Changd is a open source web monitoring application and a free alternative to ChangeTower.com, Hexowatch.com, and other SaaS-based solutions. Changd can currently be used for automated monitoring visual site changes (screenshots), XPath’s or API’s.
Changd is developed using Typescript, React and AntD for UI, and the API/backend is written in JS and running on Node.js. I developed Changd because I wanted a free website monitoring solution that I could host locally and have full control over.
Changd has multiple configuration options and screenshots can be stored on Amazon S3 or locally. Notifications can be sent using your own SMTP service or Amazon SES.
Monitoring Use Cases
- Content is changed on a website
- Online shopping price changes
- Get notified when a news article is changed
- Detect changes in API responses
- Monitor specific text (via XPath) changes on a website
- Your website gets defaced, hacked, or changed without your knowledge
- Monitor your site availability (online or offline)
- Monitor competitor websites for changes
- Be sure content is displayed correctly
Features
- Monitors Visual changes, APIs or HTML XPaths
- Run using docker, locally or in a scaled node environment
- Quickly and easily setup new jobs
- Notify one or multiple email addresses when a condition is met
- Visual screenshot of website changes via email notifications
- Notification options for SMTP or Amazon SES Notifications
- Store screenshots in AWS S3 or Locally
- Store data in Postgres DB
- Includes a history of changes
- Usage charts
- Supports multiple users
- Open Source
Changd is an open source alternative to apps like Stillio, ChangeTower, Hexowatch, VisualPing or Wachete.
Getting Started
Prerequisites
Running Locally:
Node.js/npm
Or using Docker:
Docker
Running from Docker
Running from docker is the quickest and easiet method for testing the application. Clone the repo and run:
git clone https://github.com/paschmann/changd
docker-compose up
Open your browser to http://localhost:80
Create a new account using the “Register” button on the login screen.
Running Locally
Installing
- Clone/download the Changd repository or a release
- Install npm packages in the frontend and server folders
- Set variables in the server/.env (Copy from .env_template)
git clone https://github.com/paschmann/changd
cd changd
cd server
cp .env_template .env
npm install
cd ..
cd frontend
npm install
Running
I suggest opening two terminal windows to run the frontend and the backend, if you want the Cron service to run in the background periodically, you will need a third terminal as well.
cd server
npm run dev
cd ..
cd frontend
npm start
Optional:
cd server
npm run crondev
Once running, your web application frontend should be available on http://localhost:3000, the API/backend should be available on http://localhost:8000. The frontend API calls will be proxied to port 8000 using the proxy referenced in the frontend/package.json file.
License
This project is licensed under the MIT License – see the license file for details
