Self-Hosted Uptime Monitoring with Uptime Kuma on a VPS: Alerts, Status Pages, and SSL Checks

Uptime Kuma is an open-source, self-hosted monitoring tool for tracking website uptime, SSL certificate validity, DNS resolution, TCP ports, and API endpoints. UptimeRobot charges $7–$20/month for real-time monitoring. Uptime Kuma runs for free on your VPS, supports 50+ notification integrations, and lets you create beautiful public status pages — no subscription required.

What Uptime Kuma Monitors

• HTTP/HTTPS: Website availability and response time with keyword matching
• SSL certificates: Expiry warnings (notify at 30, 14, 7 days before expiry)
• TCP ports: Check if a port is open (databases, SSH, custom services)
• Ping (ICMP): Basic host reachability
• DNS: Verify DNS resolution returns expected records
• Docker containers: Check container running state
• Keyword matching: Fail if response doesn’t contain (or contains) a specific string
• JSON query: Check API response values

Step 1: Docker Installation

mkdir -p /opt/uptime-kuma && cd /opt/uptime-kuma
nano docker-compose.yml

version: '3.8'

services:
  uptime-kuma:
    image: louislam/uptime-kuma:latest
    container_name: uptime-kuma
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3001:3001"
    volumes:
      - uptime_kuma_data:/app/data
      # Mount Docker socket for container monitoring
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro

volumes:
  uptime_kuma_data:

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f uptime-kuma

Step 2: Nginx Reverse Proxy

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/uptime-kuma

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name status.yourdomain.com;
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name status.yourdomain.com;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/status.yourdomain.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/status.yourdomain.com/privkey.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3001;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/uptime-kuma /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d status.yourdomain.com

Step 3: Initial Setup

1. Visit https://status.yourdomain.com
2. Create your admin username and password
3. You’re in the dashboard — add your first monitor

Step 4: Add Monitors

HTTP/HTTPS Website Monitor

1. Add New Monitor → Monitor Type: HTTP(s)
2. Friendly Name: Main Website
3. URL: https://yourdomain.com
4. Heartbeat Interval: 60 seconds
5. Retry: 3 times (prevents false positives)
6. Enable: Certificate Expiry Notification (warns before SSL expires)
7. Expected Keywords: type a keyword that must appear in the response (e.g., company name)

TCP Port Monitor (Database, Redis)

1. Monitor Type: TCP Port
2. Host: localhost
3. Port: 5432 (PostgreSQL)
4. Interval: 60 seconds

Docker Container Monitor

1. Monitor Type: Docker Container
2. Container Name: myapp
3. Notifies if container stops or crashes

SSL Certificate Monitor

1. Monitor Type: HTTP(s) (SSL check is automatic for HTTPS monitors)
2. Set “Certificate Expiry Notification” to 30 days
3. Uptime Kuma checks certificate validity and warns before expiry

Step 5: Configure Notification Channels

Telegram

1. Settings → Notifications → Add Notification
2. Notification Type: Telegram
3. Bot Token: your Telegram bot token (from @BotFather)
4. Chat ID: your Telegram chat ID
5. Test and Save

Slack / Discord / Email

1. Settings → Notifications → Add Notification
2. Choose your provider from 50+ options
3. Enter webhook URL or credentials
4. Test the notification to confirm delivery

Assign Notifications to Monitors

1. Edit each monitor → Notifications → select which notification channels to use
2. Configure: “Down” alert, “Up” recovery alert, certificate expiry alert

Step 6: Create a Public Status Page

1. Status Page → New Status Page
2. Name: Service Status
3. Slug: status (URL becomes https://status.yourdomain.com/status/status)
4. Add monitors to display (choose which services to show publicly)
5. Customize: logo, title, description, incident messages
6. Share the URL with customers or embed it in your website footer

The public status page shows uptime history, incident timeline, and current status of all included monitors — without exposing your admin dashboard.

Step 7: Monitoring from Multiple Locations

Uptime Kuma monitors from your VPS location only by default. For checking from multiple global locations (detect regional outages), run an Uptime Kuma satellite on a second VPS:

# On a second VPS (different location)
docker run -d \
  -e UPTIME_KUMA_WS_ENDPOINT="wss://status.yourdomain.com" \
  -e UPTIME_KUMA_MONITOR_LIST="1,2,3" \   # Monitor IDs from main instance
  louislam/uptime-kuma-satellite

Uptime Kuma API for Automation

# REST API available at /metrics (Prometheus format)
curl https://status.yourdomain.com/metrics -u admin:password

# Get monitor status programmatically
curl "https://status.yourdomain.com/api/status-page/status" | jq '.publicGroupList[].monitorList[] | {name, status}'

Getting Started

Uptime Kuma uses 50–100 MB RAM and runs comfortably alongside other services on any Ubuntu VPS at VPS.DO. For maximum monitoring reliability, run Uptime Kuma on a separate VPS from the services it monitors — if your main VPS goes down, Uptime Kuma on a different server still detects the outage and sends alerts.

Conclusion

Uptime Kuma replaces UptimeRobot and Pingdom for teams that want full monitoring control, unlimited monitors, no per-monitor pricing, and a customizable public status page. HTTP, TCP, SSL, DNS, and Docker container monitoring cover the full scope of VPS service health. The 50+ notification integrations ensure the right people get alerted instantly when something goes down — not 5 minutes later when a customer reports it.