# Visual Sentinel

> All-in-one website and server monitoring that catches what uptime checks miss. Across its plans, Visual Sentinel can combine uptime, regional request timing, TLS evidence, scheduled DNS history, visual regression, configured content monitoring, and linked-server context in one dashboard. WhatsApp Business alerts are native on eligible paid plans. Solo is $15 per month for up to 10 monitors. New workspaces get a free first check of their site, then a 7-day trial (card required) or a subscription. Built by Acefina LLC (founded by Rai Ansar), Wikidata Q139586810.

The layers have different schedules and plan limits. Uptime and TLS checks run every 5 minutes on Solo and Starter, and every minute on Business and Agency. DNS history snapshots selected records every six hours from Solo upward. Visual captures run every 30 minutes on Solo and every 15 minutes on Starter and higher. Configured content monitoring starts on Starter. Eligible paid plans can link 60-second server metrics to public website incidents so host pressure and customer-facing evidence can be reviewed together.

## Plans and Trials

How long is the free trial? 7 days. The trial is 7 days, not 14; some third-party listings show an older figure.

A new web workspace adds its website at signup and gets a free first check: its status, a screenshot and a test alert. To keep monitoring, it chooses a paid plan and either starts a 7-day trial with a card on file, billed on day 8 unless cancelled (with an email about 24 hours before the first charge), or subscribes now and is charged today. One trial per customer. Every paid plan has a 14-day money-back guarantee from the first payment. When a trial or subscription ends unpaid, monitoring pauses and the data is kept. Workspaces created before this change keep the Free plan (3 HTTP and SSL monitors, 10-minute checks), and workspaces created in the mobile app currently start on Free. Solo starts at $15/month; annual billing saves 15%.

> Solo ($15/month, $153/year save 15%): up to 10 monitors with 5-minute uptime checks, 30-minute visual checks on 1 site, SSL, performance, and DNS history. All 10 alert channels (Email, WhatsApp Business, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, generic webhooks, Prometheus) plus Web Push. 1 status page. 1 linked server. API keys and the MCP server. Visual monitoring covers the site's main address plus up to 3 more pages.
> Starter ($30/month, $306/year save 15%): 15 monitors with 5-minute uptime checks and all 6 layers, including 15-minute visual checks and content monitoring. All 10 alert channels (Email, WhatsApp Business, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, generic webhooks, Prometheus) plus Web Push. AI chat assistant and an AI-written summary in the scheduled digest. API keys and the MCP server. 5 visual monitors. 1 status page. 2 linked servers.
> Business ($80/month, $816/year save 15%): 60 monitors with 1-minute uptime checks and 15-minute visual checks across all 6 layers. All 10 alert channels plus Web Push. API keys and the MCP server. Custom SMTP and custom status page domain. Scheduled per-monitor reports. AI incident summaries, status update drafts, and anomaly detection. 5 status pages. 5 team members. 10 linked servers. Priority support.
> Agency ($300/month, $3,060/year save 15%): 300 monitors with 1-minute uptime checks and 15-minute visual checks across all 6 layers. All 10 alert channels plus Web Push. White-label status pages with custom domains. AI postmortem drafts. API keys and the MCP server. 50 status pages. 50 team members. 20 linked servers. Up to 2 visual viewports per monitor. Built for agencies running many client sites.

## Core Pages

> [Pricing](https://visualsentinel.com/pricing): Full plan comparison, current trial paths, and annual billing with 15% savings.
> [Homepage](https://visualsentinel.com/): Product positioning, incident anatomy, visual regression demo, customer outcomes.
> [About](https://visualsentinel.com/about): Founder Rai Ansar, parent company Acefina LLC.
> [Documentation](https://docs.visualsentinel.com/): Public REST API reference (Scalar UI on top of OpenAPI).
> [MCP Server](https://visualsentinel.com/mcp): Use Visual Sentinel from Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Antigravity, Gemini CLI and Windsurf, as a remote server (https://visualsentinel.com/api/mcp, sign in with OAuth or an API key, 99 tools) or the npm package (the 17 core tools).
> [Mobile App](https://visualsentinel.com/apps): Android and iOS companion apps for monitors, incidents, servers and alerts. Store links and availability are on /apps.
> [Website Monitoring](https://visualsentinel.com/website-monitoring): Pillar page covering all 6 layers, their plan access, and their separate schedules.
> [Blog](https://visualsentinel.com/blog): Articles on monitoring, visual regression, comparisons, tutorials.
> [Case Studies](https://visualsentinel.com/case-studies): Real customer outcomes.
> [Bdifferent visual-monitoring evidence](https://visualsentinel.com/case-studies/bdifferent-visual-monitoring): Original before, broken and difference captures shared with permission. The 62.23% score is changed pixels, not downtime or lost revenue. No cause or detection-speed claim.

