One of the first pieces of advice we give clients are to host their sites on WP Engine if they want to have nearly zero down time.
But if you don’t have the budget to be on WP Engine, you’ll need to make sure you’re running an external site monitor to keep checking your site and alert you via email or SMS text when it does go down. We recently looked at two of them closely and have a third one we’re going to signup for soon. Here’s a recap so far.
Montastic
Pros: Easy and simple to use. Free up to three sites scanned at 30 minutes. Free plan can also check for keywords to make sure the page is (mostly) loading. $5 gets you 15 sites to monitor. RSS feed available.
Cons: Interface from the late 90s. No SMS options.
Monitor.us
Pros: Free service level for 5+ sites. Sophisticated modern dashboard. Flexible rules for notifications to team members.
Our suggestion is use at least two different site monitoring systems to make sure you have good “coverage” from multiple access points around the world to help make sure you know if your site(s) is down.
Cons: Free only covers 2 locations (Germany and US) and 30 minute intervals. UI might be too busy.
SiteUptime
We haven’t tried this one yet but it looks good and includes up to 10 SMS/calls for a reasonable $5/month along with DNS monitoring.