OpenStatus vs PHP Server Monitor

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureOpenStatusPHP Server Monitor
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score91 · Excellent19 · At risk
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0GPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptPHP
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentdockerdocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 9,143★ 2,188
First released20232010
ReplacesPingdom, ChecklyPingdom, UptimeRobot

What are OpenStatus and PHP Server Monitor?

OpenStatus

OpenStatus is an open-source synthetic monitoring and status page platform built in TypeScript. It runs latency checks against APIs and websites from multiple regions and publishes uptime and incidents to a public status page.

  • Synthetic latency monitoring
  • Public status pages
  • Multi-region checks
  • Incident tracking

Read the full OpenStatus guide →

PHP Server Monitor

PHP Server Monitor is a lightweight script that checks whether websites and servers are up and sends notifications by email, SMS, or messaging services when they go down. It runs on common LAMP hosting.

  • Website and port checks
  • Email and SMS alerts
  • Uptime history
  • Runs on shared hosting

Read the full PHP Server Monitor guide →

OpenStatus vs PHP Server Monitor: key differences

OpenStatus is written in TypeScript, while PHP Server Monitor is built with PHP. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for OpenStatus versus GPL-3.0 for PHP Server Monitor. PHP Server Monitor is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for OpenStatus. PHP Server Monitor is the more established project (first released 2010), while OpenStatus arrived in 2023. OpenStatus has the considerably larger community, at 9,143 GitHub stars versus 2,188.

Why pick each one

Choose OpenStatus if…

  • Modern developer-focused UX
  • Latency-aware monitoring

Watch out for

  • Self-host setup is involved
  • Younger project
OpenStatus details

Choose PHP Server Monitor if…

  • Very easy to deploy
  • Low resource use

Watch out for

  • Basic feature set
  • Limited graphing
PHP Server Monitor details

Frequently asked questions

Is OpenStatus or PHP Server Monitor better?

Neither is universally better. OpenStatus has the larger community, while PHP Server Monitor is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are OpenStatus and PHP Server Monitor free and open-source?

Yes. OpenStatus is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and PHP Server Monitor under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run OpenStatus and PHP Server Monitor with Docker?

OpenStatus: yes. PHP Server Monitor: yes.

Which is lighter on resources, OpenStatus or PHP Server Monitor?

PHP Server Monitor has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for OpenStatus. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.

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