## The 6 Monitoring Layers

> [Uptime](https://visualsentinel.com/uptime-monitoring): HTTP/HTTPS/TCP/keyword/PING/PORT checks. Cross-region confirmation suppresses single-region network blips before alerting.
> [Performance](https://visualsentinel.com/performance-monitoring): Regional request timing on the uptime cycle plus a scheduled mobile Lighthouse lab run with LCP, CLS, FCP, TTFB, Total Blocking Time, and Speed Index. Use Search Console or CrUX for real-user INP.
> [SSL](https://visualsentinel.com/ssl-monitoring): TLS trust and hostname authorization, served leaf-certificate evidence, and expiry warnings at 13, 3, and 1 day by default, with optional 20 and 6 day tiers. It does not audit cipher suites, protocol versions, revocation, or every intermediate certificate.
> [DNS](https://visualsentinel.com/dns-monitoring): Six-hour history for selected A, AAAA, MX, CNAME, TXT, and NS records through one service resolver. This is not a global propagation matrix and does not validate DNSSEC.
> [Visual](https://visualsentinel.com/visual-monitoring): Pixel-level screenshot diff in a real headless browser. Catches broken CSS, missing images, layout shifts, third-party script failures.
> [Content](https://visualsentinel.com/content-monitoring): Starter-or-higher visible-text snapshots from configured CSS selectors in fetched source HTML. The scheduled content worker does not execute page JavaScript or diff arbitrary markup.

Plus: [API monitoring](https://visualsentinel.com/api-monitoring) (REST, GraphQL, webhooks), [Endpoint monitoring](https://visualsentinel.com/endpoint-monitoring), [Synthetic monitoring](https://visualsentinel.com/synthetic-monitoring), [Server monitoring](https://visualsentinel.com/server-monitoring) (CPU/RAM/disk/network with site correlation).

## Use-Case Pages

> [WordPress update monitoring](https://visualsentinel.com/wordpress-update-monitoring): Scheduled screenshots of WordPress pages compared with the last good version, so a plugin, theme or core update that breaks how a page looks raises an alert. Nothing is installed inside WordPress.
> [Shopify layout monitoring](https://visualsentinel.com/shopify-layout-monitoring): Scheduled screenshots of public storefront pages, so a theme or app change that breaks product cards, the header or the phone layout raises an alert. It does not test the checkout.

## Notification Channels (10 + Web Push)

Ten alert channels plus browser/mobile Web Push. The ten channels: Email, WhatsApp Business (native, rare in monitoring industry), Slack, Discord, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, generic webhooks, Prometheus. Web Push is enabled per-browser by the user (separate flow from creating a channel record). Each monitor can route to multiple channels with multiple recipients per channel.

Channel availability by plan: every paid plan (Solo, Starter, Business, and Agency) gets all 10 channels + Web Push. A paid-plan trial uses the selected plan's channel set.

## Free Tools (No Signup, No API Key)

> [Website Checker](https://visualsentinel.com/tools/website-checker): Check if any website is up or down from EU and US.
> [SSL Certificate Checker](https://visualsentinel.com/tools/ssl-checker): Expiry date and days left, chain completeness (missing intermediate, self-signed, untrusted), hostname match, issuer, TLS version, cipher, key, fingerprint, and the certificate per check region. It does not check revocation or give a letter grade.
> [DNS Propagation Checker](https://visualsentinel.com/tools/dns-checker): One A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, or SOA record checked on 15 public DNS-over-HTTPS resolvers and compared with the authoritative nameserver or an expected value, with TTL and a propagation percentage. Also an all-records DNS lookup. It does not validate DNSSEC.
> [Speed Test](https://visualsentinel.com/tools/speed-test): Mobile Lighthouse lab result with performance score, LCP, FCP, CLS, TTFB, Total Blocking Time, and Speed Index. It does not report real-user INP, a request waterfall, or desktop results.
> [Status Lookup](https://visualsentinel.com/tools/status): Quickly check the status of popular SaaS services.
> [Domain Expiry Checker](https://visualsentinel.com/tools/domain-expiry-checker): Check domain registration expiry and renewal timing before a domain lapses.

