What are the best tools for checking if a website is down?

If you're okay with a bit of coding, you could create a PowerShell script to check website status using Invoke-WebRequest and set it to run on a schedule. You can use Send-MailMessage to alert you when it goes down!

I recommend StatusGator! It’s relatively inexpensive and can alert you about outages before the official status updates change. We signed up a few months ago, and it's been really useful!

You might want to check out UptimeKuma for a self-hosted solution. It's pretty handy! Also, Uptimerobot has a free version, although it comes with some limitations.

Statuscake.com is another great option if you're looking for something straightforward. Check it out!

Don't forget about Distill! They have a web monitoring app that you can find on the App Store. It works well to keep tabs on website status.