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Visual Sentinel

visualsentinel.com

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Spec score 8.5 #7 of 37 in DNS Monitoring Software

What it is

Visual Sentinel monitors websites and servers, including page changes that ordinary uptime checks may miss. Its monitoring covers uptime, screenshot-based visual comparison, SSL, DNS, performance, content, APIs, endpoints, and servers. For visual checks, it captures a page in a browser and compares the screenshot with a prior baseline. Users can exclude changing page elements with CSS selectors and set the amount of change needed to flag a capture. Failed uptime checks are repeated; a site is marked down only if it fails from all selected regions. Alerts can go to email, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, webhooks, Prometheus, and browser push. The REST API manages monitors, incidents, status pages, maintenance windows, reports, and notification channels; API access is listed for Business and Agency. The Free plan costs nothing and includes three monitors, 10-minute checks, and one status page. Solo costs $6 a month. Visual Sentinel is built and operated by Acefina LLC and is intended for small teams, agencies, and site owners.

Spec sheet

What it does
Visual Sentinel monitors uptime, performance, SSL, DNS, rendered visual changes and configured content changes from one service.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Purpose
Visual Sentinel monitors websites and servers and detects visual page changes that ordinary uptime checks may miss.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Intended users
The maker describes the product as serving small teams, agencies, and site owners.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
API
The public REST API uses scoped organization keys and exposes monitors, incidents, status pages, maintenance windows, reports, notification channels and servers.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Integrations
The pricing comparison lists Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Cloudflare import and proxy bypass, and server-to-site correlation.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Security
The privacy policy states that data is encrypted in transit with TLS 1.3 and sensitive integration credentials and API tokens are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Privacy
The privacy policy says Visual Sentinel does not sell, trade, or rent personal information and deletes account data within 30 days after account closure.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Support
The company says human support replies typically within 24 hours by email.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Company
Visual Sentinel is built and operated by Acefina LLC and was founded by Rai Ansar.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Maker
Acefina LLC builds and operates Visual Sentinel, which the maker says was founded and built by Rai Ansar.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Alert channels
Supported alert destinations include email, Slack, Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, webhooks and browser push.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
API access limit
The pricing comparison lists API access on Business and Agency, but not Solo or Starter.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
API documentation
The API documentation provides an OpenAPI 3.1 specification, endpoint examples, request authentication guidance and a GitHub mirror.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Client reporting
Business includes scheduled client reports, while Agency includes white-label client reports.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Community description
A Reddit product post describes a permanent free tier with three HTTP/SSL monitors, ten-minute US/EU checks and no credit card.Read 15 Oct 2026 · reddit.com
Content monitoring
Starter and higher plans can extract text from configured CSS selectors and alert when selected content changes.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
DNS monitoring
It keeps six-hour snapshots for selected A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT and NS records and shows observed changes.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Dynamic content
Users can exclude dynamic page elements by CSS selector and set how much of a page must change before a capture is flagged.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Failure confirmation
Uptime failures are checked a second time, and a site is marked down only when it fails from all selected regions.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Founder statement
Rai Ansar said on LinkedIn that the product was built for pages returning 200 OK while checkout, layout or content is broken.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
Google Play developer facts
Google Play lists Acefina LLC as the developer at 30 N Gould St, Sheridan, Wyoming, and says the app encrypts data in transit and permits deletion requests.Read 15 Oct 2026 · play.google.com
Independent listing limitation
ShipThing describes a learning curve for advanced features and says it found no explicit self-hosting information.Read 15 Oct 2026 · shipthing.com
Independent product description
ShipThing describes visual regression, multi-layer checks, AI incident summaries, infrastructure correlation and more than ten alert channels.Read 15 Oct 2026 · shipthing.com
Limit: Capterra notification gap
Capterra’s feature summary says Visual Sentinel includes alerts and real-time monitoring but does not offer the real-time notification feature prioritized by its category data.Read 15 Oct 2026 · capterra.com
Limit: review evidence
G2 says there are not enough Visual Sentinel reviews to provide buying insight.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
MCP server
The vendor publishes an MIT-licensed ESM Node 18+ MCP server with 16 tools, five of which work without an API key.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Mobile app
The Android app provides monitor, incident and recovery views for websites, APIs and servers and supports push notifications.Read 15 Oct 2026 · play.google.com
Monitoring
The service offers uptime, screenshot-based visual comparison, SSL, DNS, performance, content, API, endpoint, and server monitoring.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Notable release
The changelog lists version 2.173.1 on September 26, 2026, fixing signup-source retention when continuing with Sign in with Apple.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Performance monitoring
The service tracks regional request timing and scheduled mobile Lighthouse metrics, with trends that can be viewed alongside Search Console or CrUX data.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Praise: alert coverage
The G2 reviewer praised instant alerts for downtime, performance degradation, certificates, DNS and visual breakage, especially WhatsApp support.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Praise: time savings
The G2 reviewer said the product replaced manual checking of client sites and made website management less stressful.Read 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Product licence
The hosted API documentation labels the Visual Sentinel API proprietary, while the separate MCP server is MIT licensed.Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Rating on Capterra
5.0 out of 5 from 1 reviewRead 15 Oct 2026 · capterra.com
Rating on G2
5.0 out of 5 from 1 reviewRead 15 Oct 2026 · g2.com
Security disclosure
The security policy accepts private vulnerability reports, promises acknowledgement within two business days and does not run a paid bug-bounty program.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Self-hosting
The security page describes Visual Sentinel as a continuously deployed service rather than a downloadable, versioned product.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Server monitoring
Server checks can report CPU, memory, disk, load and agent status and correlate related site failures.Read 15 Oct 2026 · play.google.com
SSL monitoring
It checks certificate expiry, hostname and trust authorization, and records the served leaf certificate.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Uptime monitoring
HTTP and HTTPS checks run from multiple regions, with outage alerts requiring cross-region confirmation.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Visual checks
Visual monitoring captures pages in a browser and compares screenshots with a prior baseline.Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Visual detection
Real Chromium screenshots are compared pixel by pixel against a baseline with a configurable mismatch threshold.Read 15 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com

