Comparison
Oh Dear vs Little Warden
Two well-regarded tools that solve different problems. Oh Dear is all-in-one monitoring with status pages. Little Warden is SEO and content change detection. Here is a fair comparison, then where a report-led option fits.
These two get compared a lot, but they are not really the same tool. Oh Dear watches whether a site is up and healthy: uptime, SSL, broken links, DNS, performance and scheduled tasks, with public status pages. Little Warden watches whether a site has changed: titles, redirects, robots.txt, canonicals and custom XPath rules, with Search Console sync.
Pick Oh Dear if your question is "is the site working". Pick Little Warden if your question is "has something on the site changed". Plenty of agencies want both, and a branded client report on top, which is where Janitor comes in at the end.
Side by side
The comparison
Competitor figures checked against their live pricing pages.
| Feature | Oh Dear all-in-one monitoring | Little Warden SEO change detection | Janitor report-led |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | €13/mo (5 sites) | £24.99/mo (20 URLs) | $15/mo (5 sites) |
| Free trial | 10 days | 40 days | 30 days |
| Uptime monitoring | Limited | ||
| SSL and domain expiry | |||
| SEO change detection | Basic | Deep, with XPath | Core |
| Performance | Lighthouse | Core Web Vitals | Page-weight budget |
| Public status pages | – | – | |
| Search Console sync | – | – | |
| Email deliverability checks | – | – | |
| Security and privacy checks | Limited | Limited | Included |
| Branded client report | Status pages | Change and renewal reports | White-label PDF |
Pricing verified against ohdear.app/pricing and littlewarden.com/pricing on 22 June 2026.
Fair is fair
Where Oh Dear wins
Whole-site uptime and health
Uptime, SSL, broken links, DNS and Lighthouse, all in one, with every feature on every plan.
Public status pages
Polished status pages with subscriber notifications, brandable for resellers.
Cron monitoring
Alerts when a scheduled task fails to run, which Little Warden does not do.
Fair is fair
Where Little Warden wins
Change detection
The deepest of the three at spotting title, redirect, robots.txt and canonical changes the moment they happen.
Custom XPath checks
Watch any element on any page with a custom rule.
Search Console sync
Pulls Google Search Console data alongside its checks.
Fair is fair
Where a report-led tool like Janitor fits
The branded client report
Neither Oh Dear nor Little Warden leads with a white-label PDF report a client reads. Janitor does, with a 0 to 100 score and prioritised fixes.
Breadth plus reporting
Janitor covers uptime, SSL, DNS, SEO, security, privacy and performance, then turns it into the report that proves the retainer.
For agencies, not just developers
It is priced and shaped for a portfolio of client sites, with a 30-day no-card trial.
The short version
Which should you choose?
If you want all-in-one health and status pages
Best when uptime, SSL, performance and a public status page for your own team matter most.
If you live in SEO change detection
Best when catching the instant a page changes is the job, with XPath and Search Console.
If you bill a retainer and report to clients
Best when the deliverable is a branded health report covering the whole site each month.
Keep reading
Related pages
FAQ
Comparison FAQ
Is Oh Dear or Little Warden better?
They do different jobs. Oh Dear is all-in-one health monitoring with status pages. Little Warden is SEO and content change detection with XPath and Search Console sync. Choose by the question you are trying to answer: is the site working, or has it changed.
Can one tool do both?
Partly. Oh Dear covers basic SEO and Little Warden covers basic uptime, but each is strongest in its own lane. If you want breadth plus a branded client report, Janitor covers monitoring across seven categories and packages it for the client.
Which is cheapest?
At the time of writing Oh Dear starts at €13 a month for 5 sites, Janitor at $15 a month for 5 sites, and Little Warden at £24.99 a month for 20 URLs. They count differently, so map each to your own site or URL count.
Get started
Try Janitor on real client sites
Add a site, run the checks and send a branded report before you pay.
30-day free trial. No credit card required.