Uptime and Security Headers Monitoring for Client Sites
One dashboard, one alert stream, every client site. Uptime and security headers monitoring for freelancers and agencies. Outages confirmed from three regions.
Guardr watches uptime and security headers together for every client site, in one dashboard with one alert stream. It is built for freelancers and small agencies who want one place to see which client sites are up and which need attention.
What does it mean to monitor uptime and security headers together?
It means one tool runs both checks, each on its own schedule. Each site has one page that shows both results.
An uptime check asks one question: Is the site up? A site can answer every minute of the month and still drift out of shape. A deploy drops the Strict-Transport-Security header. A plugin update strips the Content-Security-Policy header. A CDN change turns off the redirect from HTTP to HTTPS. A DNS move loses the CAA record. The site stays up the whole time, so an uptime check has nothing to report.
With both in one place, misconfigurations like these land next to the uptime record of the same site. They do not sit in a second tool that nobody has opened since the last audit.
If the headers themselves are new to you, the security headers guide explains what each header does and how to add it.
The two-tool setup: an uptime monitor plus a header scanner
A common way to monitor security headers and uptime together is UptimeRobot plus a header scanner. One tool pings the site. The other grades its headers. It works. The seams show as the client list grows:
- Two dashboards. Uptime lives in one tab and header results in another. Neither tool shows both for the same client.
- A second alert setup. If the header scanner can send alerts, that is a second notification setup to keep current as clients come and go.
- Header checks that run when someone remembers. A header scanner you open by hand checks a site only when somebody pastes in its URL. A header that disappears in a Friday deploy can stay missing until the next manual look.
- No single view per client. Answering “How is this client site doing?” means reading two tools and joining the answers yourself.
If the question in front of you is UptimeRobot itself, the UptimeRobot comparison sets that tool against Guardr.
How Guardr puts uptime monitoring and security headers in one place
Guardr is a website health monitoring service for the sites you manage. Each site you add gets an uptime check and a scheduled full scan. The Sites page lists every site with its latest uptime result next to its grade. Client groups keep the sites of each client together on that list. Each site page carries its uptime history above its scan findings.
Downtime, confirmed before it alerts. Guardr checks uptime every minute. A single failed check alerts nobody. When a check fails, Guardr asks three regions to repeat it: US East, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. The check counts as down only when all three confirm it. An incident opens after two confirmed-down checks in a row.
An email when it starts, reminders while it lasts and another when it ends. When an incident opens, Guardr sends one “Down” email. If the site stays down, “Still down” reminders follow 1 hour, 6 hours and 24 hours after the first confirmed-down check, then once a day for as long as the outage lasts. When the site answers again, Guardr sends a “Recovered” email with the length of the outage.
Headers and TLS, graded. Every 6 hours Guardr runs a full scan of each site: HTTP security headers, TLS, DNS, cookies and exposure paths such as a stray /.env file. The scan ends in a letter grade from A+ to F. Configuration findings come with fix steps. Many header and TLS findings include ready-to-paste configuration for Cloudflare, Nginx and Apache.
Header drift, caught at the next scan. If a deploy drops a header, the next scheduled scan records it as a new finding on the site page. If the drop lowers the letter grade, Guardr emails you and lists the new findings.
One inbox for every alert. Downtime, recovery, grade drops and certificate expiry all arrive by email at the account address. Each site can also copy its down, recovery and grade-drop events to a webhook of your choice. Certificate expiry and the “Still down” reminders go by email only.
Something to hand a client. PDF reports and status pages come with both plans, Free and All sites.
One tool or two, side by side
| One tool (Guardr) | Two tools | |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboards | One. The Sites page shows the latest uptime result and grade for every site | Two, one per tool |
| Alert channels | Email to the account address for every alert type. An optional webhook per site carries down, recovery and grade-drop events | A second notification setup for the scanner. No header alerts at all if it runs by hand |
| Header check frequency | A full scan every 6 hours | Whenever someone runs the scanner, unless it has a schedule of its own |
| Per-client view | Client groups on the Sites page. A page per site with uptime and findings. PDF reports and status pages | Split across two tools |
| Price model | The first site is free and every site after it is $3.00 per month | Priced separately by each vendor |
When two tools still make sense
A second tool still earns its place in some setups. A team that already runs a mature uptime stack, with on-call rotations and phone paging wired into it, may only need an occasional header spot check. Guardr alerts by email and by webhook, so that team may prefer to leave its paging alone and run the free check on the Guardr homepage after each release. Internal APIs are another case: raw availability matters more than response headers there, so a plain uptime monitor can watch them while Guardr watches the client sites.
Frequently asked questions
Can one tool monitor uptime and security headers?
Yes. Guardr checks uptime every minute and runs a full scan of each site every 6 hours, covering HTTP security headers, TLS, DNS, cookies and exposure paths. Both results sit on the same site page. Alerts for both arrive by email at the account address.
How does Guardr avoid false downtime alerts?
A failed check is repeated from three regions. It counts as down only when all three agree. An incident opens only after two such checks in a row.
How often does Guardr check security headers?
Every 6 hours, as part of a full scan of the site. A missing header shows up as a new finding at the next scan. If the letter grade drops, an alert email lists the new findings.
What does Guardr cost?
The first site is free and every site after it is $3.00 per month. The Free plan is the whole product on one site.
Using Guardr:
Guardr watches uptime and security headers for every site on one account. Downtime, recovery, grade drops and certificate expiry arrive by email at one address. Configuration findings come with fix steps.
Run the free check on a client site. It takes a few seconds and needs no account. With an account, Guardr then runs both checks on a schedule for every site you add. The first site is free and every site after it is $3.00 per month. See the pricing page for the Free plan and the All sites plan.