Plans and prices

Solo $6 a month $54 billed annually; annual equivalent $4.50/month 1 monitor · 1 visual site · 5-minute uptime checks · 30-minute visual checks · 1 server Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Solo $54 a year billed annually 1 monitor · 1 server · 1 visual site · 3 sub-pages per monitor · 1 team member Read 20 Sep 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Starter $12 a month $108 billed annually; annual equivalent $9/month 15 monitors · 5 visual sites · 5-minute uptime checks · 15-minute visual checks · 2 servers Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Starter $108 a year billed annually 15 monitors · 5 visual sites · 2 servers · 5 sub-pages per monitor · 1 team member Read 20 Sep 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Business $39 a month $351 billed annually; annual equivalent $29.25/month 60 monitors · 60 visual sites · 1-minute uptime checks · 15-minute visual checks · 10 servers · API access Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Business $351 a year billed annually 60 monitors · 60 visual sites · 10 servers · 5 status pages · 5 team members Read 20 Sep 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Free Free $0 forever 3 uptime and SSL monitors · 10-minute checks · no card Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Agency $149 a month $1,341 billed annually; annual equivalent $111.75/month 300 monitors · 300 visual sites · 1-minute uptime checks · 15-minute visual checks · 20 servers · 50 team members · white-label reports Read 15 Oct 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Agency $1,341 a year billed annually 300 monitors · 300 visual sites · 20 servers · 50 status pages · 50 team members Read 20 Sep 2026 · docs.visualsentinel.com
Free Free No card required 3 uptime and SSL monitors · 10 min checks Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Solo $12.75 a month $153 billed annually; annual billing 10 monitors · 1 visual site · uptime checks every 5 min · visual checks every 30 min · no client reports Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com
Starter $25.50 a month $306 billed annually; annual billing 15 monitors · 5 visual sites · uptime checks every 5 min · visual checks every 15 min · no client reports Read 5 Oct 2026 · visualsentinel.com

Every Visual Sentinel plan and price →

Strong points and limits

Strong points

  • Checks visual changes against a saved screenshot baseline.
  • Repeats failed uptime checks across selected regions.
  • Supports CSS exclusions for dynamic page elements.
  • Offers alerts through email, chat, and monitoring tools.
  • Free plan includes three monitors and one status page.

Limits

  • Free plan checks every 10 minutes.
  • API access is listed only on Business and Agency.
  • Solo includes one monitor and one visual site.
  • Agency costs $149 a month.

Who it suits

Visual Sentinel suits site owners and small teams that want uptime and visual-change monitoring, as well as agencies managing multiple sites. Its alert channels and API may also suit teams integrating monitoring into existing workflows.

Visual Sentinel in depth

Read the full write-up

Visual Sentinel combines website and server monitoring with browser-based visual checks, making it a fit for site owners and small teams that need more than an uptime signal. Its breadth is a strength, but the 360-minute check interval is a poor match for anyone who needs quick notice of changes or outages.

Overview

A site can remain online while a page’s appearance or content goes wrong. Visual Sentinel pairs uptime checks with screenshot comparisons and monitoring for SSL, DNS, performance, content, APIs, endpoints, and servers, giving operators a wider view than uptime alone. The free tier offers a small starting point; larger teams and agencies can buy substantially more capacity, with client reporting at the upper tiers.

Key features

Visual checks capture pages in a browser and compare them with an earlier baseline. CSS-selector exclusions let users omit dynamic elements, while a change threshold controls how much of a page must differ before a capture is flagged. Those controls help focus alerts on meaningful changes, though the stated 360-minute check interval makes the service better suited to periodic oversight than rapid-response monitoring.

