Here are short details about monitor types:
HTTP (s): Perfect for website monitoring. This service regularly sends requests (which are the same as if a visitor is browsing your website) to the URL and decides if it is up or down depending on the HTTP statuses returned from the website (200- success, 404-not found, etc).
Ping: This feature is good for monitoring a server. Ping (ICMP) requests are sent, and up/down status is decided according to whether responses are received or not. Ping is not a good fit for monitoring websites, as a website (its IP) can respond to ping requests while it is down (which means that the site is down, but the server hosting the site is up).
Port: This is good for monitoring services like SMTP, DNS, POP, as all these services run from a specific port. It's used to periodically check if a specific port on your server is responding correctly. It's utilized mainly to monitor services such as HTTP/HTTPS (port 80/443), FTP (port 21), SMTP (port 25), etc. Our tool currently only supports checks for TCP services.
Keyword: Keyword monitoring checks if a keyword exists or not in a web page. Keyword Monitor searches for the keyword you entered, but that's not all, for there is a condition you must select as well:
Keyword Exists
Keyword Not Exists
Based on the condition, you select whether the Keyword Monitor will decide if the monitor will be down or up. If the condition you selected becomes true, the monitor will go down and notify you; if not, the monitor will keep showing up, and no alert notification is fired.
Cron-job (heartbeat): Heartbeat monitoring is good for servers/computers/devices that are inside an intranet (but connected to the Internet) and need to be monitored. The feature works in the opposite way compared to other monitoring types. UptimeRobot provides a unique URL for each heartbeat monitor created, and expects the monitored item to send regular requests to this URL. Once a regular request doesn’t arrive on time, the monitor is marked as down.
DNS monitoring: DNS Monitoring is a crucial tool that allows you to track specific DNS records (such as A, AAAA, CNAME, MX) for any domain, providing instant alerts on changes or removals. This feature helps prevent serious outages or security risks by notifying you of potential tampering or misconfiguration, especially for teams managing multiple domains or large infrastructures. It serves as an additional protective layer, catching DNS issues that traditional uptime monitoring might miss. Overall, DNS Monitoring ensures your domain configuration remains safe and intact, giving you peace of mind.