The short version
Choose Tenium if…
- You do not want to run and update one more server
- You need checks from several regions and confirmation before alerts
- You need team seats, client workspaces and PDF reports
Choose Uptime Kuma if…
- You want zero recurring software cost and already run a VPS
- You monitor internal services on a private network
- You like owning the data and the code
Switching cost
- Uptime Kuma can export a JSON backup; Tenium imports its monitors
- Your status page URLs change
- Notification setups are not imported: add your contacts again by hand
Price for the same job
About 50 monitors at one-minute checks, one admin. Tenium Starter is the closest hosted plan. Self-hosting is cheaper in cash; the question is what your hours are worth. List prices as published; we update when they change.
What the price gap comes to
Tenium Starter at $7 per month costs about 30% more than self-hosted Uptime Kuma (VPS about €5) at €5 (about $5) per month.
| Tenium Starter | self-hosted Uptime Kuma (VPS about €5) | |
|---|---|---|
| Per month | $7 | €5 (about $5) |
| Source of their number | The same numbers as our pricing page | Server cost only; software is free |
| Difference | Tenium about 30% more expensive | |
The self-hosted figure is the server only. It leaves out the hours you spend on updates, backups, TLS and on-call for the monitor itself, and it has one location, so a network problem at your host looks like an outage everywhere. Their prices are the euro prices they serve for EUR countries. We show them as published and compute every percentage on them converted at about EUR 1 = USD 1.08; their US dollar list price may differ, so check the price in the currency you would actually pay.
The job, line by line
| Tenium | Uptime Kuma | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan needed | Starter | Self-hosted |
| Monitors | 100 | Unlimited, server permitting |
| Fastest interval | 1 min | 20 s |
| Team seats | 2 | Single admin user |
| Status pages | 3, custom domain | Unlimited, on your server |
| White-label status pages | Not on this plan (Pro and above) | Yes, you host it |
| Client PDF reports | Plain monthly summary email, no branded PDF (Pro) | — |
| Price per month | $7 | about €5 VPS plus your hours |
Uptime Kuma published plans
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Software | $0 | open source (MIT licence) |
| VPS to run it | about €5 / month | one location |
| Your time | Updates, backups, TLS | not free |
Where a cell says "see their pricing page", we do not hold a public figure we can verify, so we do not print one. Spotted something out of date? Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
What the same job costs elsewhere
Set your monitors and team size. Tenium is the cheapest paid plan that fits at 1-minute or faster checks; the other tools use the cheapest published plan that covers the same size.
Shown for 100 monitors and 3 people.
| Tool | Their price as published | In US dollars | Tenium against them |
|---|---|---|---|
| UptimeRobot List price Team, from €41 | €41 | ≈ $44 | Tenium about 35% cheaper |
| Better Stack Estimate 2 x $25 monitor blocks + 3 x $34 responders = $152 | $152 | $152 | Tenium about 81% cheaper |
| Pingdom No public price | No verified price | — | — |
| StatusCake List price Superior, $24.49 | $24.49 | $24.49 | Tenium about 18% more expensive |
| Hyperping List price Pro, $74 | $74 | $74 | Tenium about 61% cheaper |
| Uptime Kuma Server cost free software plus about €5 per month for a VPS, one location | €5 | ≈ $5 | Tenium about 437% more expensive |
Prices checked 6 November 2026. Euro prices are converted at about 1 € = $1.08; their US dollar list price may differ.
Difference = 1 - Tenium price / their price in US dollars. Within 10% counts as the same.
“List price” is a published monthly price. “Estimate” is our arithmetic on several published prices, not a quote. “Server cost” is hosting only, the software is free.
Feature by feature
| Feature | Tenium | Uptime Kuma |
|---|---|---|
| HTTP, keyword, ping, port, DNS, heartbeat | yes (DNS and heartbeat from Starter) | ✓ |
| Multi-region confirmation | All 2 regions must agree | Single location |
| Monitoring the monitor | Our job | Your job |
| Status pages | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-user and roles | ✓ | — |
| Client workspaces | Agency plan | — |
| Branded monthly PDF reports | Pro: one branded PDF; Agency: one per client, auto-sent | — |
| Telegram alerts | Starter and above | yes, 90+ notifiers |
| REST API | ✓ | Limited |
Where Uptime Kuma is better
- Free and open source
- Cheaper in cash: the software is free and a small VPS is the whole bill
- Runs inside private networks
- Huge list of notification providers
- Full control of data
Where Tenium is better
- Checks from 2 regions with confirmation logic, so a VPS hiccup does not page you
- Nobody has to patch, back up or watch the monitor
- Multi-user, client workspaces, reports and white-label
- Support
Moving from Uptime Kuma
Settings → Backup → Export in Uptime Kuma gives a JSON file. Upload it and Tenium creates the monitors; notification destinations are not imported, so add your contacts by hand.
