Hosted Cachet for the rest of us
The Cachet alternative for indie founders who don't want to run a Laravel server
StatusPageBuddy is Hosted Cachet for the rest of us. Same public status page output, none of the VPS, the PHP 8.2 upgrade, the Composer install, or the monthly security patches.
Cachet is the gold standard for self-hosted status pages: 15K GitHub stars, MIT-licensed, MySQL or PostgreSQL backed, built on Laravel. For teams with a PHP-fluent operator already running a LAMP/LEMP stack, Cachet is a free, sovereign, infinitely-customizable choice. For indie founders who want the same status page output without spinning up a VPS, installing PHP 8.2, running Composer, configuring Nginx, securing the database, and patching Laravel every month, StatusPageBuddy is Hosted Cachet for the rest of us. This page compares the two for the indie-without-a-Laravel-server use.
StatusPageBuddy vs Cachet — feature comparison
| Feature | Cachet | StatusPageBuddy |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting model | Self-hosted only. No official hosted/SaaS offering; you provide the server, the runtime, the database, and the backups | Fully hosted at /s/[slug]. No server, no PHP, no database |
| Total cost of ownership | Software is $0. Real-world TCO includes VPS ($5-30/mo), domain + SSL, plus 1-2 hours/month of maintenance time | $0 forever. 1 page, 5 components, unlimited incidents |
| Setup time | 2-4 hours for a non-DevOps user (provision VPS, install PHP 8.2+, install Composer, run migrations, configure Nginx + SSL, point DNS); the official Docker image (last tagged January 2021) reduces some of this but you still own the host, domain, SSL, and the gap from upstream | Under 5 minutes to a live URL with components and a first incident |
| Technical requirements | PHP 8.2 or later, Composer, MariaDB / MySQL / PostgreSQL / SQLite, a web server (Nginx or Apache), a Linux VPS | None. Open a browser and sign up |
| Version status (2026) | v2.4.1 (Nov 2023) is the latest stable release; v3 has been under rebuild for over a year with no committed launch date. Choosing Cachet today means picking which version to commit to | Single hosted product; new features ship to all users without a v2 vs v3 decision |
| Maintenance burden | You patch Laravel, you upgrade PHP, you back up the database, you renew SSL, you watch CVE feeds for the stack | None for the operator. StatusPageBuddy handles everything server-side |
| Customization | Full. Fork the Laravel app and modify, MIT-licensed | None. Single-purpose hosted page |
Who should switch
- →Indie founders who opened the Cachet install docs and realized step 1 was 'provision a VPS'
- →Solo developers without PHP / Laravel / Linux sysadmin experience
- →Founders who tried Cachet on a VPS, hit a Laravel upgrade two months in, and quit
- →Anyone stuck on the v2-vs-v3 decision who would rather not commit to a stack mid-rewrite
- →Pre-revenue indie founders for whom $720+/year in VPS + maintenance time is too much for a status page
Who should stay on Cachet
- →Teams already running a LAMP / LEMP stack who can drop Cachet next to existing infrastructure
- →PHP / Laravel developers who specifically want a tool they can read, fork, and modify
- →Teams that require 100% data sovereignty and cannot send incident data to a SaaS
- →Teams comfortable maintaining Laravel, PHP, and a database long-term
- →Anyone whose status page customization needs exceed what a hosted product can offer
Questions indie founders ask before switching
Is StatusPageBuddy a true alternative to Cachet?
Yes, for the public-status-page slice of what Cachet does. Cachet is a self-hosted Laravel application backed by MariaDB / MySQL / PostgreSQL / SQLite; StatusPageBuddy is the hosted public-status-page layer, with the underlying infrastructure (Next.js, Supabase, Vercel) operated for you. The Free tier is $0 forever (1 page, 5 components, unlimited incidents). Hosted Cachet for the rest of us is the explicit positioning: same status page a reader sees, none of the VPS, the PHP version pinning, or the database backups.
How does StatusPageBuddy pricing compare to Cachet?
Cachet software is $0. Cachet's real cost is the infrastructure plus the time. A modest VPS that can run PHP 8.2 + a database is $5-30/month, plus a domain ($10/year), plus the 1-2 hours per month you spend patching Laravel, watching PHP CVEs, renewing SSL, and backing up the database. For an indie founder valuing time at $50/hour, that's roughly $720/year in real cost. StatusPageBuddy is $0/year for the Free tier and zero operator-hours. The dollar comparison is misleading; the time comparison is the honest one.
