Dead Man's Snitch Alternative

Looking for a Dead Man's Snitch alternative?

Get 25 monitors free vs $5/mo for 1 snitch. CronAlert does heartbeat monitoring and HTTP uptime monitoring in one tool.

Feature comparison

Side-by-side breakdown of what you get

Feature Dead Man's Snitch CronAlert
Free tier No free tier 25 monitors free
Cheapest paid plan $5/mo (1 snitch) $5/mo (100 monitors)
20 monitors cost $39/mo $0 (free tier)
Heartbeat / cron monitoring Core feature Yes
HTTP uptime monitoring No Yes
Status pages No Included on all plans
Slack alerts Available Free
Discord alerts No Free
Webhook alerts Available Free
PagerDuty integration Available Pro+
SSL monitoring No Free
MCP server (AI-native) No Yes
API access Available Yes

Pricing comparison

CronAlert's free plan gives you more than DMS's $39/month plan

Plan Dead Man's Snitch CronAlert
Free No free tier 25 monitors, 3-min interval
1 monitor $5/mo $0 (free tier)
5 monitors $19/mo $0 (free tier)
20 monitors $39/mo $0 (free tier)
100 monitors $195/mo $5/mo

Why developers switch from Dead Man's Snitch

Massively better value

DMS charges $39/mo for 20 snitches. CronAlert gives you 25 monitors free, and 100 monitors for $5/month. You'll save hundreds per year.

More than just cron jobs

Dead Man's Snitch only does heartbeat monitoring. CronAlert monitors HTTP endpoints, SSL certificates, and cron jobs. One tool instead of two or three.

Status pages included

Dead Man's Snitch doesn't offer status pages at all. CronAlert includes them on every plan, even free, so your users always know when something's down.

AI-native with MCP

CronAlert includes an MCP server for AI-native workflows. Manage monitors, check status, and investigate incidents directly from Claude, Cursor, or any AI assistant.

Migrate from Dead Man's Snitch

Two ways to move your monitors to CronAlert

Import automatically
  1. Get your API key from Account in Dead Man's Snitch
  2. Export your snitches:
    curl -H "Authorization: Token TOKEN" https://deadmanssnitch.com/v1/snitches
  3. Go to CronAlert Import Tool
  4. Paste the JSON output and click Import

Snitches are imported as heartbeat monitors.

Migrate manually
  1. Log into Dead Man's Snitch, note each monitored URL
  2. Sign up for CronAlert — free, no credit card
  3. Click Add Monitor for each URL
  4. Configure alert channels (email, Slack, Discord, webhook)

Frequently asked questions

Does CronAlert support heartbeat monitoring like Dead Man's Snitch?

Yes. CronAlert provides unique heartbeat URLs that your cron jobs ping on each run. If a ping is missed within the expected window, CronAlert alerts you immediately via email, Slack, Discord, or any configured channel. Same concept, same reliability.

Can I import my Dead Man's Snitch monitors into CronAlert?

Yes. Export your snitches via the Dead Man's Snitch API, then paste the JSON into CronAlert's import tool. It will create heartbeat monitors for each snitch.

What does CronAlert offer over Dead Man's Snitch?

CronAlert does HTTP uptime monitoring and heartbeat monitoring in one tool, with 25 monitors free. Dead Man's Snitch only monitors cron jobs and charges $5/mo for a single snitch. CronAlert also includes SSL monitoring, status pages, and keyword checks.

Does CronAlert have smart alerting to avoid false positives?

Yes. CronAlert uses smart thresholds and multi-region verification to confirm failures before alerting. For 1-minute checks, it verifies from a second check before alerting. For multi-region monitors, failures must be confirmed from multiple locations.

Ready to switch from Dead Man's Snitch?

25 monitors free forever. No credit card required.

Start free — 25 monitors, no credit card