urlwatch

Urlwatch

urlwatch is an open source tool for monitoring web pages for updates. It works by regularly checking URLs and highlighting changes between versions. It can track content changes, response codes, SSL certificate changes and more. It is useful for monitoring websites or APIs for ch
urlwatch image
web monitoring change-tracking

urlwatch: Open Source URL Monitoring Tool

Monitor web pages for updates with urlwatch, a tool that highlights changes between versions, tracking content, response codes, SSL certificate changes and more.

What is Urlwatch?

urlwatch is an open source command-line tool that monitors web pages for changes and notifies users when there are updates. It checks URLs at regular intervals, stores previous versions of pages, and compares new snapshots to detect changes. Users can customize how often urlwatch checks sites, which parts of pages to analyze, and how they want to receive alerts about changes.

Key features of urlwatch include:

  • Compares page content, SSL certificates, HTTP response codes, and other aspects of pages between checks
  • Highlights added, removed and changed content between page versions
  • Supports many types of change notifications - email, pushover, slack, telegram, MQTT, etc.
  • Schedule custom intervals for checking URLs with cron jobs
  • Filter page content to only check certain parts of pages
  • Open source Python tool that runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, and more
  • Free and easy to install command line utility

urlwatch is useful for monitoring websites and APIs for changes, especially convenient to track key webpages across teams. With customizable checks and notifications, it provides automated alerts about website modifications.

Urlwatch Features

Features

  1. Monitors web pages for changes
  2. Sends notifications when changes are detected
  3. Open source and cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows)
  4. Command line interface
  5. Supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and file URLs
  6. Can track changes in content, HTTP status codes, SSL certificates
  7. Highly customizable checks and notifications
  8. Support for hooks to run custom scripts
  9. Built-in support for slack, mail, pushover and other notifications

Pricing

  • Open Source
  • Free

Pros

Free and open source

Lightweight and easy to use

Very customizable and extensible

Cross-platform support

Can integrate with many notification services

Active development and community support

Cons

Primarily designed for command line usage

Lacks a graphical user interface

Steeper learning curve than GUI alternatives

Notifications can be complex to configure

Not ideal for non-technical users


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