Comparison
Crontap vs Healthchecks.io
Healthchecks.io is the best-in-class absence detector: ping a URL on success, get paged when the ping stops. Crontap is a scheduler that fires your jobs and alerts when HTTP calls fail. They overlap on heartbeats but not on the clock.
At a glance
Healthchecks.io vs Crontap, side by side.
| Dimension | Healthchecks.io | Crontap |
|---|---|---|
| Fires HTTP cron jobs | No | Yes |
| Dead-man / heartbeat monitoring | Yes (core product) | Yes; pair with Healthchecks for absence |
| Open source self-host option | Yes | No (hosted SaaS) |
| Cron expression on check | Yes (monitor side) | Yes (scheduler side) |
| Free tier | 20 checks | 1 schedule on free tier |
| Paid entry (as of 2026) | Tiered per check count | $3.25/mo annual flat on Pro |
How they work
The two approaches in one paragraph each.
Healthchecks.io
Healthchecks.io gives each job a ping URL. Your scheduler runs the job; on success you curl the ping URL. Healthchecks tracks grace windows and pages you when pings are late or missing. It does not call your application endpoints on a schedule.
Crontap
Crontap calls your endpoints on cron cadence, retries 5xx responses, and routes failure alerts. For absence detection when Crontap itself did not fire, teams pair with Healthchecks using the documented two-schedule pattern.
Where each side wins
Honest broker, both columns.
Healthchecks.io wins on
- Best-in-class dead-man semantics and grace window UX.
- Open-source edition you can self-host.
- Large integration list for paging (PagerDuty, OpsGenie, etc.).
- Community trust as the heartbeat category leader.
Crontap wins on
- Scheduler included: Healthchecks listens; Crontap fires.
- Flat $3.25/mo annual for unlimited HTTP schedules on Pro.
- Automatic retries and per-run HTTP logs.
- Uptime monitoring in the same dashboard as cron.
- Simpler onboarding when the job is 'hit this URL every N minutes'.
The math
Cadence and pricing, worked out.
- Healthchecks.io free tier covers 20 checks; paid tiers scale per check. Crontap Pro is $3.25/mo annual flat for unlimited schedules that fire HTTP jobs.
- Pairing both is common: Crontap for the clock and retries, Healthchecks for absence detection. Total cost is two small SaaS lines, not one enterprise monitor bill.
Moving from Healthchecks.io
The migration, in 4 steps.
- Keep Healthchecks checks that only monitor external schedulers you are not moving yet.
- Move HTTP firing to Crontap schedules with matching cron and timezone.
- Leave the success-path ping to Healthchecks for absence detection during transition.
- Optionally drop Healthchecks once Crontap heartbeat coverage is enough for your risk tolerance.
Decision
Which one fits.
Pick Healthchecks.io if
You only need dead-man pings and already have system cron or platform schedulers you will not change.
Pick Crontap if
You want one dashboard to fire HTTP jobs and alert on failures without maintaining crontab.
Pair both if
Crontap fires and retries; Healthchecks catches 'the run never happened'. See the pairing blog post.
FAQ
Crontap vs Healthchecks.io, in detail.
- Should I replace Healthchecks with Crontap?
- Only if you accept Crontap-only absence detection. Many teams keep Healthchecks for dead-man and use Crontap for the clock. We document that pattern explicitly.
- Where is the pairing guide?
- See Pair Crontap with Healthchecks.io for end-to-end monitoring on the Crontap blog.
Sources
Ready to fix it?
Point Crontap at any URL. Pick any cron. Done.
WordPress, Shopify, Railway, Cloud Run, Vercel, HubSpot, Ghost, your own box. If it answers HTTP, Crontap can drive it on a clock you can read, in the timezone that actually matters, and page you when something breaks.
Free forever tier ・ No credit card required
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