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Guide/Moving in

Moving from Better Stack to up4.

You will have your Better Stack monitors running in up4 while Better Stack keeps running, so you can compare both before you switch your alerts.

  • Who: Anyone who can create monitors in your Company
  • Time: One sitting, then 48 to 72 hours side by side

You need a Better Stack API token with read access and the people or channels that should receive alerts. In that one sitting you move a first batch.

Match Better Stack’s words to up4’s

Better Stackup4What to know
MonitorMonitorsup4 has HTTP, ping, TCP and DNS checks. Better Stack’s UDP, SMTP, POP, IMAP and Playwright monitors have no counterpart.
HeartbeatScheduled jobsYour job checks in with up4 at a URL.
Escalation policyAlert plansWho is told, in which order, after which wait.
On-call calendarOn-call rotationsBuilt again in up4.
Integration (Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zapier, webhooks)Alert channelsYou connect each one again.
Status pageStatus pagesYou build it again in up4.
IncidentIncidentsup4 opens its own incidents from its own checks.

Export your monitors and import them

Better Stack’s documentation describes importing monitors into Better Stack. We found no export of the monitor list in the dashboard documentation. The documented route out is the Monitors API: GET /api/v2/monitors with a Bearer token, returned in pages. Turn that response into a CSV file.

Steps

  1. List your monitors through the API

    Follow the pages of the response until its next link is empty. Keep the name, address, check frequency, required keyword and regions of each monitor.

  2. Write the CSV file with up4’s column names

    Named like this, the columns are recognized without any mapping. Better Stack’s check frequency is in seconds, which up4 accepts as it is.

    pronounceable_name    →  name
url                   →  url
check_frequency       →  interval
required_keyword      →  keyword
regions (us, eu, as, au)  →  regions (eu|us|asia|au)

    Do not name a column pronounceable_name: in up4 that name sets the Spoken name, not the display name. Do not keep Better Stack’s monitor_type column either. Its values differ from up4’s, so set it to Ignore this column.

  3. Open Import websites

    Choose Choose CSV file or paste the file. up4 accepts up to 500 rows and 2 MB at a time. Under Map columns, every column needs a field or Ignore this column.

  4. Choose Preview import, then create

    The preview creates nothing. Read each row, fix or exclude errors, and tick Create paused for setup review if you want to look first.

How you know it worked

View imported monitors lists exactly the monitors you created. A monitor reads as pending until its first check result arrives.

See what does not carry over

  • History. Check results, uptime figures and incidents stay in Better Stack. up4 starts measuring with its first check.
  • Escalation policies and on-call calendars. Create an Alert plans entry and an On-call rotations entry in up4, then assign them to the monitors.
  • Integrations. Connect each channel once in up4. The import only assigns channels that already exist.
  • Heartbeats. The import creates monitors only. Create each Scheduled jobs entry and swap the URL in your job. Both services accept /fail at the end of the URL to report a failed run; up4 also accepts an exit code there. 
    https://incidents.betterstack.com/api/v1/heartbeat/<token>
https://app.upfour.io/v1/heartbeat/<slug>
  • Status pages. Build them again.

What up4 does not do here

up4 does not read your Better Stack account and has no one-click migration. You bring the file; up4 shows a preview before it creates anything.

Expect these differences

  • Confirmation. up4 does not alert on one failed check. A change of state needs 3 consistent observations: the first differing check plus 2 instant re-checks. Read your Better Stack settings before you compare alert timing.
  • Job timing. Better Stack’s “Expect a heartbeat every” and “grace period” become Expect a check-in every and with a grace period of.
  • Regions. Better Stack names its Asia region as; up4 writes asia in a CSV file.
  • Price per check. Every check type costs €9 per million checks. One monitor checked every minute from one region comes to €0.39 a month. Each extra region repeats the checks. See What costs money.

Run both tools side by side

  1. Pilot three to five websites that matter, with one alert channel.
  2. Leave Better Stack running. 48 to 72 hours is a rule of thumb, not a requirement.
  3. Import the rest of your list.
  4. Send a test alert per channel and confirm it arrived. Then turn off the alerts in Better Stack.

The switching overview has the same plan in short.

Take your monitors back out

Open Monitor tools in the monitor list and choose Export monitors (CSV). The file imports again into this or another up4 account. Passwords, request headers and proxy settings are not included. For Better Stack, use the import described in its documentation, which takes one URL per line.

If something is off

  • The preview button stays disabled: every column must be mapped or set to Ignore this column, and each field only once.
  • A region shows as unavailable: it has no healthy checker right now. Choose another region.
  • More fixes are in the import guide.
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