Solo founder on-call without PagerDuty
PagerDuty and Opsgenie assume rotations, escalation policies, and managers who approve on-call pay. A solo founder at 2 a.m. needs a phone buzz, a rollback checklist, and maybe one status post — not a schedule swap with themselves.
StillOnline covers the lightweight layer: HTTP checks on your production URL, Telegram owner alerts via the official StillOnline bot, and an optional public status page so support macros stay honest. Free is one channel; Pro adds the rest when revenue justifies it.
Quick answer
Skip PagerDuty until more than one human shares production duty on a calendar. StillOnline sends owner alerts to email, Telegram (StillOnline bot), or Slack after failed probes — Free picks one channel. Add a hosted status page at stillonline.tech/.../s/... when buyers ask “is it down?” (Telegram setup). Escalate to full incident tooling when missed pages cost money or sleep.
Stack that fits one person
| Layer | Solo-friendly tool | When to outgrow |
|---|---|---|
| Detection | StillOnline HTTP probe | Multi-region SRE team |
| Alert | Connect Telegram → StillOnline bot | Need phone tree + manager |
| Comms | StillOnline public page + manual post | Dedicated comms lead |
| Postmortem | Notion doc | Compliance-driven ITSM |
PagerDuty shines when two pagers must fire in sequence. With one phone, Telegram is faster to configure (email alerts if you hate mobile apps).
Five-minute on-call bootstrap
- Ship
GET /health(quickstart). - StillOnline project on production URL.
- Settings → Connect Telegram → Start the StillOnline bot (guide).
- Snippet in personal runbook: mute alert only after green probes return.
- Paste status URL in docs when support volume appears (launch checklist).
Free limit: one owner channel — Telegram or email or Slack. Pick the device that is always on you.
When to add PagerDuty (or similar)
- Two+ engineers with fair rotation requirements.
- Contractual response time measured in minutes with fines.
- Integrations with enterprise ITSM (ServiceNow, Jira Service Management).
- You already pay for a suite that bundles paging.
Until then, enterprise status stacks are usually heavier than the problem.
Night-of playbook (keep it short)
- Telegram ping → open StillOnline dashboard.
- Confirm probe URL — not CDN blip (redirects/antibot).
- Roll back or toggle maintenance (scheduled maintenance).
- Post incident on status page (template).
- Reply to support with the same link.
FAQ
Does StillOnline replace PagerDuty entirely?
For solo on-call, often yes for detection + notify. It does not provide on-call schedules, escalation tiers, or phone bridges. Add PagerDuty when a second engineer must be woken automatically.
Should solo founders enable public StillOnline pages?
When external users exist — yes for trust. Pre-revenue, alerts-only is fine (when you don't need a page).
How do I avoid alert fatigue on StillOnline?
Point checks at stable /health endpoints, not login pages that redirect (probe pitfalls). Tune maintenance windows instead of deleting checks.
Further reading
Telegram alerts when your service goes down
Get Telegram DM alerts when an HTTP check fails, recovers, or stays up 24h. Link the StillOnline bot in settings — no BotFather or webhook URL needed.
Email uptime alerts for SaaS owners
StillOnline emails owners when HTTP checks fail, recover, or hit 24h uptime. Throttling, Free vs Pro channels, and how email compares to Telegram bot alerts.
Side project production monitoring checklist
Ship health URL, external uptime checks, a public status page, and owner alerts before your side project has paying users. StillOnline Free limits included.
When You Don't Need a Status Page Yet
Pre-revenue side projects and local tools often skip public status pages. Signals you need one soon—and when StillOnline Free with Telegram alerts is enough later.