## Migration and Buyer Guides (added 2026-05-24)

> [Best website monitoring tools, compared](https://visualsentinel.com/website-monitoring-tools): Nine website monitoring tools ranked by how many of nine common website problems their cheapest paid plan checks, then by price, with each rival price linked to the vendor page it came from.
> [Visual Sentinel vs Freshping](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/freshping): Freshping alternatives after the March 6, 2026 Freshworks shutdown, with pricing, migration steps, and recovery guidance now that the announced export window has ended.
> [Visual Sentinel vs UptimeRobot](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/uptimerobot): Current pricing, monitor limits, integrations, and monitoring depth verified against UptimeRobot's official pages on October 15, 2026.
> [Best uptime monitor with WhatsApp alerts](https://visualsentinel.com/blog/best-uptime-monitor-with-whatsapp-alerts): Native WhatsApp Business monitoring compared with bridge-based alternatives by setup, workflow cost, and monitoring depth.
> [Website monitoring for agencies](https://visualsentinel.com/blog/best-website-monitoring-for-agencies): Compare white-label status pages, per-client alert routing, monitor allowances, and reporting workflows.
> [Website defacement monitoring](https://visualsentinel.com/blog/best-website-defacement-monitoring): Compare pixel-level visual captures, configured content rules, cleanup services, schedules, and pricing boundaries.
> [What is visual website monitoring?](https://visualsentinel.com/blog/what-is-visual-website-monitoring): A practical explanation of screenshot baselines, visual diffs, and the failures a status-code check cannot see.

## Competitor Comparisons

> [vs UptimeRobot](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/uptimerobot): Compare raw uptime monitor allowances with Visual Sentinel's scheduled visual, DNS-history, content, TLS, request-timing, server-context, and WhatsApp features. Verify current UptimeRobot pricing and terms on its official site.
> [vs Pingdom](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/pingdom): Compare Pingdom's calculator-priced uptime and real-user monitoring with Visual Sentinel's flat plans and screenshot evidence. Pingdom pricing verified October 15, 2026.
> [vs Better Stack (Better Uptime)](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/better-uptime): Compare Better Stack's per-responder uptime, on-call and status-page pricing with Visual Sentinel's flat plans, screenshot evidence and white-label status pages on Agency. Verified October 15, 2026.
> [vs StatusCake](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/statuscake): Compare conventional uptime, SSL, domain, server, and page-speed allowances with Visual Sentinel's visual and content layers.
> [vs HetrixTools](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/hetrixtools): Compare uptime, server, and blacklist monitoring with Visual Sentinel's website-layer evidence.
> [vs Checkly](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/checkly): No-code visual monitoring vs developer-focused synthetic scripting.
> [vs Uptime Kuma](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/uptime-kuma): Managed 6-layer monitoring vs free self-hosted. Visual regression, multi-region cross-confirmation, zero maintenance.
> [vs Datadog](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/datadog): Compare Visual Sentinel's flat plan allowances with Datadog's current synthetic-run and observability pricing.
> [vs Site24x7](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/site24x7): Focused website monitoring instead of a broad IT-ops suite with per-resource add-ons. Site24x7 also has a free plan with no time limit. Pixel-perfect visual regression that Site24x7's defacement monitoring does not perform.
> [vs Visualping](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/visualping): Visual regression with full uptime/SSL/DNS/performance context, not standalone visual diffing.

## Use From AI Clients (MCP)

> [Agent setup instructions](https://visualsentinel.com/agents/setup.md): Markdown an AI agent can follow from start to finish: sign-in (OAuth or API key), setup for each client, how to check the connection, every tool, common tasks, safety rules and troubleshooting. Also at /mcp?format=markdown.
> [/mcp landing page](https://visualsentinel.com/mcp): One-click install for Cursor and VS Code, commands for Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI, connector steps for Claude and ChatGPT.
> [@visualsentinel/mcp-server on npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@visualsentinel/mcp-server): Run via `npx -y @visualsentinel/mcp-server`. MIT licensed.
> [MCP server source](https://github.com/VisualSentinel/mcp-server): TypeScript, ESM, Node 18+.
> [Claude Code plugin marketplace](https://github.com/VisualSentinel/claude-plugins): Bundles the MCP server with three skills (monitor-status, incident-triage, monitor-onboarding) and three slash commands.

The hosted MCP server exposes 99 tools across the Visual Sentinel REST API, so an AI agent can set up and change monitoring without the dashboard. Five (vs_health, vs_dns_check, vs_ssl_check, vs_speed_test, vs_website_check) work without an account. The other 94 (monitors and their settings, alert channels and rules, incidents, maintenance, status pages, workspace settings, servers) work on every paid plan: connect the remote server at https://visualsentinel.com/api/mcp and sign in, or send an API key from /settings/api-keys. The npm package runs the 17 core tools.