Uptime failures are checked a second time, and a site is marked down only if it fails from all selected regions. This confirmation helps avoid treating a transient or geographically limited failure as a full outage. Resolution checks and record-change alerts are supported; propagation checks are not.

Notifications can reach email, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, webhooks, Prometheus, or browser push. The REST API manages monitors, incidents, status pages, maintenance windows, reports, and notification channels, but access is limited to Business and Agency. That tier boundary matters for teams planning to automate their monitoring workflow.

The privacy policy says data is encrypted in transit with TLS 1.3, while sensitive integration credentials and API tokens are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. It also says personal information is not sold, traded, or rented and account data is deleted within 30 days of closure. Support messages are read and answered by a human, typically within 24 hours.

Pricing

Visual Sentinel has a free plan, a 10-day trial, and paid plans billed monthly. The free plan costs nothing forever and includes 3 monitors, 10-minute checks, and 1 status page. It is a low-commitment way to start, but its three-monitor cap limits how much of a larger site portfolio it can cover.

Solo costs $6 a month, billed monthly, for 1 monitor, 1 server, 1 visual site, 3 sub-pages per monitor, and 1 team member. It suits a single operator with a very small setup, but its one-monitor limit makes the step up from free modest. Starter costs $12 a month, billed monthly, and raises capacity to 15 monitors, 5 visual sites, 2 servers, and 5 sub-pages per monitor; it still allows only 1 team member. That makes it more useful for expanding coverage than for a collaborative team.

Business costs $39 a month, billed monthly, and includes 60 monitors, 60 visual sites, 10 servers, 5 status pages, and 5 team members. It is the first tier with API access and adds scheduled client reports, making it the practical choice for a small team that needs automation or recurring reporting. Agency costs $149 a month, billed monthly, for 300 monitors, 300 visual sites, 20 servers, 50 status pages, and 50 team members. It adds white-label client reports and is aimed at agencies managing monitoring and client communications at larger scale. Both higher plans include API access; teams that need it must budget above Solo and Starter.

Platforms

Visual Sentinel supports web, Android, iOS, and API access. The API is a product capability, but its availability depends on plan: it is included with Business and Agency rather than Solo or Starter.

Who it's for

Visual Sentinel is best for site owners and small teams that want visual comparisons alongside uptime and infrastructure checks, and for agencies that need client reporting at scale. It is less suitable when detection speed is a priority, given the 360-minute check interval, or when a solo user needs API access without moving to a higher-priced plan.

Pros and cons

Pro: Browser screenshot comparisons complement uptime checks, with CSS exclusions and a threshold to reduce flags for expected or minor changes.

Pro: Monitoring spans websites and servers, with broad alert channels and a second regional failure check before declaring downtime.

Pro: Business and Agency combine API access with client reporting features, with white-label reports reserved for Agency.

Con: The 360-minute stated check interval is a major limitation for users who need prompt alerts.

Con: Solo and Starter are single-seat plans and do not include API access, constraining collaboration and automation.

Alternatives

For a dedicated website-monitoring comparison, see Website Monitoring Software; for a DNS-focused shortlist, see DNS Monitoring Software.

Distill Web Monitor is worth considering when device support matters: it spans mobile, desktop, browser extensions, and web, and its free plan allows 25 monitors, including 5 cloud monitors, with 1,000 cloud checks per month. OnWebChange offers a free plan with 3 page trackers and basic daily monitoring, a better fit for a small number of pages checked daily. Dotcom-Monitor has a free plan for up to 25 targets, with checks as often as every 5 minutes from 2 monitoring locations. Downdetector is an alternative for outage notifications, with a free plan for up to 5 favorites and limited daily notifications through the Speedtest app. HostTracker offers a free plan with 2 monitors and checks every 30 minutes, suiting a small setup that prioritizes more frequent checks than Visual Sentinel’s stated interval. Tallwatch provides 10 free monitors with 60-second checks from 3 regions, up to 3 team members, and a custom-domain status page. WebSite-Watcher is another option for bookmark-based monitoring, with a free plan covering 10 bookmarks and a shortest interval of 1 hour. WebSitePulse offers paid monitoring plans, including HTTP performance monitoring at $9 a month with a 10-minute interval and one monitoring location.

Verdict

Choose Visual Sentinel if you want one service to pair browser-based visual comparisons with uptime and broader website and server monitoring, and your monitoring cadence can tolerate a 360-minute interval. Its clearest case is a small operator starting free or an agency that needs higher capacity and client reports. Look elsewhere if fast detection is essential, or if API access is needed on a lower-cost plan.

Verdict

Visual Sentinel describes how visual comparisons and repeat checks work, and lists its monitoring channels and plan capacities. Compare the monitor limits and API availability with the scale of your setup.

Where Specifiction places it

Alternatives to Visual SentinelAll alternatives →