What does "Hosted Cachet for the rest of us" actually mean?
Hosted Cachet for the rest of us is StatusPageBuddy's positioning as the managed version of what Cachet delivers via self-hosting: a public status page with components, incident timeline, and historical context, without you owning the PHP runtime, the Laravel framework, the database, the web server, the SSL cert, or the maintenance cadence. The trade-off is explicit: you give up source-level forking and the option to run Cachet on infrastructure you control, and you get back the under-5-minute setup, the zero-maintenance operation, and the predictable $0 cost forever.
I want to self-host but Cachet is mid-rewrite. Should I wait for v3?
Cachet v3 has been under public rebuild since 2023 with no committed release date; the latest stable v2.4.1 shipped November 2023 and has not had a major update since. For indie founders who want to ship today, that is a real decision: pick v2 (functional but a year-and-a-half stale on the dependency tree), pick v3 (still pre-release, no public stability commitment), or pick a hosted product and avoid the question. Hosted Cachet for the rest of us exists for that third option.
Can I migrate my existing Cachet instance to StatusPageBuddy?
Cachet stores components, incidents, and historical uptime in a relational database you own (MySQL or PostgreSQL). There is no automated importer into StatusPageBuddy as of May 2026. The realistic path is: keep your existing Cachet VPS running until you have re-created the components and any in-flight incidents on StatusPageBuddy, then point your domain or status link at the new URL and shut the VPS down. For most indie projects with a handful of past incidents, copying them across is rarely worth the effort versus starting clean.
Who should NOT switch from Cachet to StatusPageBuddy?
Stay on Cachet if: (1) you already run a LAMP or LEMP stack and adding Cachet costs you no incremental infrastructure, (2) you are a PHP / Laravel developer and forking Cachet to customize is genuinely productive for you, (3) compliance or data-sovereignty requirements forbid sending incident data to a SaaS, or (4) you need extensive customization beyond what a hosted product allows. For these cases, Cachet's MIT-licensed self-hosting is the right tool; StatusPageBuddy targets the inverse profile.
Is StatusPageBuddy still maintained? What's the catch on the free tier?
Yes. Solo founder shipping in public; the build log (commits, funnel data, weekly retros) is at /blog. Economics: the Free tier stays $0 forever because the upcoming Pro tier ($9/month, in development) carries the bill. The honest trade-off versus Cachet: you cannot fork StatusPageBuddy, you cannot run it on infrastructure you own, you cannot read the Laravel source. Cachet wins on every one of those. Hosted Cachet for the rest of us is the inverse promise: those things are real costs to most indie founders, and StatusPageBuddy lifts them off your plate.
What's the StatusPageBuddy roadmap vs Cachet?
Cachet's roadmap is the v3 rebuild (Laravel-native, new admin UI, modernized backend), shaped by 15K stars worth of contributors over a multi-year arc. StatusPageBuddy is a narrow hosted product: the near-term roadmap is email notifications to subscribers, a Status Badge Generator for README and landing pages, and Pro tier billing via Stripe (in development; no committed launch date). StatusPageBuddy will never become a self-hostable Laravel app. That is what Cachet is for, and bundling both would defeat Hosted Cachet for the rest of us.
How long does it take to set up StatusPageBuddy compared to Cachet?
End-to-end on StatusPageBuddy: sign up, name the page (public URL at /s/[slug] live in ~90 seconds), add 5 components plus a first incident in 2-3 more minutes. Call it under 5 minutes, no DevOps. Cachet setup is 2-4 hours end-to-end for a non-DevOps user: provision a VPS, install PHP 8.2 with required extensions, install Composer, clone the repo or pull the Docker image, configure a database, run migrations, configure Nginx as a reverse proxy, obtain an SSL cert, point DNS to the VPS, and watch for the first 500 error. The under-5-minute setup of Hosted Cachet for the rest of us is the largest single reason indie founders pick StatusPageBuddy, after the $720/year saved.
If you opened the Cachet install docs, saw 'provision a VPS' on line 1, and closed the tab, you are the indie founder this product was built for. Sign up free in under 90 seconds. No server, no PHP, no Laravel.
Competitor pricing and feature claims verified 2026-05-19. Subject to change — verify on the provider's own website before relying on this comparison.