Start your 7-day free trial, card not charged until it ends

Honest comparison · updated July 2026

TLDTrack vs changedetection.io self-hosted diffs vs managed monitoring

changedetection.io is a genuinely great open-source page watcher, if you enjoy running your own stack. TLDTrack is managed monitoring where change detection is one of nine checks and plain-English AI rules can judge whether a change actually matters.

01 · Comparison

Feature by feature

Short version

Pick changedetection.io if: you are technical and happy to self-host and maintain it (or pay $8.99/month hosted). Restock alerts and price drops are its sweet spot, and since April 2026 it even does plain-English AI rules, if you bring your own LLM API key.

Pick TLDTrack if: you are accountable for websites and want change monitoring with the AI built in, no server to maintain and no LLM key to bring, plus uptime, DNS, SSL, blacklists, malware, email health and renewals in the same dashboard.
FeatureTLDTrackchangedetection.io
Page content change detectionYesYes
Element-level tracking (watch a specific value)YesYes
Selector setupPoint and clickPoint and click (Chrome fetcher)
AI monitoring rules in plain EnglishYesBYO LLM key
Company-wide policy & compliance AI checksYesNo
JavaScript-rendered pagesYesHosted yes; self-host setup
Visual (screenshot) change detectionYesText diffs only
Uptime monitoringYesNo
SSL expiry monitoringYesNo
DNS change detection (A/MX/TXT/CNAME/NS)YesNo
Domain blacklist scanning (12 DBs)YesNo
Malware & phishing flags (Google Web Risk)YesNo
Email deliverability (SPF/DKIM/DMARC)YesNo
Domain renewal alerts (90/60/30/7-day)YesNo
Open source / self-hostableNoYes
Team accounts & client-facing featuresYesNo
iOS & Android appsYesNo
Server maintenance requiredNoneYours (self-hosted)
PriceFrom $11/moFree self-hosted; $8.99/mo hosted

Features and pricing accurate as of July 2026. We will keep this updated; if anything is wrong, tell us.

02 · The difference

Free software is not free monitoring

We say this with respect: changedetection.io is excellent engineering. The cost sits somewhere other than the licence.

The server is yours

Self-hosting means a VPS, updates, backups and a headless browser once you need JavaScript-rendered pages. If the box goes down, your monitoring goes with it, and nothing is monitoring the monitor.

The watches are yours too

Its point-and-click Visual Selector is genuinely nice (once the Chrome fetcher is running), but when a site redesign breaks a watch, re-tuning it is your job. Nobody re-checks your selectors for you.

AI included vs AI assembled

changedetection.io added plain-English AI rules in 2026, but you connect and pay for your own LLM provider, and its own docs warn the output can hallucinate. TLDTrack’s AI is built in, judges the rendered page, and adds company-wide policy checks on top.

TLDTrack is right if…

  • You are accountable for client or company websites
  • You want zero servers, zero selectors, zero maintenance
  • You need uptime, DNS, SSL, blacklist and email checks anyway
  • Alerts should reach a team, in Slack, Teams or by webhook as well as mobile push
  • You want changes judged for meaning, not just diffed

changedetection.io is right if…

  • You enjoy self-hosting and already run a home lab or VPS
  • You are watching restocks, price drops or third-party pages at scale
  • You want open source and full control of your data
  • Hand-tuning selectors per page is a feature, not a chore

03 · Pricing

Simple, transparent pricing

Every paid plan starts with a 7-day free trial. Cancel during the trial and you won't be charged.

Free forever

Free

Monitor one site, free forever

$0/mo

1 website + 4 extra monitors

No credit card needed

  • Uptime checks every 5 minutes
  • Response time tracking
  • Domain expiry alerts
  • SSL certificate expiry alerts
  • Email alerts
Start free

7 days free

Starter

For individuals & small portfolios

$11/mo

Up to 5 websites

250 monitoring credits / month

  • Uptime, SSL, DNS & blacklist
  • Content & visual change monitoring
  • Accessibility (WCAG 2.2) monitoring
  • Email health & renewal alerts
  • PageSpeed & malware scanning
  • Free WordPress plugin
  • WHM & cPanel monitoring
  • Bulk import & export
  • Security, SEO & compliance scans
  • AI integration (Claude & ChatGPT)
Start free trial

Most popular

Pro

For active managers & agencies

$29/mo

Up to 25 websites

1,250 monitoring credits / month

  • Everything in Starter
  • Up to 5 team members
  • Client report builder
  • AI search visibility
  • Priority support
  • Security, SEO & compliance scans
  • AI integration (Claude & ChatGPT)
Start free trial

7 days free

Agency

For large portfolios & teams

$89/mo

Up to 100 websites

5,000 monitoring credits / month

  • Everything in Pro
  • Up to 20 team members
  • Agency CRM & white-label reports
  • Security, SEO & compliance scans
  • Dedicated support
  • AI integration (Claude & ChatGPT)
Start free trial

Bigger than 100 websites? Our Enterprise plan adds unlimited sites, custom data residency, an SLA, dedicated onboarding and custom integrations. Talk to us

*SMS alerts are an optional add-on on paid plans for UK mobile numbers, paid for with prepaid SMS credit packs. Prices exclude any applicable sales tax. Your card won't be charged during a paid-plan trial. Cancel anytime.

04 · Questions

Frequently asked questions

Is changedetection.io really free?

The software is, and that is genuinely admirable. Running it is not: you need a server, and once you monitor JavaScript-rendered pages you need a headless browser, which pushes the VPS spec up. The hosted option at $8.99/month removes the server, though the AI rules still need your own LLM provider key.

Why pay for TLDTrack when changedetection.io exists?

You are paying for three things it does not give you: eight more check types (uptime, DNS, SSL, blacklists, malware, email health, PageSpeed, renewals), AI that is built in rather than assembled from your own LLM API key, and a managed service with team accounts and mobile apps that nobody on your side has to maintain.

Can I use both together?

Yes. Some technical users keep changedetection.io for high-volume third-party watching (restocks, price drops) and use TLDTrack as the accountable monitoring layer for the sites they actually run.

Is TLDTrack open source?

No, TLDTrack is a managed service. If open source is a hard requirement, changedetection.io is the better fit and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

How hard is it to switch?

Add your domains and the SSL, DNS, domain expiry and email authentication checks start straight away. Uptime, blacklist, malware and PageSpeed checks are switched on for the sites you choose. For the pages you were diffing, write the rule you actually care about in plain English and TLDTrack sets up the monitor.
Mark Grice, founder of TLDTrack

Mark Grice, founder of TLDTrack. Runs FullyCoded, a Cornwall web agency, and built this to keep 500+ client sites in front of him every day.

What happens next

Try TLDTrack free for 7 days

Do it yourself

Start your free trial

Your card is not charged for 7 days. No server to stand up and no selectors to write. Add a domain and the SSL, DNS and expiry checks start straight away.

Start your free trial

Talk it through

Arrange a call with Mark

If you would rather talk through how this works across every site you look after, we can go through it together.

Book a call

05 · Explore

Explore more of TLDTrack

All features overviewEvery check TLDTrack runs and what it costs.For agenciesManage every client domain in one dashboard.TLDTrack vs UptimeRobotHonest feature-by-feature comparison.Free email deliverabilityFree SPF / DKIM / DMARC checker, report by email.iOS & Android appsPush alerts when something breaks.