# healthchecks/healthchecks

Open-source cron job and background task monitoring service, written in Python & Django

Repository: https://github.com/healthchecks/healthchecks
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/healthchecks
Homepage: https://healthchecks.io
Language: Python
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: cron, devops, cron-jobs, monitoring, ops, django
Last push: 2026-08-21T16:49:45+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 92/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 81, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4087, "days_push": 12, "days_rel": 50, "gap_med": 40.0, "n_releases_24m": 17}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 10288, forks 1000 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:41.509865+00:00)

## What it is
Healthchecks is an open-source cron job and background task monitoring service built with Python and Django. It listens for HTTP or email pings from scheduled jobs and sends alerts through 25+ integrations when a ping does not arrive on time.

## Use cases
- monitor cron jobs and get alerted when they fail to run
- dead man's switch monitoring for nightly backups
- alert when a scheduled task or systemd timer doesn't run on time
- self-host a cron job monitoring service
- track periodic scripts like SSL renewals and data syncs
- add status badges for scheduled jobs to dashboards

## When to choose
- you need to know when a cron job, backup, or scheduled task silently fails to run
- you want a self-hosted dead man's switch with a web dashboard, API, and many notification integrations
- you prefer a simple, focused tool rather than a full metrics/APM platform

## When to avoid
- you need website uptime probing or HTTP endpoint health checks
- you need application performance metrics or log aggregation
- you want to monitor jobs that run on demand rather than on a schedule

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: stable
- function: monitoring, alerting, scheduling, webhook, self-hosted
- domain: monitoring, self-hosted
- platform: python, self-hosted
- tags: cron-monitoring, dead-mans-switch, django, heartbeat, background-jobs, devops, automation, docker, web-server, linux

## Member repositories
- healthchecks/healthchecks (main) score 92

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:41.509865+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:19:20.089536+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/healthchecks/healthchecks (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:41.509865+00:00, sha a07ca62615f0)
  - homepage: https://healthchecks.io (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.659825+00:00, sha 756d4cde3fef)
  - site_page: https://healthchecks.io/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.671120+00:00, sha dbca65e84f29)
  - site_page: https://healthchecks.io/about (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.673279+00:00, sha c29c2a68fc06)
  - site_page: https://healthchecks.io/docs/cron (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.674857+00:00, sha a0465048402d)
  - site_page: https://healthchecks.io/pricing (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.669197+00:00, sha 01c34a2ab37b)
  - site_page: https://healthchecks.io/integrations/add_slack (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.676505+00:00, sha b072f446b2ed)
  - site_page: https://healthchecks.io/integrations/googlechat (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.678640+00:00, sha 64e37001a889)
  - site_page: https://healthchecks.io/integrations/mattermost (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.680548+00:00, sha abe4a44111ad)
  - site_page: https://healthchecks.io/integrations/pagerduty (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:46.682245+00:00, sha 9d609dacc938)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.