Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Flashlight VS OutageDeck

Compare Flashlight VS OutageDeck and see what are their differences

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Flashlight logo Flashlight

Control your Mac with a keystroke.

OutageDeck logo OutageDeck

Check the cloud and SaaS vendors your product depends on without opening every status page. Official-source timelines, observed uptime history, and alerts to email, Slack, Teams, Discord, or webhooks. Five-provider email alerts are free.
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  • Flashlight Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-18
  • OutageDeck Pick your vendors, or paste a package.json. One answer, one shareable link.
    Pick your vendors, or paste a package.json. One answer, one shareable link. //
    2026-07-31
  • OutageDeck Is it you, or is it them? Live status for your whole vendor stack.
    Is it you, or is it them? Live status for your whole vendor stack. //
    2026-07-31
  • OutageDeck Your coding agent checks whether the vendor is down before it blames your code.
    Your coding agent checks whether the vendor is down before it blames your code. //
    2026-07-31
  • OutageDeck Every incident from the last 30 days, all from official sources
    Every incident from the last 30 days, all from official sources //
    2026-07-31
  • OutageDeck Alerts to email, Slack, Teams, Discord, or webhook. Free for 5 vendors.
    Alerts to email, Slack, Teams, Discord, or webhook. Free for 5 vendors. //
    2026-07-31
  • OutageDeck Observed vendor-published uptime history and incident timelines, per provider.
    Observed vendor-published uptime history and incident timelines, per provider. //
    2026-08-17
  • OutageDeck Cloud and SaaS vendor status, based on official machine-readable feeds.
    Cloud and SaaS vendor status, based on official machine-readable feeds. //
    2026-08-18
  • OutageDeck Free forever tier. Paid from $19. No card to start.
    Free forever tier. Paid from $19. No card to start. //
    2026-07-31

I built OutageDeck because I got tired of opening a dozen status pages whenever something broke, trying to work out whether the problem was mine or somebody else's.

OutageDeck reads the official machine-readable status feeds cloud and SaaS vendors publish about themselves. It normalizes current state, affected services, incident updates, and source timestamps into one stack view.

The boundary matters. A vendor feed is not independent truth and can acknowledge an incident late. OutageDeck is an index and a second signal, not a replacement for direct provider checks or synthetic probes from your own regions. Every record links back to the official source. OutageDeck's own health endpoint is also checked from a separate GitHub-hosted workflow, with public run history at https://github.com/outagedeck/status-check/actions/workflows/outagedeck-health.yml.

You can check a stack without an account. Free accounts add email alerts for five providers. Paid plans start at $19 a month and add Slack, Teams, Discord, webhooks, unlimited providers, and private Statuspage or Instatus feeds.

Incident history stays available after the vendor removes its banner. Developers can use the keyless JSON API, OpenAPI spec, RSS feeds, README badges, CLI, MCP server, GitHub Action, and Open WebUI tool.

Built and run by Kerolos Atallah in Cairo. Not affiliated with any provider it tracks.

Flashlight

Pricing URL
-
$ Details
Platforms
-
Release Date
-

OutageDeck

$ Details
freemium $19 / Monthly (Starter)
Platforms
Web
Release Date
2026 July
Startup details
Country
Egypt
State
Cairo
Founder(s)
Kerolos Atallah
Employees
1 - 9

Flashlight features and specs

  • Extensive Customization
    Flashlight offers extensive customization options that allow users to tailor their Spotlight experience to their needs, including custom search sources and workflows.
  • Enhanced Productivity
    With Flashlight, users can speed up their workflow by accessing apps, files, and web searches more efficiently through the enhanced Spotlight search capabilities.
  • Third-Party Integration
    Flashlight supports various plugins and integrations, enabling users to pull information and execute commands from a wide array of services.
  • Open Source
    It is an open-source project, which allows developers to contribute to its development and add new features or plugins.
  • Free to Use
    Flashlight is available for free, making it a cost-effective solution for enhancing Mac's Spotlight search.

Possible disadvantages of Flashlight

  • Potential System Instability
    As with any third-party software that integrates deeply with the OS, there's a risk of potential system instability or conflicts with macOS updates.
  • Limited Support
    Being an open-source project, it might not have extensive official support or regular updates compared to commercial software.
  • Learning Curve
    New users may experience a learning curve when navigating and utilizing the wide array of customizations and plugins available.
  • Plugin Compatibility
    Not all plugins might work perfectly, and some may have compatibility issues with certain versions of macOS.
  • Security Risks
    Using plugins from various sources can introduce security risks if the plugins are not properly vetted or if they contain vulnerabilities.

