Barkme vs Oh Dear
An Oh Dear alternative with a free plan and domain reputation checks
Oh Dear checks more things per site, from broken links to cron jobs. Barkme starts free, prices per team rather than per site, and watches each domain's reputation daily.
Side by side
Barkme and Oh Dear at a glance
| Feature | Barkme | Oh Dear |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes: 3 monitors on 1 verified domain, no card, no time limit | No; every plan starts with a 10-day trial |
| Entry price | $19/mo for 5 domains and 30 monitors | $17/mo for 2 sites |
| How pricing scales | Per team: $39/mo Pro covers 50 domains and unlimited monitors | Per site: from 2 sites up to 200, then custom |
| Uptime checks | Every 30 seconds to 5 minutes | Included on every plan |
| SSL and domain expiry | Every plan | Every plan |
| Blocklist checks | Daily: DNS filtering resolvers plus Spamhaus DBL, SURBL and URIBL | DNS blocklist check |
| Broken links and mixed content | No | Yes |
| Cron and scheduled task monitoring | No | Yes |
| Performance and Lighthouse | No | Yes |
| Status pages | Every plan; on your own domain with Founder or Pro | Public status pages with subscriber notifications |
| Alert channels | Email, Slack, Telegram, Linear, Trello, signed webhook | Email, Slack and other third-party integrations |
| Team members | 1 on Free, 5 on Founder, unlimited on Pro | Unlimited on every plan |
Oh Dear details checked on their public pricing page on . Prices and limits change, so confirm before you buy.
- You want to start free and only pay once you outgrow 3 monitors.
- You look after many domains: $39 a month covers 50 of them on Pro.
- You want to know when security filters like Cloudflare's or Quad9's start blocking a domain.
- Incidents should open Linear issues or Trello cards, or reach you on Telegram.
- You run content-heavy sites and broken links or mixed content matter to you.
- You need to know when a scheduled task or cron job stops running.
- You want Lighthouse and performance reports next to uptime.
- You want unlimited users on even the smallest plan.
Oh Dear is well liked in the Laravel world, and it earns that. It runs more kinds of checks per site than almost anyone. Barkme does fewer things and prices them differently, so the right choice depends on what keeps you up at night.
What each tool checks
Oh Dear lists uptime, certificate health, domain expiry, DNS records, a DNS blocklist check, broken links and mixed content, scheduled tasks, performance and Lighthouse, and application health, all on every plan. If you maintain content sites, the broken-link crawler alone can justify it.
Barkme sticks to reachability and domain health. Every verified domain gets uptime monitors you define, daily SSL and registration expiry checks with warnings 30, 14, 7 and 1 day ahead, and a daily reputation check on two tracks. The web track compares your DNS answer across filtering resolvers (Cloudflare, AdGuard and Quad9's threat feeds) against clean ones, which catches the moment visitors behind those filters stop reaching you. The mail track looks the domain up on Spamhaus DBL, SURBL and URIBL.
Per site or per team
Oh Dear prices per site, from $17 a month for two sites. Barkme prices per team. Founder is $19 a month for 5 verified domains and 30 monitors, and Pro is $39 for 50 domains with unlimited monitors. A verified domain covers all of its subdomains, so an agency with forty client domains pays the same as one with ten.
There is also a Free plan with no time limit, which Oh Dear does not offer.
Alerts and tickets
Both tools send email and Slack alerts and offer public status pages. Barkme adds Telegram, and on Pro an incident opens a Linear issue or a Trello card. When the site recovers, the ticket gets a comment with the total downtime and stays open until someone closes it, so the cause still gets looked at. Status pages can run on your own domain from Founder up.
The short version
Pick Oh Dear when you want the widest set of checks per site, especially broken links, cron jobs and Lighthouse. Pick Barkme when you look after many domains, want their reputation watched, and would rather start free. Compare every limit on the pricing page, or see how agencies use Barkme.
Questions
Switching from Oh Dear
- Is there a free alternative to Oh Dear?
- Barkme's Free plan covers one verified domain with 3 monitors, 1-minute checks, email alerts, a status page, and daily SSL, registration and reputation checks. It has no time limit and needs no card.
- Does Barkme check broken links or cron jobs like Oh Dear?
- No. Barkme watches whether a site answers and whether its domain is healthy: certificate, registration and reputation. If broken links or scheduled tasks are your main worry, Oh Dear covers them and Barkme does not.
- How does Barkme count domains compared with Oh Dear's sites?
- Barkme counts verified domains. Verifying an apex covers every subdomain and URL beneath it, so shop.example.com and api.example.com both sit under one example.com. Oh Dear prices per site.
- Is Barkme built with Laravel too?
- Yes, Barkme runs on Laravel. That does not change what it monitors: any public HTTP(S) endpoint on a domain you have verified.
Related
Where to go next
Web agencies
For freelancers and small agencies looking after 10 to 40 client sites. Barkme checks every site, alerts you in Slack when one goes down, warns you before certificates and domains expire, and gives each client a status page.
Use caseClient status pages
A public status page for each project, showing what is monitored and any recent incidents. On paid plans it can use the client's own domain.
Use caseDomain blocklists
Barkme checks every verified domain once a day against security DNS filters and the main mail blocklists. You get an alert when the domain is listed and another when it is removed.
CompareUptimeRobot alternative
UptimeRobot gives you lots of monitors for little money. Barkme gives you fewer, faster ones per domain, plus daily SSL, registration and blocklist checks on every plan.
CompareBetter Stack alternative
Better Stack bundles uptime with on-call, phone alerts and logs, priced per responder. Barkme is uptime and domain health only, at a flat price per team.