Yes: Business and up
Signed SLA statements
Each period's attainment, signed and checkable by anyone without an account.
CompareInstatus
Observer vs Instatus
Instatus is a fast, well-designed status page with built-in uptime monitors. Observer starts with the metric, so the page reflects a measured threshold instead of a manual post or a URL check.Checked against Instatus's own public pages.
Observer ahead on
8of 9
- Signed SLA statementsNo:
- Per-customer statusPartly:
- AI updates from evidenceNo:
- Incident evidence exportNo:
- What drives statusPartly:
- Built-in monitoringPartly:
- Signal source & data localityPartly:
- Pricing modelYes:
- Open source & engineer surfaceNo:
Instatus's answers from its own public pages, checked .
Verdict
The short answer.
Instatus is built for
A clean status page that is live in minutes. Updates start with a person, an uptime monitor or an alert from a connected tool.
Observer instead
Starts from the metric, so the page reflects a measured threshold instead of a manual toggle or a URL check.
Pick
Choose Instatus for the simplest, fastest page with uptime monitors included. Choose Observer when you want the page to reflect a measured threshold on your own metrics.
At a glance
The record first, then the mechanics.
What your customers can check comes first. How the page runs follows.
The record
Signed SLA statements
- Observer
- Yes: Pro plan
- Instatus
- No: not listed
Per-customer status
- Observer
- Yes: from Pro
- Instatus
- Partly: select audience
AI updates from evidence
- Observer
- Yes: drafts, you publish
- Instatus
- No: not listed
Incident evidence export
- Observer
- Yes: signed JSON + PDF
- Instatus
- No: not listed
The mechanics
What drives status
- Observer
- Yes: metric + threshold
- Instatus
- Partly: manual + monitors
Built-in monitoring
- Observer
- Yes: telemetry + probes
- Instatus
- Partly: uptime monitors
Signal source & data locality
- Observer
- Yes: inside your network
- Instatus
- Partly: external checks
Pricing model
- Observer
- Yes: flat per tier
- Instatus
- Yes: flat tiers
Open source & engineer surface
- Observer
- Yes: agent, Apache 2.0
- Instatus
- No: closed source
Yes: does itPartly: partlyNo: does notMethod: each answer is graded against a status page with a record customers can check, using the vendor's own public pages. Checked .
Side by side
Line by line.
The same 9 dimensions on every comparison, each with the question it answers.
Dimension
Observer
Instatus
The record
Signed SLA statements
Can a customer check the SLA figure without taking your word for it?
Yes: Pro plan
Each period's attainment, with the working shown, hashed and signed. Your customer checks it at /reliability/verify without an account.
not listed
Its pricing page lists a 99.99% uptime SLA for Instatus itself on Enterprise, not statements for your service.
Per-customer status
Can each customer see their own status?
Yes: from Pro
One probe can publish a different verdict per customer, with its own SLO target, subscribers and access.
select audience
Select-audience pages (Select Audience or Business plan) control which groups see which components.
AI updates from evidence
Who writes the customer update, and from what?
Yes: drafts, you publish
AI drafts the customer update from the incident's measured status changes and earlier updates. It leaves the cause to your team, and a person publishes.
not listed
AI-drafted incident updates are not listed on its pricing page.
Incident evidence export
Can one incident go in the file, with proof?
Yes: signed JSON + PDF
From Business, an incident exports with detection time, affected services, the measured impact window, the update timeline and notification receipts. It verifies on the same page as SLA statements.
not listed
An incident export is not listed on its pricing page.
The mechanics
What drives status
What flips a component from up to down?
metric + threshold
Reads the metric your engineers already watch, applies your threshold, and publishes the verdict.
manual + monitors
An operator posts, or a monitor opens and resolves incidents and updates the page.
Built-in monitoring
What does it check on its own?
Yes: telemetry + probes
Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, CloudWatch, Loki, Elasticsearch and SQL/NoSQL, plus HTTP, TCP, DNS, TLS, ICMP, gRPC and WebSocket probes.
Yes: uptime monitors
Website, API, ping, TCP, UDP, DNS and cron monitors. Every two minutes on the free plan, every 30 seconds on paid.
Signal source & data locality
Where does the signal come from, and where does it go?
inside your network
The agent runs next to your data and sends readings and verdicts outbound. Database and source credentials stay on the host.
external checks
Monitors run from the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. Alerting tools such as Prometheus Alertmanager can open incidents by webhook.
Pricing model
How does the bill grow?
flat per tier
Free, then $19, $79 or $199 a month, then Enterprise. No per-seat or per-subscriber fees.
flat tiers
Free, then flat tiers with set limits on monitors, team members and subscribers. No custom domain on free.
Open source & engineer surface
What can engineers read, script and extend?
Yes: agent, Apache 2.0
Open-source agent on every plan; public API, CLI, MCP server and AI-assistant skills from Starter.
No: closed source
API and integrations with chat and monitoring tools.
Beyond the page
What Observer adds after the incident.
The reporting customers, procurement and auditors ask for, built on the same measurements as the page.
Yes: Business and up
Reliability Center
Public commitments and attainment, and a private portal per customer.
Yes: Pro and up
Executive summary
Attainment, risk and MTTR across every service, for the board.
Yes: Starter and up
SLOs and error budgets
Budgets read from the same metrics, with burn alerts.
Yes: Starter and up
Customer updates from evidence
AI drafts the update from what was measured; a person publishes.
Yes: Pro and up
Status per customer
One probe, each customer judged against their own SLO.
Fair to say
When Instatus is the better pick.
Simplest setup
You want a polished page live in minutes and are happy to update it by hand.
Uptime checks are enough
Website, ping, TCP and DNS monitors cover everything you need to show.
Migration
Moving from Instatus.
Run the agent
One container next to the systems you already monitor. It dials out; nothing in your network accepts a connection from Observer.
Map what you watch
Each component you update by hand, or watch with an uptime monitor, becomes a metric with two thresholds.
Publish and route
Group metrics into services and publish the page. Send flips to Slack, PagerDuty, Teams or a webhook; recoveries always deliver.
Switch over
Keep Instatus live until the page matches what you would have posted. Then point your status domain at Observer (custom domains are on paid plans).
Questions
Asked before switching.
Is Observer an Instatus alternative?
Yes. Both publish clean status pages. Instatus starts from a manual update, an uptime monitor or a forwarded alert; Observer starts from the metric that defines your SLA.
Is Observer's pricing flat like Instatus?
Yes. Observer prices flat per tier with no per-seat or per-subscriber fees, the same predictable model Instatus is known for.
Does Instatus read internal metrics?
Not directly. Instatus runs external uptime monitors, and alerting tools such as Prometheus Alertmanager can open incidents through a webhook. Observer reads your internal telemetry itself, through an agent inside your network, and applies your threshold.
Sources
Where the facts come from.
Every statement about Instatus on this page was checked against these public pages, most recently on .
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