Using Uptime Kuma to Keep Tabs on Your Homelab

Hey everyone!

If you’re running a homelab, you know the struggle – your services are humming along perfectly until they’re not. Maybe your Plex server crashes during movie night, or your Pi-hole goes down and suddenly ads are everywhere. The worst part? You often don’t know something’s broken until you actually need it.

That’s where monitoring comes in, and today I want to talk about Uptime Kuma – a fantastic open-source monitoring tool that’s perfect for homelab enthusiasts who want to keep tabs on their services without diving into the complexity of enterprise-grade solutions like Zabbix or Prometheus.

What is Uptime Kuma?

Uptime Kuma is a self-hosted, open-source monitoring tool that helps you track the availability and performance of your websites, servers, APIs, and pretty much anything else running in your homelab. Think of it as your homelab’s watchdog – constantly checking if your services are up and alerting you the moment something goes down.

The best part? It’s incredibly lightweight and user-friendly. While tools like Zabbix offer tons of monitoring capabilities, they require hours of configuration file tweaking and learning complex interfaces. Uptime Kuma, on the other hand, gets you up and running in minutes with a clean, intuitive web interface that actually makes monitoring enjoyable.

Why Uptime Kuma is Perfect for Homelabs

What makes Uptime Kuma stand out in the crowded monitoring space? Let me break down the key features that make it ideal for homelab environments:

Versatile Monitoring Options

Uptime Kuma doesn’t just monitor websites. It can track:

HTTP and HTTPS endpoints
TCP ports
Ping (IP addresses or domain names)
DNS records
Docker containers (huge for homelab users!)
Database servers (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, MS SQL)
Steam game servers
HTTP(s) keywords and JSON queries

The Docker container monitoring is particularly awesome for homelabs. You can directly monitor whether specific containers are running – perfect for keeping tabs on your entire containerized stack.

Flexible Monitoring Intervals

Uptime Kuma supports monitoring intervals as short as 20 seconds, meaning it can check your services every 20 seconds if you need that level of vigilance. For most homelab scenarios, longer intervals work fine and reduce resource usage, but having that flexibility is great.

Notification Overload (In a Good Way)

This is where Uptime Kuma really shines – it supports over 95 different notification channels. You can get alerts via:

Email (SMTP)
Discord, Slack, or Microsoft Teams
Telegram or Signal
Pushover, Pushbullet, or Gotify
Twilio (SMS)
Webhooks for custom integrations

Set up notifications once, and you’ll know immediately when your services go down, even if you’re away from home.

Status Pages

Uptime Kuma lets you create beautiful public or private status pages. This is perfect if you’re running services for family members or a small community – they can check the status page instead of messaging you every time something seems slow.

SSL/TLS Certificate Monitoring

Running services with SSL certificates? Uptime Kuma can monitor those certificates and alert you before they expire, saving you from those embarrassing “your connection is not secure” errors.

Setting Up Uptime Kuma

Getting Uptime Kuma running is straightforward, especially if you’re already familiar with Docker (and if you’re running a homelab, you probably are).

Docker Installation (Recommended)

The simplest way to get started is with a single Docker command:

docker run -d --restart=always -p 3001:3001 -v uptime-kuma:/app/data --name uptime-kuma louislam/uptime-kuma:1

This spins up Uptime Kuma on port 3001 with persistent storage. Access it at http://your-server-ip:3001 and you’re ready to go.

If you prefer Docker Compose (which I recommend for easier management), create a compose.yaml file or grab the official one from the GitHub repo and run docker compose up -d.

Important Setup Consideration: Docker Container Monitoring

If you want to monitor Docker containers, you need to mount the Docker socket into the Uptime Kuma container. Add this volume mount to your Docker run command or compose file:

-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock

This gives Uptime Kuma visibility into your Docker environment so it can monitor container status.

Initial Configuration

Once you access the web interface, you’ll create an admin account (make sure to use a strong password and enable two-factor authentication – Uptime Kuma supports it!). From there, the interface is intuitive:

Add a Monitor: Click “Add New Monitor” and choose your monitor type (HTTP, TCP, Ping, Docker Container, etc.)
Configure the Monitor: Enter the URL, hostname, or container name, set your monitoring interval, and define retry behavior
Set Up Notifications: Configure your notification channels under Settings > Notifications
Assign Notifications to Monitors: Choose which notification channels should alert for each monitor

That’s it! Your monitoring is live.

Advanced Strategies for Homelab Monitoring

External Monitoring for True Redundancy

Here’s a pro tip that’s gained popularity in 2025: run Uptime Kuma on an external VPS, not within your homelab itself. Why? If your entire home network goes down (ISP outage, power failure, router death), an internal monitoring solution can’t alert you because it’s down too.

By running Uptime Kuma on a cheap external VPS (many providers offer servers for just a few dollars per month), you’ll get notifications even when your entire homelab is offline. You can use tools like Tailscale to create secure connections between your VPS and homelab for monitoring internal services.

Raspberry Pi Deployment

Don’t have a VPS budget? A Raspberry Pi works beautifully for Uptime Kuma. It’s light enough to run on even older Pi models, making it perfect for a dedicated monitoring appliance that sits separate from your main homelab infrastructure.

Uptime Kuma vs. Other Monitoring Tools

You might be wondering how Uptime Kuma compares to alternatives:

Nagios/Zabbix: Incredibly powerful but complex. These are enterprise-grade tools that require significant setup time and ongoing maintenance. Great if you need that level of detail, overkill for most homelabs.
Uptime Robot: Cloud-based and simple, but you’re relying on a third-party service and have less customization. Uptime Kuma gives you full control.
Prometheus + Grafana: Excellent for metrics and visualization, but more focused on performance monitoring than uptime checks. These tools complement Uptime Kuma nicely.
Cachet/Statping: Similar to Uptime Kuma but less actively maintained or feature-rich.

For most homelab users, Uptime Kuma hits the sweet spot: powerful enough to monitor everything you need, simple enough to set up in an afternoon, and flexible enough to grow with your infrastructure.

Real-World Use Cases

Here’s how I use Uptime Kuma in my homelab:

Monitor all publicly accessible services (Nextcloud, Bitwarden, etc.)
Check critical Docker containers (Pi-hole, Unbound DNS, reverse proxy)
Track my internet connection by pinging external IPs
Monitor SSL certificate expiration for my domains
Keep tabs on my NAS and backup systems

The peace of mind is worth the minimal setup effort. Instead of discovering issues when I need a service, I get a Discord notification the moment something fails.

Final Thoughts

Uptime Kuma is one of those tools that just works. It’s not trying to be everything to everyone – it focuses on uptime monitoring and does it exceptionally well. The open-source nature means it’s constantly improving, the community is active and helpful, and best of all, it’s completely free.

If you’re running any kind of homelab and aren’t monitoring your services yet, Uptime Kuma is the perfect starting point. It’s beginner-friendly enough that you’ll have it running in under an hour, yet powerful enough that you won’t outgrow it as your homelab expands.

Give it a shot – your future self will thank you when you catch that failing hard drive or expiring certificate before it causes problems.