Where changedetection.io is stronger
- Price: $8.99 a month for up to 5,000 pages is hard to beat.
- It's open source, so you can run it on your own server and keep everything in-house.
- Browser steps can log in, search or click before checking a page.
- A huge range of alert channels, including Telegram, Matrix and ntfy.
- Fine control with CSS and XPath selectors, trigger text and ignore rules.
Where ChangeGist is different
- Made for people who don't want to set anything up: paste an address and you're done.
- Noise is filtered out of the box, so you don't write rules to ignore dates, view counters or rotating banners.
- AI summaries are included. There's no AI key to create and no separate bill.
- Alerts read like a short note, “Price went down from £34 to £29 (−15%)”, followed by the exact before-and-after wording.
- Extras for businesses: undercut alerts on competitor prices, a Monday digest, monthly PDF reports and shared links for colleagues.
Who each one suits
If you're comfortable with selectors and settings, or want to self-host, changedetection.io is a great choice and costs very little. If you want useful alerts without tuning anything, or you're setting it up for a team that isn't technical, ChangeGist will save you time.
Try it side by side
Add the same few pages to both for a week and compare the alerts you get. ChangeGist is free for 3 days, no card needed.