Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about API Status Check

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General Questions

What is API Status Check?

API Status Check monitors the uptime and health of 100+ popular developer APIs in real-time. Instead of checking individual status pages for Stripe, OpenAI, GitHub, AWS, and other services, you can see everything in one dashboard. We check each API every 5 minutes and automatically alert you when services go down or experience issues.

Is it free?

Yes! API Status Check is completely free to use. We provide real-time status for 100+ APIs, automatic Twitter/Bluesky alerts when outages happen, free status badges for your project README, RSS feeds for monitoring, and public JSON API access. The core monitoring will always remain free.

How do you detect API outages?

We pull data directly from official statuspage.io endpoints that most APIs use to publish their status. For example, Stripe uses status.stripe.com, OpenAI uses status.openai.com, and GitHub uses githubstatus.com. This means we report official status information, not user reports or guesses.

How often do you check for outages?

Every 5 minutes for all 100 APIs. That's 28,800 checks per day across all services. When we detect a status change (up → degraded → down), we queue an alert and post it to Twitter/Bluesky within seconds.

Can I get alerts for specific APIs?

Currently, our auto-alerts go to Twitter (@apistatuscheck) and Bluesky. You can follow us there or use our RSS feed for real-time updates. We're building Slack and Discord webhook integrations for custom alerts.

What's the difference between "degraded" and "down"?

Up: All systems operational
Degraded: Minor issues, service still usable but may be slow
Down: Major outage, service unavailable

These statuses come directly from the API provider's status page. We report exactly what they report.

Technical Questions

Can I embed status badges in my README?

Yes! We provide free status badges for any monitored API. Visit our documentation page for examples. The badge auto-updates when status changes: green = up, yellow = degraded, red = down.

Do you have an API?

Yes! We provide a free JSON API. You can fetch all statuses or query specific APIs. See our API documentation for endpoint details and response formats.

What APIs do you monitor?

We monitor 100+ popular developer APIs including OpenAI, Stripe, AWS, GitHub, Discord, Slack, Anthropic, Vercel, Supabase, and many more. Browse the full list on our homepage or check by category.

Can I request an API to be added?

Yes! We regularly add new APIs based on community requests. The API must have a public status page (preferably statuspage.io) and be widely used by developers. Email us at hello@apistatuscheck.com or open an issue on our GitHub.

How accurate is the status data?

Very accurate—we pull directly from official status pages. However, there can be a delay of up to 5 minutes (our check interval) between when an outage starts and when we detect it. We also rely on API providers to update their status pages promptly.

Do you store historical uptime data?

Currently, we focus on real-time monitoring. Historical data and uptime percentage tracking are on our roadmap. If you need historical analysis, check the "Docs" link on each API page for their official status page.

Comparison Questions

How is this different from DownDetector?

DownDetector relies on user reports and social media signals. We pull from official API status pages. This means our data is more accurate for developer APIs but we only cover services with public status pages. DownDetector covers more services (games, streaming) but with less technical precision.

Why not just check status.stripe.com directly?

You can! But if you use 5-10 different APIs in your app, checking each status page individually is tedious. API Status Check aggregates everything so you can see all your dependencies at a glance.

Do you compete with statuspage.io?

No, we complement it. Statuspage.io is for companies to host their own status page. API Status Check aggregates many status pages into one dashboard for developers who consume those APIs.

Alerts Questions

How do I get notified when an API goes down?

We post automatic alerts to Twitter and Bluesky when we detect outages. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed. We're building Slack and Discord integrations for custom webhook notifications.

Can I filter alerts to only specific APIs?

Not yet. Right now, our Twitter/Bluesky accounts post all detected outages. Custom filtering will be available when we launch Slack/Discord webhooks—you'll be able to subscribe to only the APIs you care about.

Do you send email alerts?

Not currently. We focus on real-time channels (Twitter, Bluesky, RSS). Email alerts are on our roadmap but aren't available yet.

Business Questions

Who runs this?

API Status Check is built and maintained by indie developers who were tired of checking 10 different status pages every time something broke. We're bootstrapped and keep the service free.

How do you make money?

We offer three paid plans: Alert Pro ($9/mo) for email alerts on up to 10 APIs, Team ($29/mo) for 50 APIs with Slack/Discord integration and a custom status page, and Developer ($49/mo) for unlimited APIs with premium API access and historical data. Core real-time monitoring is free and always will be. Check out our pricing at /pricing.

Is my usage data private?

We don't track which APIs you check. We use basic analytics (visitor counts) but don't log IP addresses or build user profiles. We also don't require sign-ups, so we have no user data to protect.

What if your service goes down?

Good question! We run on Vercel with 99.9%+ uptime. Our monitoring cron runs on a separate infrastructure (Railway) so even if the website is down, checks continue. That said, we're a free tool—use official status pages for mission-critical decisions.

Still have questions?

We're here to help. Reach out via email or check our documentation.

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Alert Pro

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Alert Pro checks the 66 services we monitor every hour and emails you within the hour of a detected change.

  • Email alerts for up to 10 of the APIs we monitor
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The 66 services Alert Pro covers

Airtable · Amplitude · Anthropic (Claude) · Asana · Atlassian · AWS · Azure · Bitbucket · Canva · Canvas LMS · Cash App · ChatGPT · Claude · Clerk · Cloudflare · CockroachDB · Cohere · Coinbase · Confluence · Cursor · DigitalOcean · Discord · Dropbox · Elasticsearch · Epic Games · Figma · Fly.io · Fortnite · GitHub · Google Cloud · Google Cloud Platform · Grafana · Grammarly · Groq · HubSpot · Jira · LaunchDarkly · Linear · Mailgun · Mixpanel · Monday.com · MongoDB Atlas · Netlify · New Relic · npm · OpenAI · PayPal · Pinterest · Plaid · PlanetScale · Reddit · Render · Robinhood · Runway · Segment · SendGrid · Sentry · Shopify · Square · Stability AI · Supabase · Trello · Twilio · Twitch · Vercel · Zoom

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