Compare / Healthchecks.io
norc vs Healthchecks.io
Healthchecks.io is open source and self-hostable, which makes it the obvious choice for teams that want to run their own monitoring infrastructure rather than depend on a vendor. Its pricing is refreshingly simple — per job, starting at $20/mo for 100 jobs — but like every tool on this table, it only watches; it can't write a crontab line or deploy a new job to your machine. norc can't be self-hosted, so if that's your hard requirement, Healthchecks wins outright.
| norc | Healthchecks.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes · 20 jobs |
| Cheapest paid plan | $8/mo · 5 machines | $20/mo · 100 jobs |
| Value metric | flat tier by machine count | per job |
| Jobs per machine | Unlimited | Billed per job |
| Reliability & security | ||
| Jobs keep running if the vendor is down | ✓ real cron runs them | n/a · monitors only |
| Needs inbound access or your SSH keys | No · outbound agent | No · receives pings |
| Preserves hand-edited crontab lines | ✓ only touches its own | n/a · never edits |
| Platform | ||
| Native apps | Desktop (macOS) · iOS · Android · CLI | Web only |
| Monitoring | ||
| Cron-job failure / heartbeat monitoring | ✓ | ✓ |
| Alerting channels | Many | Many |
| Self-host / on-prem | Desktop agent | Yes · OSS |
| Management | ||
| Remotely edit & write cron jobs on your machines | ✓ | — |
| AI / natural-language job creation | ✓ | — |
| Multi-machine fleet management | ✓ | — |
Native apps: Competitor app availability checked against vendor sites and app stores in August 2026. “Web only” means no official native app was found at that time; third-party website wrappers are not counted.
Healthchecks.io starts at $20/mo · 100 jobs. norc charges a flat tier by machine count instead of per monitor, with unlimited jobs on each machine — see norc pricing.
norc vs Healthchecks.io: common questions
- Is norc cheaper than Healthchecks.io?
- Healthchecks.io's cheapest paid plan is $20/mo · 100 jobs; norc's is $8/mo · 5 machines. The two use different pricing units, so it depends on your fleet: norc charges a flat tier by machine count with unlimited jobs on each machine, rather than per monitor or per check.
- Can Healthchecks.io edit cron jobs on my servers?
- Healthchecks.io: —. norc: yes. This is the main difference between the two. Monitoring tools tell you a job failed; norc writes the real crontab on each paired machine, so you can add, change, or remove jobs without opening inbound ports.
- Does Healthchecks.io have native desktop or mobile apps?
- Healthchecks.io: Web only. norc: Desktop (macOS) · iOS · Android · CLI. Most tools in this category are web dashboards only, which matters when a job fails overnight and you want to fix it from a phone rather than find a laptop.
- Do my scheduled jobs keep running if Healthchecks.io goes down?
- Healthchecks.io: n/a · monitors only. norc: real cron runs them. norc never becomes the thing that runs your jobs — the system cron daemon on your own machine does. A norc outage costs you visibility and remote editing, not execution.
- Should I use Healthchecks.io instead of norc?
- If self-hosting is non-negotiable — compliance, air-gapped infra, or just not wanting another vendor in the loop — Healthchecks.io's open-source core is the honest answer, and norc has no self-hosted mode to offer instead.
Pricing and features as of August 2026. See the full compare matrix.