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Better Uptime pings your endpoint from multiple locations to check if it responds with 2xx — it tells you your endpoint is reachable. Webhook Guardian reads the delivery logs that Stripe, Shopify, and GitHub maintain for every webhook attempt — it tells you whether actual webhook events are being delivered. An endpoint can pass every Better Uptime check while Stripe webhooks are silently failing. These tools answer different questions and are best used together.

Better Uptime vs Webhook Guardian: "Endpoint Is Up" Is Not the Same as "Webhook Delivered"

Q: What is the difference between Better Uptime and Webhook Guardian?

Better Uptime monitors whether your endpoint is reachable — it sends HTTP requests and checks for 2xx responses. Webhook Guardian monitors whether webhook events from Stripe, Shopify, and GitHub are actually being delivered — it reads the delivery logs those platforms maintain for every webhook attempt. These are different questions. Better Uptime answers "is my endpoint up?" Webhook Guardian answers "did Stripe successfully deliver the invoice.payment_failed event from 10 minutes ago?"

Q: Does Webhook Guardian replace uptime monitoring?

No. Webhook Guardian and uptime monitors like Better Uptime solve different problems and complement each other. Use Better Uptime to know if your endpoint is down and unreachable. Use Webhook Guardian to know if Stripe, Shopify, or GitHub webhook deliveries are failing as recorded in those platforms' own delivery logs. Both can be true simultaneously: your endpoint might be up but webhook deliveries still failing due to handler bugs, signature errors, or platform-side issues.

May 20, 2026 · 7 min read

Both tools monitor something related to your webhook endpoint. But they answer completely different questions, and confusing the two means you can have a green status board while real webhook failures pile up silently.

Here is the precise distinction — and a real-world scenario where Better Uptime shows green, Stripe shows delivered, and your application state is still broken.

How Does Better Uptime Work?

Better Uptime is an HTTP uptime monitor. It sends HTTP requests to your endpoint URLs from multiple geographic locations on a schedule, checks that your server responds with a 2xx status code within a reasonable time, and alerts you when your endpoint stops responding or starts returning errors.

Better Uptime is excellent at answering one question: is my endpoint reachable right now? If your server crashes, goes offline, or starts returning 500s to all requests, Better Uptime will catch it and alert your team.

How Does Webhook Guardian Work?

Webhook Guardian is a webhook delivery log monitor. Stripe, Shopify, and GitHub each maintain a detailed delivery log for every webhook event they attempt to send — recording the HTTP response code your endpoint returned, the timestamp, the retry count, and the final delivery outcome. Webhook Guardian connects to these platforms via read-only OAuth and polls these logs every 5 minutes.

When Webhook Guardian detects a delivery that the platform recorded as failed, it fires a Slack or email alert containing the event type, error code, retry count, and a one-click replay link. It reads the platform's own authoritative record of what happened — not a synthetic health check.

Why Can Your Endpoint Be "Up" While Stripe Webhooks Fail?

Consider this real scenario. Stripe fires an invoice.payment_failed event to your endpoint. Your handler receives the request and immediately returns 200 OK — acknowledging receipt before processing, which is standard practice. Then your handler begins processing in a goroutine or async task. That processing crashes silently due to a database timeout.

Here is what each tool sees:

Better Uptime: endpoint returned 200 — all good. No alert.
Stripe: delivery recorded as delivered (received 200). No retry. No failure entry in the delivery log.
Your application: billing state not updated. Customer not notified. Revenue impact.

This scenario — silent processing failure after a successful acknowledgment — is not caught by either tool. But consider the more common version: your handler has a signature verification bug introduced in a recent deploy, and it starts returning 500 to Stripe's webhook requests. Better Uptime's synthetic health checks to your endpoint still succeed (they are not Stripe's signed requests). Stripe records delivery failures and starts retrying. Your customers are affected.

Webhook Guardian reads Stripe's delivery log and catches the failures immediately. Better Uptime, which is pinging a different request type, shows green.

How Do Better Uptime and Webhook Guardian Compare Feature by Feature?

Feature	Webhook Guardian	Better Uptime
What it monitors	Platform's webhook delivery log	Whether your endpoint returns 2xx
Data source	Stripe/Shopify/GitHub's own delivery records	Synthetic HTTP requests from multiple locations
Catches platform-side failures	✓ Yes — reads platform delivery log	✗ No — only monitors endpoint reachability
Requires endpoint instrumentation	✗ None — read-only OAuth to platforms	✗ None — just your endpoint URL
Reads Stripe delivery logs	✓ Yes — directly via OAuth	✗ No
Slack alerts with payload	✓ Yes — includes event type, error, retry count	✓ Yes — includes downtime details
Cost per month	From $29/month	From $20/month

When Should You Use Better Uptime?

Better Uptime is the right tool when you need to know:

Whether your endpoint URL is reachable and responding to HTTP requests
Whether your endpoint has gone offline or is returning server errors to all traffic
Response time from multiple geographic locations
SSL certificate expiry and domain status

If your concern is endpoint availability and reachability, Better Uptime is purpose-built for that.

When Should You Use Webhook Guardian?

Webhook Guardian is the right tool when you need to know:

Whether Stripe, Shopify, or GitHub webhook deliveries are actually succeeding as recorded by those platforms
Whether a specific event type — like invoice.payment_failed or orders/paid — is failing to deliver
How many retries Stripe has attempted on a failing webhook before you were notified
The full payload of a failed delivery, so you can replay it once the underlying issue is fixed

Should You Use Both Better Uptime and Webhook Guardian?

Yes. They monitor different things and the failure modes are distinct. Better Uptime catches endpoint outages. Webhook Guardian catches webhook delivery failures that can occur even when your endpoint is fully operational. Both types of failure can affect your users — and neither tool catches what the other catches.

FAQ: Better Uptime vs Webhook Guardian

Can Better Uptime detect Stripe webhook delivery failures?

Better Uptime cannot detect Stripe webhook delivery failures in the way that matters most. It can tell you your endpoint is reachable, but not whether Stripe's actual signed webhook deliveries are succeeding. Your endpoint can return 200 to Better Uptime's health checks while simultaneously failing Stripe's webhook deliveries — for example, due to a signature verification bug that only triggers on Stripe's signed requests. Webhook Guardian reads Stripe's delivery log directly and catches these failures.

What is the difference between Better Uptime and Webhook Guardian?

Better Uptime checks endpoint reachability — it sends synthetic HTTP pings and alerts you if your endpoint goes down. Webhook Guardian checks webhook delivery outcomes — it reads the delivery logs Stripe, Shopify, and GitHub maintain for every event they send and alerts you when those platform-recorded deliveries fail. One monitors whether your endpoint is up; the other monitors whether actual webhook events from third-party platforms are being delivered.

Does Webhook Guardian replace uptime monitoring?

No. Webhook Guardian and uptime monitors solve different problems. Use Better Uptime to catch endpoint outages and reachability failures. Use Webhook Guardian to catch webhook delivery failures recorded by Stripe, Shopify, or GitHub. Both tools can be true at the same time: your endpoint might be up while webhook deliveries are still failing.

Know when Stripe, Shopify, or GitHub webhooks fail — not just when your endpoint goes down. Start a free 14-day trial and get alerted within 5 minutes of any failed delivery, with the full payload and a one-click replay link.

Also comparing: Webhook Guardian vs Datadog and Webhook Guardian vs Checkly. See how webhook delivery monitoring protects SaaS billing teams and e-commerce developers.