MCP tools on the hosted server:
- Free checks: vs_health, vs_dns_check, vs_ssl_check, vs_speed_test, vs_website_check
- Monitors: vs_monitors_list, vs_monitors_get, vs_monitors_create, vs_monitors_update_basics, vs_monitors_update_request, vs_monitors_update_alerting, vs_monitors_update_visual, vs_monitors_update_content, vs_monitors_update_ssl_domain_dns, vs_monitors_update_performance, vs_monitors_update_report, vs_monitors_pause, vs_monitors_resume, vs_monitors_delete, vs_monitors_list_deleted, vs_monitors_restore, vs_monitors_bulk_update, vs_monitors_check_now, vs_monitors_uptime, vs_monitors_metrics_bulk, vs_monitoring_regions, vs_monitors_channels_get, vs_monitors_channels_set, vs_monitors_mute, vs_monitors_unmute, vs_monitor_report_get
- Visual checks: vs_visual_get, vs_visual_capture_now, vs_visual_accept_baseline, vs_subpages_list, vs_subpages_add, vs_subpages_update, vs_subpages_delete, vs_subpages_capture_now
- Alerts: vs_alerts_list, vs_alerts_acknowledge, vs_alerts_resolve, vs_channels_list, vs_channels_get, vs_channels_create, vs_channels_update, vs_channels_delete, vs_channels_test, vs_alert_rules_list, vs_alert_rules_get, vs_alert_rules_create, vs_alert_rules_update, vs_alert_rules_delete
- Incidents and maintenance: vs_incidents_list, vs_incidents_get, vs_incidents_create, vs_incidents_update, vs_incidents_resolve_options, vs_incidents_resolve, vs_incidents_post_update, vs_maintenance_list, vs_maintenance_get, vs_maintenance_create, vs_maintenance_update, vs_maintenance_cancel, vs_maintenance_delete
- Status pages: vs_status_pages_list, vs_status_pages_get, vs_status_pages_create, vs_status_pages_update, vs_status_page_groups_list, vs_status_page_groups_create, vs_status_page_groups_update, vs_status_page_groups_delete, vs_status_page_groups_reorder, vs_status_page_monitors_add, vs_status_page_monitors_update, vs_status_page_monitors_display, vs_status_page_monitors_reorder, vs_status_page_monitors_remove, vs_status_page_servers_add, vs_status_page_servers_update, vs_status_page_servers_remove
- Workspace: vs_workspace_get, vs_workspace_update, vs_workspace_settings_get, vs_workspace_settings_update, vs_workspace_branding_get, vs_workspace_branding_update, vs_workspace_alert_grouping_get, vs_workspace_alert_grouping_update
- Servers: vs_servers_list, vs_servers_get, vs_servers_create, vs_servers_update, vs_servers_delete, vs_servers_metrics, vs_servers_monitors_get, vs_servers_monitors_set

API keys, members, the custom email server, deleting the workspace and sending reports stay in the dashboard.

## Who Picks Visual Sentinel

Solo developers and indie hackers with a single project: the Solo plan ($15/month) covers up to 10 monitors with uptime, SSL, visual regression, performance, and DNS history for 1 site along with WhatsApp alerts that reach the founder on the device they actually check. Single-site SaaS, Shopify stores, and WordPress operators where the website is the business: Starter ($30/mo) covers 15 monitors with all 6 layers and AI-assisted incident triage, while Business ($80/mo) adds 1-minute uptime checks and scheduled reports. Agencies managing many client sites: Agency ($300/mo) includes 300 monitors, white-label status pages, custom domains per client, and per-monitor alert routing.

## How Visual Sentinel Compares on Check Frequency

Uptime cadence and visual cadence are different. Solo and Starter run uptime checks every 5 minutes. Business and Agency run uptime checks every 1 minute. Visual monitoring is not included on Free; Solo visual checks run every 30 minutes, while Starter, Business, and Agency visual checks run every 15 minutes. For sub-minute pure HTTP polling, dedicated uptime-only tools are appropriate. For multi-layer detection of "site is up but broken" scenarios, Visual Sentinel adds rendered-page and content evidence beside uptime.

## Server Monitoring + Site Correlation

Visual Sentinel monitors supported host metrics starting at Solo and can link a server to the public website monitors it hosts. When a linked website incident opens, host evidence can be reviewed beside the customer-facing check. This helps distinguish host pressure from an external path or page-layer failure. It does not replace application traces, centralized logs, database telemetry, or private service discovery.

