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Top 5 Best ‘Website Down’ Checker Sites

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Prepare for the next Gmail, Facebook, or Twitter outage by checking out these “website down” services. These sites tell you if site is down for everyone, or just you. But with many of these websites having such similar-sounding names, it’s hard to keep track of which site does what. We’re here to help. Here are the five best websites for checking the status of your favorite sites and services.

1. Down for Everyone or Just Me?

(Down for Everyone or Just Me?)

Also available through Short URL at isup.me, Down for Everyone or Just Me? offers a minimal, stripped down interface. Just pop in the website’s URL into the search bar, and the site does the rest. Your query will be answered with something like “It’s not just you! [WEBSITE NAME] looks down from here.”

Try it here.

Pros:

  • Also available through Short URL at isup.me
  • Loads fast
  • Clear, understandable responses
  • No distracting ads or other clutter (there are ads, but they are unobtrusive)
  • User-friendly

    • Cons:

  • Doesn’t provide info about outage’s expected duration
  • Doesn’t show if others have recently searched for the same site
  • Doesn’t let you check more than one service at a time
  • Doesn’t explain possible causes
  • If site is up, site doesn’t offer links to troubleshooting

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    2. Google Apps Status Dashboard

    (Google)

    Google’s App Status Dashboard is a simple webpage that shows you the outages all Google services have experienced in the past seven days. Services like Gmail, Hangouts, Google Drive, Maps, and more are all represented. If you are constantly using Google services for work or school, you should have this page bookmarked.

    Try it here.

    Pros:

  • Easy, color-coded dots to indicate status
  • Lets you see a whole bunch of services at a glance
  • Also lets you see past outages from the past few days
  • Provides info, when available, regarding outage resolution progress
  • Provides a link to report issues

    • Cons:

  • Only useful for tracking Google services
  • You do have to click on a dot to get detailed outage info
  • You do need to scroll down to see the whole list
  • You can click “older” to see older outages, but you can only got back a week at a time
  • Top nav bar seems more focused on selling products than helping you with outage info

    • 3. Down Right Now

    (Down Right Now)

    Down Right Now offers an outage monitoring service that is powered by user reports and official announcements. You can see at a glance whether popular websites are “up,” experiencing “possible service trouble,” or having a “Likely Service Disruption.”

    Try it here.

    Pros:

  • See a graph of service disruptions over the past 24 hours
  • Also has a robust Twitter account for timely notifications
  • Shows status for tons of popular websites
  • Also shows date of last outage/interruption
  • Easy to take in all the info in a few seconds

    • Cons:

  • You need to select the option for “refresh automatically”
  • If following on Twitter, you need to follow two accounts to get all the notices
  • Only monitors select sites and services
  • You have to click through to a second page for details (It would be nice if you could hover your cursor over the details button to get a preview)
  • Site design is a little busy

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    4. Is It Down Right Now?

    (Is It Down Right Now?)

    Available through a short URL (iidrn.com), Is It Down Right Now? offers you the ability to check a specific site, or to view the status of popular services like Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, Steam, and many more. Once added to your toolbar, their bookmarklet button will let you to check the status of a site from your browser’s toolbar.

    Try it here.

    Pros:

  • Available through a short URL
  • Toolbar support
  • See up-to-the-minute info while checking a site
  • Shows list of recently down and checked sites
  • Range of “popular sites” is broader than what’s on the main Down Right Now site

    • Cons:

  • A lot of info on one page, with lots of scrolling needed to take it all in
  • Recent comments widget may not always have useful info
  • Doesn’t appear to have an automatic refresh option
  • Troubleshooting info isn’t on main site page, but on results page
  • Loads more slowly than Down for Everyone or Just Me?

    • 5. Just Down For Me?

    (Just Down For Me?)

    Just Down For Me? is handy because, where possible, they provide the IP address of the website from when it was last working. This allows you to try accessing it directly without the domain name. It may not be pretty, but this site can be quite helpful. That being said, it has some issues, which we’ll outline below.

    Try it here.

    Pros:

  • Shows you sites that recently went down, sites that were recently checked, and sites that get checked frequently for outages
  • Provides IP info
  • Offers info on past outages
  • Offers general website info for downed sites
  • Feels less US-focused than other services, nice for international users

    • Cons:

  • Kind of ugly
  • “Recently down” may not be super-accurate: During a recent Facebook outage, Facebook.com didn’t appear on the list
  • Search bar text font style is a little off-putting
  • Slow to load
  • Sometimes takes multiple attempts to send a search request: if you’re using this site, you’re better off clicking the links in the history reports rather than starting a fresh search

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    Prepare for the next Facebook or Twitter outage by checking out these 'website down' services. These sites tell you if site is down for everyone, or just you.