

A read-only one, on every plan. Two endpoints exist: list monitors and retrieve a monitor. There are no write endpoints, no incident or status-page endpoints, and no outbound webhooks for page state. Start at Authentication.

Can I import from Statuspage or Instatus?

Not yet. Migrating today means recreating your services and pages by hand. It is on the roadmap.

Can I customise the page with my own CSS?

Not yet. The renderer supports and sanitises custom CSS and header/footer HTML, but there is no editor in the dashboard to set them. You can upload a logo, choose light, dark or auto, and serve from your own domain. See Branding and themes.

Do you support SSO?

No. Sign-in is email and password with session cookies. SSO and SAML are on the roadmap and have never shipped.

Is my data isolated from other customers?

Every query is scoped to your organization and every read and write is checked against your membership and role first. That enforcement lives in application code, not in database row-level security. That is the accurate description — treat any claim of database-level isolation as wrong.

Can I cancel at any time?

Yes. Account → Billing → Manage subscription opens the Stripe customer portal, where you can change plans or cancel. Downgrading to Free keeps everything — monitors, pages, incidents, history — just constrained to Free's intervals and limits. See Billing.