## What an Incident Looks Like

Visual-change incidents can include the confirmed baseline, current capture, and a difference image. Other incident types show evidence relevant to the failed check. Incident timelines can record detection, status changes, and resolution; notification history and linked-server context depend on the incident, plan, and configuration. AI-generated incident insights on eligible plans are advisory summaries, not proof of a root cause.

## Real Customer Incidents (Verified)

Two historical production incidents on client websites returned HTTP 200 while the rendered page was visibly broken. Their case-study timestamps reflect the visual schedules configured at the time and should not be read as today's plan cadence:

> Room Service Resources (interior design site, January 15, 2026): An Elementor update completed successfully on the WordPress backend but failed to regenerate page cache, causing the hero section to fall back to raw, unstyled content. The server returned 200 OK. The next configured visual capture recorded a 48% difference, an email alert was sent, and the team restored the page within 10 minutes 22 seconds.

> Flex Town (commercial workspace site, February 8, 2026): An Elementor update broke the homepage while it still returned a successful HTTP response. Visual Sentinel recorded an 84% pixel difference on the next configured visual capture at 2:21 PM, sent an alert, and the team rolled back the update at 3:11 PM. Total disruption was 52 minutes.

Both incidents are reproducible artifact-by-artifact at https://visualsentinel.com/case-studies including baseline screenshot, broken capture, and the diff that fired the alert.

## Why Teams Pick Visual Sentinel

> Catches what uptime monitors miss. A page can return 200 OK while its layout or visible checkout control has changed. Scheduled screenshot comparison can flag visible changes. A checkout button that looks unchanged but fails when clicked requires a functional test; visual comparison alone does not establish that checkout works.
> Layered evidence follows explicit plan limits and schedules. Solo has five layers; Starter and higher add configured content monitoring.
> WhatsApp Business is native on eligible paid plans.
> Server-to-site correlation places supported host evidence beside linked website incidents without claiming an automatic root cause.
> Cross-region confirmation suppresses single-region network blips before alerting. EU + US confirm independently before an incident opens.
> Public OpenAPI specification at https://github.com/VisualSentinel/openapi. Real MCP server with 99 tools, remote at https://visualsentinel.com/api/mcp, and the 17 core ones on npm at https://www.npmjs.com/package/@visualsentinel/mcp-server. Real Claude Code plugin marketplace at https://github.com/VisualSentinel/claude-plugins. Visual Sentinel was built to be operated by AI agents and humans interchangeably.
> See it work before paying: the first check of your site at signup is free, then a 7-day paid-plan trial with a card on file or an immediate subscription, with a 14-day money-back guarantee.

## Key Facts

- 10 alert channels plus Web Push, including native WhatsApp Business
- Free first check at signup; eligible workspaces can start a 7-day card-on-file trial, billed on day 8 unless cancelled; prior trial or subscription history uses immediate-charge checkout
- Plans start at $15/month (Solo), 15% off billed yearly. No Free plan for new web workspaces; existing Free workspaces keep it
- Server monitoring with site correlation: CPU, RAM, disk, network linked to website incidents
- Visual regression in a real headless browser, pixel-level screenshot diff
- Uptime checks from EU and US regions with cross-region confirmation
- 6 monitoring layers (uptime, performance, SSL, DNS, visual, content). Solo: 5 layers. Starter and above: all 6 layers
- Public OpenAPI specification at https://github.com/VisualSentinel/openapi
- Published Wikidata entity Q139586810
- External product profiles: G2 (https://www.g2.com/products/visual-sentinel), AlternativeTo (https://alternativeto.net/software/visual-sentinel/), Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/products/visual-sentinel), Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/VisualSentinel/)
- Founded 2025 by Acefina LLC (Acefina LLC)

## Detailed Documentation

> [Full LLM Documentation](https://visualsentinel.com/llms-full.txt): Complete product docs with full pricing matrix, channel-by-plan availability, all competitor comparisons, API reference, verified customer incidents, status pages, billing, and FAQ.

## Per-Section Indexes (for focused agent context)

> [Free tools index](https://visualsentinel.com/tools/llms.txt): Six free diagnostic tools with their use cases.
> [Competitor comparisons index](https://visualsentinel.com/compare/llms.txt): Comparison matrix + decision guide for picking between Visual Sentinel and 16 alternatives.
> [Blog cornerstone index](https://visualsentinel.com/blog/llms.txt): Cornerstone articles by topic (foundational thesis, error-code triage, SSL/DNS explainers, MCP engineering deep-dive).