APIAssert vs Better Uptime#

Better Uptime (by Better Stack) offers uptime monitoring with incident management. Here's how it compares to APIAssert for API monitoring.

Overview#

When to Choose APIAssert#

Choose APIAssert if you need:

• Deep API validation — verify JSON responses, not just uptime
• GraphQL monitoring — first-class query and mutation support
• Response assertions — check values, types, and structure
• Developer-focused — built for API developers
• Lower cost — more affordable for pure API monitoring

APIAssert is purpose-built for validating API responses. If knowing "is the API returning correct data?" matters more than incident management workflows, APIAssert is the better fit.

When to Choose Better Uptime#

Choose Better Uptime if you need:

• Incident management — built-in incident workflows
• Status pages — public-facing service status
• On-call scheduling — native rotation management
• Multi-channel monitoring — HTTP, TCP, DNS, etc.
• Unified platform — monitoring + incidents in one tool

Better Uptime is an all-in-one solution. If you want monitoring, status pages, and incident management without integrating multiple tools, it's a solid choice.

Feature Comparison#

Response Validation#

APIAssert:

• ✅ JSONPath assertions ($.data.status == "active")
• ✅ Header validation
• ✅ Response time thresholds
• ✅ JSON schema validation
• ✅ Multi-assertion per monitor

Better Uptime:

• ✅ Keyword presence/absence
• ✅ Status code validation
• ❌ No JSON parsing
• ❌ No path-based assertions
• ❌ No response time assertions

Monitoring Capabilities#

APIAssert:

• REST API validation (all methods)
• GraphQL queries and mutations
• Custom headers & authentication
• Response body assertions
• Multi-region checks (6 regions)

Better Uptime:

• HTTP/HTTPS monitoring
• TCP/UDP port checks
• DNS monitoring
• Cron job monitoring
• Heartbeat monitoring
• Multi-region checks (10+ regions)

Incident Management#

APIAssert:

• Integrates with PagerDuty, Opsgenie
• Slack/Discord notifications
• Email alerts
• Webhook callbacks

Better Uptime:

• Built-in incident timeline
• On-call schedules
• Escalation policies
• Incident postmortems
• Call routing

Status Pages#

APIAssert:

• Custom status pages included
• Uptime history display
• Component status

Better Uptime:

• Public & private status pages
• Subscriber notifications
• Custom branding
• Scheduled maintenance

Pricing#

APIAssert:

Better Uptime:

Real-World Comparison#

Scenario: Payment API Monitoring#

Your payment processing API returns:

{
  "transaction_id": "txn_123",
  "status": "completed",
  "amount": 99.99,
  "currency": "USD"
}

Better Uptime:

• Can check if endpoint returns 200
• Can verify "completed" appears in response

APIAssert:

• Can verify $.status == "completed"
• Can verify $.amount is a positive number
• Can verify $.currency is one of allowed values
• Can check response time is under threshold
• Can validate the entire JSON structure

Scenario: Incident Response#

When your API goes down:

Better Uptime:

1. Creates incident automatically
2. Pages on-call team member
3. Shows on status page (if configured)
4. Tracks incident timeline
5. Supports postmortem

APIAssert:

1. Sends alert to PagerDuty/Opsgenie
2. Notifies Slack/Discord/Teams
3. Updates status page (if configured)
4. Incident management via integrated tools

Integration Approach#

APIAssert Philosophy#

APIAssert focuses on doing API monitoring exceptionally well and integrates with best-in-class tools for everything else:

• Incident management: PagerDuty, Opsgenie
• Team chat: Slack, Discord, Teams
• Workflows: Webhooks for custom automation

Better Uptime Philosophy#

Better Uptime aims to be an all-in-one solution:

• Built-in incident management
• Built-in on-call scheduling
• Built-in status pages
• Fewer external integrations needed

When to Use Both#

Some teams use both:

• Better Uptime for infrastructure monitoring, status pages, and incident management
• APIAssert for API response validation and contract testing

This gives you the best of both worlds: comprehensive incident management plus deep API validation.

The Bottom Line#

Better Uptime is an excellent all-in-one monitoring and incident management platform. It shines when you need uptime monitoring, status pages, and on-call management in a single tool.

APIAssert is purpose-built for API response validation. If you need to verify that your APIs return correct data (not just that they're reachable), APIAssert's assertion capabilities are more powerful.

Consider your needs:

• Need all-in-one incident management? → Better Uptime
• Need deep API validation? → APIAssert
• Need both? → Use both for their strengths

Try APIAssert free — no credit card required.