OutageDeck features and specs

  • Providers tracked
    Cloud and SaaS vendors with official machine-readable status feeds
  • Alert channels
    Slack, Teams, Discord, email and webhooks, with a test-fire button
  • Developer API
    JSON API (OpenAPI 3.1), RSS feeds, embeddable SVG status badges
  • Data Sources
    Official machine-readable vendor sources only. No crowd reports or synthetic probes
  • Uptime History
    Observed uptime history from archived vendor-published status, with partial and regional impact split
  • Free Tier
    Email alerts for 5 providers, no card required

Analysis of Flashlight

Overall verdict

  • Flashlight is generally considered good if you're looking to boost your Spotlight functionality and are comfortable with using or installing third-party plugins. However, the app may not be maintained for newer macOS versions, so users should check compatibility and community updates.

Why this product is good

  • Flashlight for macOS is known for extending the capabilities of Apple's Spotlight search. It allows users to run custom workflows, search the web, translate text, execute scripts, and much more directly from the Spotlight interface. It enhances productivity by integrating with many third-party services and applications.

Recommended for

    Tech-savvy users who want to enhance their macOS experience, those who rely heavily on Spotlight for navigation and productivity tasks, and users who enjoy customizing their desktop environment with additional features.

Flashlight videos

Testing the Best Rated Flashlights on Amazon

More videos:

  • Review - TOP 5 BEST RECHARGEABLE FLASHLIGHT 2021
  • Review - Olights Compared + BIG SALE - Flashlight Review

OutageDeck videos

No OutageDeck videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Flashlight and OutageDeck)
Tool
100 100%
0% 0
Uptime Monitoring
0 0%
100% 100
OS & Utilities
100 100%
0% 0
Monitoring Tools
0 0%
100% 100

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Flashlight and OutageDeck.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

OutageDeck's answer:

  • Frontend / app: Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
  • Data: Supabase Postgres. Every upstream feed is validated with Zod, so provider format drift fails loudly instead of corrupting data
  • Ingestion: each vendor's official feed polled every 10 minutes, with per-provider failure isolation, so one broken feed never blocks the rest
  • Alerting: a delivery ledger with exactly-once claims, so overlapping runs never double-page anyone

What's the story behind your product?

OutageDeck's answer:

I got tired of opening a dozen vendor status pages during every incident, just to work out whether the problem was mine or somebody else's. So I built the thing I wanted.

It launched in July 2026 as one live board over the official status feeds of cloud and SaaS vendors teams depend on. The catalog changes as official sources are added or removed.

The rule from day one: official machine-readable sources only. No crowd reports, no scraping. If a status can't be traced back to the vendor's own feed, it doesn't get published.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

OutageDeck's answer:

Anyone whose incident channel regularly starts with "is AWS down, or is it just us?":

  • DevOps, SRE, and platform engineers. Answer "is it us or them?" in seconds during an incident.
  • Small SaaS teams. Your uptime depends on other people's clouds, so see whether a vendor has acknowledged a problem before changing your own stack.
  • Agencies and MSPs. Watch the vendor stacks of many clients from one place.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

OutageDeck's answer:

Choose it when your problem is third-party vendor status, not when you need synthetic monitoring of your own application.

  • Fast triage. One stack view normalizes current status, affected services, source timestamps, and incident history across the cloud and SaaS vendors your product depends on. You can use it without an account.
  • Traceable, limited claims. Every record links to the vendor's official source. Providers can acknowledge incidents late, so OutageDeck should be a second signal beside direct provider checks and probes from your own regions. Its own health endpoint is checked from a separate GitHub-hosted workflow with public run history.
  • Useful exits. Free accounts add email alerts for five providers. Paid plans add Slack, Teams, Discord, webhooks, and private Statuspage or Instatus feeds. Developers can use the keyless JSON API, RSS, badges, CLI, MCP server, GitHub Action, or Open WebUI tool.

What makes your product unique?

OutageDeck's answer:

OutageDeck only reports what vendors officially publish. Every status comes from the provider's own machine-readable feed, never crowd reports and never scraping. Then it holds vendors to what they said:

  • Observed uptime history from archived vendor-published status, with honest partial and regional impact framing
  • Every incident links back to its source on the vendor's own status page
  • One dashboard for the cloud and SaaS vendors your product depends on, with alerts to Slack, Teams, Discord, email, or webhooks
  • Bring your own feed on paid plans: point it at any Statuspage or Instatus page it does not track yet
  • A JSON API, RSS feeds, README badges, and an MCP server so a coding agent can check the vendor before it blames your code

User comments

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Flashlight and OutageDeck, you can also consider the following products

Tiny Flashlight + LED - Tiny Flashlight + LED is free to use application that can be used anywhere else, having nicely built-in functionality.

StatusGator - Early outage alerts for every app you rely on

Simple Flashlight - A clean flashlight with an extra bright display and customizable stroboscope.

IsDown.app - When a vendor goes down, does your team find out in seconds or after users start complaining? IsDown monitors 6,000+ official status pages and alerts your team within seconds across Slack, PagerDuty, Datadog, and more. 14-day free trial

Task Killer - Task Killer is an application which automatically forces other applications to stop which are running in the background, making you enhance your smartphone performance and battery life.

IncidentHub - Real-Time Vendor Monitoring That Actually Works