Foundational Concepts

This section is dedicated to explanation. It's not about quick fixes or step-by-step instructions — it's here to help you build a deep understanding of uptime monitoring and the principles behind openstatus.

A solid mental model lets you use the tools more effectively, make better decisions for your own systems, and communicate with your team and stakeholders with clarity. We'll explore the "why" behind the "what" — core concepts, best practices, and the design philosophy that guides the product.

Core concepts

• Uptime monitoring — what is it, why does it matter, and how does it work?
• Uptime calculation and values — a look under the hood at how uptime percentages are calculated and what they truly represent.
• Latency vs response time — untangle the difference between these two critical performance metrics.
• Probes, locations, and regions — three words that look interchangeable but aren't.
• Understanding private locations — when to run your own probe and the trade-offs.
• Status reports and incidents — detection vs communication: incidents, report updates, and maintenance windows.

Best practices and philosophy

• Building trust with status pages — how to communicate effectively during incidents and maintain user trust.
• Uptime monitoring as code — the why and how of managing your monitoring configuration in a GitOps workflow.

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