# What is HostTracker

HostTracker is a website, server and API monitoring service. It runs uptime, performance, blacklist,
certificate and other checks against the targets you configure - from **300+ checkpoints around the world**
plus HostTracker's own internal network - and notifies you the moment something changes.

## What you can monitor

HostTracker offers 14 monitor types (plus site crawl, in limited rollout), grouped by what they answer:

- **Availability** - Website/HTTPS, Ping and Port checks watch whether a target responds at all. DNS query,
  traceroute and whois are available as free [instant-check tools](/getting-started/instant-checks-vs-monitors/),
  not recurring monitor types.
- **Functionality** - API monitors validate REST/JSON endpoints against status, headers and body rules
  ([AssertRuleLang](/monitors/what-a-monitor-is/)); Transaction monitors replay a multi-step browser flow
  (login, add to cart, checkout); Web content check crawls a page in a real browser and asserts on rendered
  text/keywords.
- **Performance** - Page speed (Waterfall) records a full-page load waterfall (DNS, connect, TLS, TTFB,
  content) from a real browser.
- **Infrastructure** - Database (SQL query probes), SNMP and Server counters (CPU/RAM/disk/performance
  counters) watch what's running behind your public endpoints.
- **Security & validity** - SSL/TLS certificate expiry, Domain expiry, DNS blacklist (DNSBL) and Google Web
  Risk checks watch for problems that don't show up as a simple outage.
- **Site crawl** - a scheduled, multi-page crawl that tracks broken links, indexability signals (robots,
  canonical, meta robots) and an overall site-health score across a site; currently rolling out and not on
  every plan.

HostTracker does **not** offer DNS record monitoring, email deliverability/SPF-DKIM-DMARC monitoring,
cron/heartbeat monitoring, real-user monitoring (RUM) or APM, and it does not hold a SOC 2 certification.

## How it fits together

You create [monitors](/monitors/what-a-monitor-is/), decide [where they check from](/monitors/default-locations/),
add [contacts and alerts](/alerts/overview/), and optionally publish a [status page](/status-pages/overview/).
Everything is also available over the [REST API and MCP server](/integrations/overview/), and every account
starts on a [30-day free trial](/account/trial/) with no card required.

## Related

- [Quickstart: your first monitor](/getting-started/quickstart/)
- [Instant checks vs monitors](/getting-started/instant-checks-vs-monitors/)
- [The free trial](/account/trial/)