Nothing is deleted at the source, so your old account keeps running until you cancel it.
Start free Import docsSelf-hosting is a legitimate answer
Uptime Kuma is a well-loved open-source monitor. You run it in a container, give it a database, and it checks your services and shows a status page. The software costs nothing, there are over ninety notification integrations, it can reach services on private networks that a hosted tool cannot, and your data never leaves your server. If you already run a VPS and enjoy owning the stack, it is hard to argue with.
This page is for people who started there and found that the monitor itself had become another service to look after.
Cash cost against total cost
In cash, self-hosting wins. A small VPS is about €5 a month, against $7 for Tenium Starter (100 monitors, 1 min checks) or $29 for Pro. Dollar prices are compared as published. Euro prices are shown as published and converted at about EUR 1 = USD 1.08 for the percentages. That difference is real, and we will not dress it up.
The things the VPS price leaves out are your hours and your single point of failure. Someone patches the host, updates the container, renews TLS, takes backups and notices when the monitor itself stops. Someone also has to be awake when the machine that hosts your monitoring has the outage.
- 20 monitors, 3 people: Tenium Pro at $29. For Uptime Kuma: free software plus about €5 per month for a VPS, one location. Tenium costs roughly 5 times as much in cash.
- 100 monitors, 3 people: Tenium Pro at $29. For Uptime Kuma: free software plus about €5 per month for a VPS, one location. Tenium costs roughly 5 times as much in cash.
- 400 monitors, 3 people: Tenium Agency at $59. For Uptime Kuma: free software plus about €5 per month for a VPS, one location. Tenium costs roughly 11 times as much in cash.
The failure mode that decides it
One location makes one view of the internet. If your VPS provider has a routing problem, every site you monitor looks down at once and you get a burst of false alarms. If the VPS itself goes down, you get silence, which is worse. Tenium runs checks from Amsterdam and London and opens an incident only when all two regions agree, and the monitor is somebody else's operational problem.
You can reduce the risk on the self-hosted side by running a second instance elsewhere that checks the first, but that doubles the maintenance.
What Tenium adds, and what it lacks
A fair table of trade-offs in list form.
- Team accounts with roles. Uptime Kuma has a single admin user.
- Client workspaces with viewer logins and branded monthly reports on Agency, plus one branded report and white-label pages on Pro.
- Escalation on Pro, so the alert still reaches a second person when the first chat message is ignored.
- No access to private networks. Tenium probes from the public internet; services on a LAN stay with your self-hosted tool.
- Fewer notification integrations. Telegram, Slack, Teams, Mattermost, Discord, email, webhooks and a few more, not ninety.
A hybrid that many people end up with
Run Uptime Kuma inside your network for internal services and Tenium from outside for everything customers touch. The two see different things: internal checks catch a failed database, external checks catch a failed route or certificate. Put the Tenium status page in front of clients, and keep the internal dashboard for your own team.
How to move the monitors
The export is JSON, which makes this easy.
- In Uptime Kuma open Settings, then Backup, and export. The file contains monitors and notification settings; Tenium reads the monitors.
- In Tenium open Import in the sidebar and upload it. The monitors are created; notification destinations are not imported, so add your contacts again. Review the preview, because Uptime Kuma interval choices of 20 seconds are raised to your plan minimum.
- Add your notification contacts again under Alert contacts and test each one before relying on it.
- Create a new status page, since the public URL changes. If yours is on a domain you own, move the CNAME to the target Tenium shows.
- Keep the container running for a week, then stop it. Do not delete the volume until you are certain.
Stay self-hosted if
Your monitors are mostly internal, your budget is zero, or you want full control for compliance reasons. Also stay if you enjoy it. Moving does not make the hobby better; it only removes the chores.
Tenium vs Uptime Kuma: questions
Is Tenium more expensive than Uptime Kuma?
In cash, yes: a small server is cheaper than any paid Tenium plan. The comparison on this page also counts your time, backups and the lack of a second location.
Can Tenium monitor my private services?
No, checks come from the public internet. For anything behind a firewall, run something inside the network, such as Uptime Kuma, and send heartbeats out if you want Tenium to notice when it stops.
Can I use both?
Yes, and it is a sensible setup. A heartbeat from your internal monitor to Tenium tells you when the monitor itself has died.
Does the import keep my 20-second intervals?
No. Tenium enforces the minimum for your plan: 1 min on Starter, 30 s on Pro and Agency.
Try the Tenium side of this table
Free plan, no card. If it is not better for your clients, keep what you have.
Uptime Kuma is a trademark of its respective owner. Tenium is not affiliated with or endorsed by Uptime Kuma. Prices and features are from public sources as we last checked (November 2026) and may have changed; please verify on github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma.