Step‑by‑Step Guide to Install and Use Uptime Kuma for Self‑Hosted Monitoring

Uptime Kuma is an open‑source self‑hosted monitoring tool that can check the online status of services such as HTTP(s), TCP, Ping, DNS, Push and Steam game servers. It provides more than 70 notification channels (e.g., Telegram, Discord, Slack, Email, WeChat Work, DingTalk, webhooks), multilingual UI, simple status pages, monitoring charts and SSL certificate information.

Installation

Docker (quick start)

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

After the container starts, open http://localhost:3001 in a browser.

Manual installation

Ensure the following dependencies are installed:

Node.js >= 14

Git

pm2

Execute the commands below:

# Update npm to the latest version
npm install npm -g

# Clone the repository and install dependencies
git clone https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma.git
cd uptime-kuma
npm run setup

# Option 1: start directly
node server/server.js

# Option 2 (recommended): run with PM2
# Install PM2 if not present
npm install pm2 -g && pm2 install pm2-logrotate
# Start the service via PM2
pm2 start server/server.js --name uptime-kuma

Access the UI again at http://localhost:3001. Useful PM2 commands:

# View console output
pm2 monit

# Save the process list and configure startup
pm2 save && pm2 startup

Additional installation methods (e.g., Kubernetes, Ansible) are documented at https://uptime.kuma.pet/docs/🔧-How-to-Install

Using Uptime Kuma

After logging into the dashboard, add a monitoring item. For example, to monitor GitHub's uptime, configure the target URL, heartbeat interval, retry count, and optionally attach notification services such as WeChat Work or DingTalk.

The dashboard then displays response time, online duration, average latency and certificate details for each monitor.

Charts provide a visual overview, and certificate expiration dates are shown when applicable.

Repository: https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma