Different tools for different jobs
Distill.io is a flexible monitor with a browser extension, CSS/XPath selectors, conditions, and local checks that run in your own browser. If you want fine-grained selectors, to watch pages that need your login, or to keep checks on your own machine for free, Distill is a good fit.
PingWhen is deliberately smaller. There is no extension and nothing runs on your computer. You paste a URL, pay with Stripe, and our servers check it on a schedule even when your laptop is closed.
Why people pick PingWhen
- One form. Destination, URL, three switches (changes / is down / is up). No selector picking.
- Webhooks on every plan. JSON POST signed with HMAC-SHA256, retried on failure, and deleted automatically if your endpoint returns 410.
- Uptime in the same watch. Down after two failed checks, up only after down.
- Agent-friendly. An AI agent can read /llms.txt, call
POST /v1/watches, and hand a human the Stripe Checkout link. Same price as humans; no API-only tier. - Flat pricing. Starter $9/month (10 watches, 15 min). Plus $19/month (40 watches, 5 min). +10 watches $5/month.
How a check works
On your plan's interval we fetch the URL with PingWhenBot/1.0. For HTML we drop scripts, styles and comments, keep the visible text, collapse whitespace, lowercase it, and mask ISO-8601 timestamps. We hash that text. The first successful fetch is the baseline and never alerts. After that, a different hash means a change alert with a one-line excerpt of what is new.
What you give up
No CSS/XPath selectors: we watch all visible text on the page. No logged-in pages, no JavaScript rendering, no local/free checks, no conditions like "alert only if the price drops below $X". If you need those, stay with Distill. If you just want to know that a public page changed, went down, or came back, PingWhen is less to configure.
Honest limits
- We watch the HTML we receive. Pages that only render their content with JavaScript (many single-page apps, some store stock widgets) are not supported: we would see an empty shell.
- We watch the whole page's text, not a CSS selector. Pages with rotating quotes, "5 minutes ago" labels, view counters or ads that change the text on every load will alert often. After a burst of alerts we pause that watch for 24 hours and email you a resume link.
- No logins, cookies, or pages behind a paywall. Public URLs on ports 80/443 only, up to 2 MB.
- No free plan. Cancel anytime in the Stripe customer portal.