Best Status Page Tools in 2026
For a free public status page, Atlassian Statuspage, Instatus, Better Stack, StatusGator, and Visual Sentinel all have a free plan, and Instatus, Better Stack, and Visual Sentinel also include monitors in it. For a private status page, Visual Sentinel includes password protection on every plan, Instatus puts private pages on Business, Better Stack charges $50 per page per month, and Atlassian sells private pages from $79 a month.
A status page gives customers a place to check service health and incident updates without opening a support ticket. This guide compares six options by free access, private access, custom domains, subscriber communication, monitoring integration, and pricing, with each vendor's pricing page checked on September 28, 2026. Visual Sentinel is our bundled monitoring option; the other products have different status-page and operations models.
Six Status Page Options Compared
Visual Sentinel (bundled with monitoring)
Our bundled optionStatuspage by Atlassian
Instatus
Better Stack (Better Uptime)
StatusGator
Sorry™
Free Status Page Tools: What Each Free Plan Includes
Five of the six tools have a free plan with a public status page. The difference is what comes with it: some free plans include monitors, so the page can reflect real checks, and others are communication pages that you or another tool must update.
| Tool | Free plan | Status pages | Subscribers | Custom domain | Monitoring included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visual Sentinel | Free, no card | 1 | Email, confirmed by the subscriber | No (Business and Agency) | 3 monitors, 10-minute checks |
| Atlassian Statuspage | Free | Public page | 100 | No (from Hobby, $29/mo) | None |
| Instatus | Starter | Public page | 200 | No (from Pro) | 15 monitors, 2-minute checks |
| Better Stack | Free | 1 | Not stated for Free | Custom sub-domain listed | 10 monitors and heartbeats |
| StatusGator | Free | 1 | 100 | No (from Team, $149/mo) | 3 third-party services |
| Sorry | No free plan (7-day trial) | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
If you have no monitoring yet, a free plan with monitors attached (Visual Sentinel, Instatus, or Better Stack) saves wiring up a second tool. If you already monitor elsewhere and only need a place to post incidents, Statuspage Free has the most structure (25 components, 2 metrics, REST API access). StatusGator's free plan is built around watching the status of services you depend on. Limits were read from each vendor's pricing page on September 28, 2026.
Public vs Private Status Pages
A public status page is open to anyone with the link and is meant for customers. A private status page is for employees or specific clients and sits behind a password, an IP allowlist, or single sign-on. Free plans are almost always public only, so check how private access is priced before you choose:
- Visual Sentinel: Password protection on every plan, including Free. IP allowlisting on Business and Agency once a custom domain is verified.
- Atlassian Statuspage: Private pages are a separate product starting at $79/mo (5 team members, 50 authenticated subscribers). Audience-specific pages start at $300/mo.
- Instatus: Starter and Pro are public pages; Business includes all status page types, private included.
- Better Stack: Monthly add-ons: password protection $50 per page, IP allowlisting $250, single sign-on $250 (lower on annual billing).
- Sorry: A private status page with SSO is an add-on; its price is not listed on the pricing page.
How to Connect a Status Page to Your Monitoring
A status page is only as current as whatever updates it. There are three common setups:
- Monitoring and status page in one tool. Visual Sentinel, Better Stack, and Instatus include monitors in the same account as the page, so there is no integration to maintain.
- A dedicated status page fed by your monitor. Statuspage and Sorry host the page, and your monitoring tool updates it through their API or a supported integration. Sorry lists integrations for Pingdom, UptimeRobot, and New Relic.
- Manual updates. Someone on the team posts each incident by hand. This works when incidents are rare, but updates wait for whoever is awake.
Setting it up in Visual Sentinel
- Create the status page and choose which monitors it shows.
- The page reads the state of each linked monitor, so an outage appears on it without anyone posting it.
- Visitors subscribe with their email address, confirm through a verification link, and then receive incident updates.
- For an internal page, turn on password protection (every plan). On Business and Agency you can add a custom domain and an IP allowlist.
Whichever tool you choose, test the whole loop once: take a test monitor down, confirm the page changes, confirm a subscriber email arrives, then recover the monitor and check that the page clears.
Feature Matrix
| Feature | Visual Sentinel | Statuspage | Instatus | Better Stack | StatusGator | Sorry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free public status page | ||||||
| Private status page (password, IP, or SSO) | Password on every plan; IP allowlist Business+ | Separate product from $79/mo | Business | Password $50/page/mo add-on | Not on pricing page | Paid add-on (with SSO) |
| Custom domain (status.yourdomain.com) | Business + Agency | Hobby+ | Pro+ | Included subdomain | Team+ | |
| Monitoring bundled (no separate tool needed) | aggregates external | |||||
| Automatic incident posting from monitoring | via webhook | via webhook | via aggregation | via webhook | ||
| Embeddable status surface | Status embed | Floating widget, badge | Badges + system embed | Iframe, embed, modal | Status badge | |
| Multiple status pages per account | 1 Free/Solo/Starter, 5 Business, 50 Agency | Not on pricing page | Not on pricing page | $15/mo per extra page | 1 Free/Starter, 3 Team, 5 Corporate | Paid add-on |
| White-label or custom styling | Agency | Custom CSS from Startup | Not on pricing page | $250/page/mo add-on | Hide branding on Team+ | Not on pricing page |
| Public subscriber notifications (email) | 100 subscribers on Free |
Vendor facts were read from each vendor's pricing page and help pages on September 28, 2026. “Not on pricing page” means the vendor's pricing page does not list it; check with the vendor.
Get a status page bundled with monitoring at $0
Visual Sentinel Free includes 1 status page + 3 monitors at no cost forever. Custom-domain status pages on Business at $80/mo. 50 status pages with white-label on Agency at $300/mo for client work.