Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#1

Post by gusowen » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 12:05 AM UTC

After down detector went down with the rest of the internet during the Cloudflare outage today I decided to build a robust, independent tool which checks if down detector is down. Enjoy!!

Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector
downdetectorsdowndetector.com

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#2

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 12:05 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#3

Post by ulf-77723 » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 6:39 AM UTC

Nice! Who doesn’t like a good recursion? Fingers crossed that the down detector for down detector won’t be down, when down detector might be down

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#4

Post by jesperwe » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 6:47 AM UTC

Yeah we had a good laugh when Downdetector was down during the Cloudflare outage yesterday. So this is appropriate. +1

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#5

Post by cweagans » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 6:50 AM UTC

Ah, now we know that the answer to "who watches the watchers?" is "@gusowen". :D

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#6

Post by gblargg » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 6:53 AM UTC

Would it be a good idea to have a second instance of this watching the first one? /s

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#7

Post by ZeroConcerns » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 6:55 AM UTC

Thank you for your service! Now, for an even bigger challenge: since it seems the increased demand for the Cloudflare status page brought down Amazon CloudFront for a bit as well, build a new CDN capable of handling that load as well...

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#8

Post by kijin » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 7:07 AM UTC

ulf-77723 wrote: post #3

Nice! Who doesn’t like a good recursion? Fingers crossed that the down detector for down detector won’t be down, when down detector might be down

Use the original down detector to monitor the down detector for down detector for down detector. Complete the circle!

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#9

Post by 4ndrewl » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 7:07 AM UTC

But we need another one to detect whether yours is still up.

It's downdetectorsdown all the way down.

Re: Show HN: I made a down detector for down detector

#10

Post by ricq » Wed, Nov 19, 2025, 7:09 AM UTC

Is it hosted on Cloudflare?