Downdetector Alternative for Developers — API-Level Monitoring That Goes Deeper

TLDR: Downdetector covers consumer services but lacks developer APIs like Supabase, Vercel, and Render. API Status Check monitors 100+ developer APIs with real-time status, embeddable badges, free API access, and uptime comparisons—designed specifically for teams building on third-party APIs.

Downdetector is great for checking if Netflix is down or if your ISP is having issues. But if you're a developer building on APIs, Downdetector isn't built for you.

Here's why — and what to use instead.

What Downdetector Does Well

Downdetector aggregates user reports to detect outages for consumer services. It's useful for:

• Consumer services — Netflix, Instagram, Xbox Live, banking apps
• ISPs and telecom — Comcast, Verizon, AT&T
• General "is it down?" checks — Quick crowd-sourced status

It works because millions of regular users report problems, creating a real-time signal.

Where Downdetector Falls Short for Developers

1. No API-Level Monitoring

Downdetector tracks services, not APIs. There's no page for "Stripe API" or "OpenAI API" — just the consumer-facing product. When Stripe's API has elevated error rates but their website works fine, Downdetector won't catch it.

As a developer, you need to know if the specific API endpoint your app calls is responding — not whether the company's homepage loads.

2. No Response Time Data

Downdetector tells you "it's down" or "it's fine." That binary view misses the most important metric for developers: response time.

An API returning 200 OK in 8 seconds is technically "up" but practically broken. Your users are staring at loading spinners. Downdetector won't show you this degradation.

3. No Uptime History or Comparisons

Choosing between Stripe and Braintree? SendGrid and Mailgun? OpenAI and Anthropic? Downdetector can't help you compare API reliability because it doesn't track historical uptime data.

4. No Developer Integrations

Downdetector's API is enterprise-only (read: expensive). There are no webhooks, no Slack integrations, no embeddable badges for your status page. It's built for consumers clicking a website, not developers building systems.

5. Crowd-Sourced Data Has Blind Spots

Downdetector relies on user reports. But most API consumers are machines, not people. When your Node.js server gets 503s from Twilio at 3 AM, nobody's going to Downdetector to report it. The outage goes undetected until business hours.

Downdetector vs API Status Check

Feature	Downdetector	API Status Check
Focus	Consumer services	Developer APIs
Detection	Crowd-sourced reports	Direct endpoint monitoring
Response times	❌ No	✅ Yes, per check
APIs monitored	~50 (generic)	100+ (API-specific)
Uptime comparisons	❌ No	✅ Side-by-side
Incident history	Basic	Full timeline + updates
Status badges	❌ No	✅ Embeddable
"Is X down?" pages	Consumer only	100+ API pages
API access	Enterprise only ($$$)	Free
Developer integrations	❌ Limited	✅ Webhooks, Slack, Discord

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Other Alternatives Worth Knowing

StatusGator

Best for monitoring other companies' status pages. Aggregates official status pages and alerts you when services you depend on report issues. Complements API Status Check well — they track official announcements, we track actual endpoint health.

UptimeRobot

Best for monitoring your own services. Pings your URLs and alerts you when they go down. Different use case from API Status Check — UptimeRobot monitors your infrastructure, we monitor your dependencies.

Better Stack (formerly Better Uptime)

Full-stack monitoring with incident management. More complex and expensive, but includes on-call scheduling and status pages.

Checkly

API and synthetic monitoring for developers. More DIY (you write monitoring scripts) but very powerful for complex API workflows.

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When to Use What

Scenario	Best Tool
"Is Netflix down?"	Downdetector
"Is the Stripe API responding?"	API Status Check
"Is MY website down?"	UptimeRobot
"Which email API is most reliable?"	API Status Check
"Alert me when AWS has an incident"	StatusGator
"Monitor my complex API workflow"	Checkly

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Try It Now

API Status Check is free. No signup required to check status. No API key needed for badges.

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