Cuckoo vs Dead Man's Snitch
Checked
Dead Man's Snitch is a long-running dead man's switch service by Collective Idea, a software company in Holland, Michigan [2]. Each "snitch" has a check-in URL; if your job doesn't check in within its interval, you get an alert [3]. It offers a free plan with one snitch and paid plans from $5/month, all with unlimited team members [1].
Cuckoo follows the same dead man's switch idea with a ping URL per job
(https://cuckoo.metastic.ch/ping/YOUR-UUID). It adds /start signals for run duration, explicit /fail and
exit-code pings, and lets you set either a period or a cron expression with a time zone. It also accepts Sentry
SDK cron check-ins. Plans: Free (20 checks), Team CHF 12/month (200 checks), Business CHF 39/month (1,000 checks). Cuckoo is new and has a short track record.
Prices and features were checked on 2026-11-05 on Dead Man's Snitch's public plans page, FAQ and docs, and may have changed since. Cuckoo's prices are its list prices on that date (CHF, VAT may apply). Dead Man's Snitch is a trademark of its owner. Cuckoo is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Dead Man's Snitch or Collective Idea.
At a glance
| Cuckoo | Dead Man's Snitch | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 20 checks, 30 days of history | The Lone Snitch: 1 snitch [1] |
| Paid plans | Team CHF 12/month (200 checks), Business CHF 39/month (1,000 checks) | Little Birdy $5/month (3 snitches), Private Eye $19/month (100), Surveillance Van $49/month (300) [1] |
| Team members | Free 3, Team 10, Business 50 | Unlimited on paid plans [1] |
| Schedule | Period + grace, or cron expression + IANA time zone + grace | Fixed intervals from 1 minute to monthly [2] |
| Time zone | Per check | All schedules use UTC [2] |
| Free plan intervals | All schedule options | Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly [2] |
| Failure reports / exit codes | /fail and /<exit code> on all plans |
Error Notices via ?s=$?, Surveillance Van plan [2] |
| Run duration (start signal) | /start + max runtime |
Not listed on the pages we checked |
| Smart Alerts | No | Yes, plan-dependent [2] |
| Agent | No (plain HTTP) | Field Agent, which sends the exit status automatically [1][2] |
| Integrations | Email, Slack, Discord, signed webhooks | Slack, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, Microsoft Teams, Amazon SNS, ilert, VictorOps, webhooks (Private Eye and up) [1][3] |
| Email check-ins | No | Yes [3] |
| Sentry SDK cron check-ins | Yes (DSN-based) | Not listed on the pages we checked |
| Operator | metikular GmbH, Switzerland; EU hosting | Collective Idea, Holland, Michigan [2] |
Key differences
Intervals vs cron expressions
Dead Man's Snitch works with fixed intervals (1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes; 1 to 12 hours; daily, weekly, monthly) evaluated in UTC [2]. That suits jobs that run "every hour" or "once a day". It is harder for schedules like "weekdays at 06:30 Europe/Zurich" or "the first Monday of the month". Cuckoo lets you enter the same cron expression your crontab uses, with a time zone, so DST shifts and irregular schedules line up.
Failure signals
On Dead Man's Snitch, sending the exit status (?s=$?) and getting Error Notices requires the Surveillance Van
plan at $49/month [1][2]. Cuckoo's /fail and exit-code pings, and /start for measuring duration and catching
hung jobs, are part of every plan.
Free tier
The free Lone Snitch plan has one snitch with standard intervals [1][2]. Cuckoo's Free plan has 20 checks. For more than one job without paying, Cuckoo (or Healthchecks.io) goes further.
Maturity and integrations
Dead Man's Snitch has been running for many years, has an agent (Field Agent), email check-ins and a list of on-call integrations including PagerDuty and Opsgenie [1][3]. Cuckoo has fewer integrations and is new.
When to choose Dead Man's Snitch instead
- Your jobs run at simple fixed intervals and you like the snitch model.
- You want Field Agent or email check-ins [2][3].
- You need native PagerDuty, Opsgenie, Teams or SNS integrations [3].
- You want unlimited team members on a small paid plan [1].
When Cuckoo fits better
- You have more than one job and want a free plan (Cuckoo Free: 20 checks).
- You need cron expressions and time zones instead of UTC intervals.
- You want start/fail/exit-code signals without upgrading to a higher plan.
- You already send Sentry SDK cron check-ins.
FAQ
Does Dead Man's Snitch support cron expressions?
Its FAQ lists fixed intervals and shows the cron expression used for each alert time, but we did not find a way to enter your own cron expression [2]. Cuckoo accepts any standard five-field cron expression with a time zone.
How do I move a snitch to Cuckoo?
Create a check with the same schedule and grace time, then replace the nosnch.in URL in your job with
https://cuckoo.metastic.ch/ping/YOUR-UUID. If you used ?s=$?, use /ping/YOUR-UUID/$? instead.
Which is cheaper for 50 jobs?
Dead Man's Snitch's Private Eye plan covers 100 snitches for $19/month [1]. Cuckoo's Team plan costs CHF 12/month for 200 checks, so 50 jobs fit with room to grow. Both prices exclude taxes; we don't convert currencies.
Sources
- Dead Man's Snitch plans, https://deadmanssnitch.com/plans (checked 2026-11-05)
- Dead Man's Snitch FAQ (intervals, UTC, Error Notices, Smart Alerts, operator), https://deadmanssnitch.com/faq (checked 2026-11-05)
- Dead Man's Snitch documentation (check-in URLs, check-in methods, integrations), https://deadmanssnitch.com/docs (checked 2026-11-05)