Bionic Uptime and MainWP Uptime Monitoring: what is actually different
MainWP is a free, self-hosted dashboard for looking after WordPress sites, with uptime monitoring built in. If you already run your sites through it, it is a sensible choice. This page says plainly where we differ, and where MainWP is the better choice.
| Feature | MainWP Uptime Monitoring | Bionic Uptime |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, built into the free MainWP Dashboard, for any number of sites | 3 websites, checked every 60 seconds, forever, no card. Portfolio: $12 a month, 20 websites |
| How often | Off until you turn it on. Then every 60 minutes unless you change it. As often as every 5 minutes | Every 60 seconds |
| Where the checks run | On your own MainWP Dashboard, a WordPress site you host, scheduled by its WP Cron or a server cron you set up | On our servers in Chicago and New Jersey, on two different companies' networks, apart from anything you host |
| Before an outage alert | A down confirmation check, on by default | Two locations plus a retry must agree within 45 seconds. Then the email goes at once, or after 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes if you prefer, on every plan, free included |
| Who is told | Email, to one or more addresses you list | You, plus up to 3 more people per website, such as the client or a colleague, each confirming by email, on every plan. Optionally one Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams or Google Chat channel for the whole account |
| Which sites | WordPress sites connected with the MainWP Child plugin | Any website, WordPress or not, checked from outside. Nothing to install on the site |
MainWP details as described in its Uptime Monitoring documentation, Dashboard settings, free features and pricing on 23 October 2026. Check there for today's.
Choose MainWP if
- you already use MainWP for updates, backups and reports, and want uptime in the same place,
- you want everything on a server you control,
- you look after more than 20 sites: MainWP has no site limit, and our largest plan is 20.
Choose Bionic Uptime if
- you want each site checked every minute, from two places on two different networks,
- you want the checks to keep running when your MainWP Dashboard site is down, or when it shares a server with the sites it watches and that server goes down,
- some of the sites are not WordPress,
- you want one plain email per real outage, saying what both locations saw (see the exact email), which you can forward to the client as it is.
You can run both. Our checks come from outside the site, so they do not conflict with MainWP, and our free WordPress plugin is optional.
See it before you sign up
Watch a real website being monitored right now, no sign-up. 3 websites are free, forever, with no card.