Tagging the first release of Vigilant

Why build another web monitoring application?

There are some amazing monitoring tools available, but they all focus on a few features. Vigilant aims to be an all-in-one solution for web monitoring. From uptime to Lighthouse to DNS. There are a few tools that do this, but none of them are open source.

Additionally, I like to build cool things, and I think Vigilant is cool. The only reason why I've been able to motivate myself and build this project is that I like building.

I've already had some people reach out about the availability of a hosted version of Vigilant, which is a good sign that people are interested in this project. This obviously motivates me even more to keep building.

What does this version include?

Since the first commit I've added five features to Vigilant, these are:

1. Uptime Monitoring

2. Lighthouse Monitoring

3. DNS Monitoring

4. Link issue Monitoring

5. And the most important one, notifications

Please refer to Vigilant's documentation to learn more about how these features work.

Why tag the first release now?

A project like this will never be fully completed, there always can be new features and tweaks added. The project is currently in a state where a few of the core features work. I think it's a good starting point for the first tag.

This means that breaking changes will now be documented, and changelogs and upgrade guides will be published at each release.

Hosted Version

In order to ensure the future of this project, I have to make it financially possible. This is why I've created a hosted version that everyone can use for a monthly or yearly payment. This is the easiest way to get started with Vigilant and requires no experience with hosting applications.

The goal of the self-hosted version is for personal use; however, I cannot check this, and I'm sure that it will be used commercially.
This is why the hosted version contains a few slight changes, such as the availability of teams and multiple users. There currently is no version for a self-hosted version with these features, but this would be a possibility in the future.

I'm offering a 50% discount right now because the application is in beta and does not contain all the features that I'd like. It does not feel right to ask full price for an incomplete application.

Deciding to go Open Source

As a big lover of open source software myself I wanted Vigilant to be open source too.
The core of Vigilant is fully open source, meaning that the essential monitoring features such as uptime tracking, Lighthouse audits, DNS monitoring, and notifications are freely available for anyone to use, modify, and contribute to. This ensures transparency, community-driven improvements, and accessibility for developers and organizations that prefer self-hosted solutions.

However, to sustain the project financially, certain features exclusive to the hosted version such as billing, team collaboration, and multi-user management will remain proprietary. These additions are designed to support businesses that need a streamlined, plug-and-play experience while keeping the core functionality open for personal and community-driven use.

While I can’t completely prevent forks or alternative SaaS offerings based on Vigilant's code, my goal is to create a sustainable model where the open-source community benefits from the project while also offering a convenient, fully managed solution for those who prefer it.

I welcome feedback on this approach and am open to discussions on how to best balance open-source principles with long-term sustainability.

Statistics

I'd like to share some statistics for those who are interested:

• First commit on 18 February 2024

• First release on 05 April 2025 with 272 commits

• 3828 visitors on govigilant.io

• 35 Github stars

• 1 Github issue

• 1 Github PR

• 323 downloads of the docker image

• 6 people in the Discord server

I'd love to track these stats over time to be able to visualize how this project is doing, but for now just plain numbers.

Future plans

I will continue developing Vigilant and keep adding new features. Some of these features include domain expiry, CVE monitoring, and CRON Monitoring. I've got more ideas and will share them in later blog posts.

I'm also happy to hear what you think should be added; join the Discord for a chat!

Feedback

In order for Vigilant to be the best application it can be I'd like to hear your feedback. If you have any suggestions please share it in the Discord server. Suggestions can range from the placement of a button to make it more usable to a feature that is missing.