Boring Utils Expiry Watch and CertAvert are both hosted and email before a certificate or a domain name runs out. Expiry Watch also watches email DNS settings and scheduled jobs, and learns when each certificate usually renews.
| CertAvert | Boring Utils | |
|---|---|---|
| Main product | Certificate and domain monitor | Certificate, domain and job monitor |
| How it runs | Hosted, nothing to install | Hosted |
| Free | 15 domains | 10 domains, no account |
| Paid plans | Starter 25, $50 a year; Plus 50, $100 a year; Pro 100, $150 a year (domains) | Plus 50, $150 a year; Agency 250, $490; MSP 1,000, $990 (or $15, $49 and $99 a month) |
| Billing | Yearly | Monthly or yearly |
| Users per account | 1 | The plan belongs to one email address |
| How often it checks | Twice a day | Daily (Free), hourly for certificates (paid) |
| Expiry alert days | 30 and on expiry (Free); 30, 14, 7 and on expiry (Starter); your own days (Plus, Pro) | 7, 3 and 1 for auto-renewed certificates; 30, 14, 7, 3 and 1 for the rest |
| Short-lived certificates | Alerts at a quarter of the lifetime (under 80 days) | Alerts when a renewal looks late, from each site's own renewal habit |
| Ports other than 443 | Any port | 443 only |
| Untrusted certificate or wrong name | Shown with the reason; emailed on paid plans | Yes alerts |
| Chain check (missing intermediates) | Yes | Shown in its free check; not found among the alerts |
| Revocation check | Yes OCSP or CRL | Not found |
| Renewal window (ARI) | Yes | Not found |
| Post-quantum key exchange | Yes | Not found |
| Certificate change alerts | Shown on every plan; emailed on paid plans | Not found |
| Certificate Transparency logs | Lists other names under your domains; no alert for new ones | Not found |
| Domain name expiry | Registration dates on every plan; reminder emails on paid plans | Yes 30, 14, 7, 3 and 1 days |
| Alert channels | Email, Slack, Discord, Teams | Email; Slack or Teams through the channel's email address |
| API | No | A read-only MCP server for checks |
| Status pages | No | Not found |
| Internal certificates | No the free certavert-scan runs on your own network | No "internal hosts are out of scope" |
| Audit report | Pro (PDF and CSV, checked at /verify) | A monthly report per client (Agency, MSP) |
"Not found": we couldn't find it on Boring Utils's pages, which doesn't mean it isn't there. Boring Utils is a trademark of its owner; CertAvert isn't affiliated with it.
Expiry Watch fits better if your certificates renew by themselves and you only want to hear when a renewal is late, or if you also watch scheduled jobs and email settings. CertAvert fits better for other ports, the chain, revocation and renewal window checks, more domains free, and alerts posted straight to Slack, Discord or Teams.
Sources: boringutils.com/expiry-watch, boringutils.com/pricing, boringutils.com/guides/email-to-slack-or-teams-channel
We check each product's own pages and do our best to keep this right, but mistakes are possible and products change. Something wrong or out of date? Write to support@certavert.com.