What is the difference between a status page and uptime monitoring?

Uptime monitoring is the system that checks whether a service is reachable and records the result. A status page is the public-facing display that communicates those results, plus incident updates and maintenance notices, to users. Monitoring produces the data; the status page presents it.

Should a status page be hosted separately from your main site?

Yes. If the status page runs on the same infrastructure as your product, an outage can take both down at once, leaving users with no way to confirm what is happening. Hosting it independently or on a CDN keeps it online during the incidents it exists to report.

What should a status page show during an incident?

It should name the affected components, state the current severity (for example partial or major outage), and post timestamped updates as the incident moves from investigating to identified, monitoring and resolved. Clear, frequent updates reduce duplicate support requests and set expectations on a fix.

Are status pages updated automatically or by hand?

Both approaches exist. Manual updates rely on a person changing component status during an incident, while automated status pages flip components based on synthetic monitoring checks, so the page reflects an outage the moment a check fails without waiting for someone to react.

What Is a Status Page?

Reviewed by Ionut Caval · Updated June 2026

A status page is a public web page that shows the current operational state of a service and communicates outages, incidents and scheduled maintenance to users. It is the single place a company tells customers what is happening during a problem, so they do not have to guess or open a support ticket.

A status page turns a confusing outage into a clear, shared source of truth. Instead of every affected user contacting support at once, they check one page that states whether the service is operational, degraded or down, names the components involved, and posts timestamped updates as engineers work the problem. This is why status pages are most useful precisely when things are going wrong: they cut support volume, set expectations on a fix, and signal that the team already knows about the issue.

What a status page shows

Most status pages combine a real-time view with a historical record. A typical page includes:

Component status: a per-service breakdown (for example API, dashboard, payments) marked operational, degraded performance, partial outage or major outage.
Live incident updates: timestamped posts that move through stages such as investigating, identified, monitoring and resolved.
Scheduled maintenance: planned windows announced in advance so expected downtime is not mistaken for an outage.
Uptime history: a rolling record (often 90 days) of uptime percentage and past incidents that demonstrates reliability over time.

How status pages stay accurate

A status page is only as trustworthy as the data behind it. Many are updated by hand during an incident, but the more reliable approach is to drive component status automatically from synthetic monitoring checks that probe each service from outside your infrastructure. When a check fails, the component flips to a degraded or outage state without anyone touching the page. Pairing those external checks with field data from real visitors gives a fuller picture; the post synthetic vs real user monitoring explains how the two layers complement each other.

One detail matters more than any feature: a status page should be hosted separately from the product it reports on. If both share the same servers, an outage takes the status page down with the service, exactly when users need it most. For that reason status pages are usually served from independent infrastructure or a CDN. As a concrete benchmark, a service holding 99.9% uptime over a 30-day month still allows roughly 43 minutes of downtime, and the status page is where those 43 minutes get explained rather than left to speculation. Pulsetic's status pages are hosted independently and update their component status straight from the monitoring checks, so the page reflects reality without manual intervention.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a status page and uptime monitoring?

Uptime monitoring is the system that checks whether a service is reachable and records the result. A status page is the public-facing display that communicates those results, plus incident updates and maintenance notices, to users. Monitoring produces the data; the status page presents it.
Should a status page be hosted separately from your main site?

Yes. If the status page runs on the same infrastructure as your product, an outage can take both down at once, leaving users with no way to confirm what is happening. Hosting it independently or on a CDN keeps it online during the incidents it exists to report.
What should a status page show during an incident?

It should name the affected components, state the current severity (for example partial or major outage), and post timestamped updates as the incident moves from investigating to identified, monitoring and resolved. Clear, frequent updates reduce duplicate support requests and set expectations on a fix.
Are status pages updated automatically or by hand?

Both approaches exist. Manual updates rely on a person changing component status during an incident, while automated status pages flip components based on synthetic monitoring checks, so the page reflects an outage the moment a check fails without waiting for someone to react.

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