Can I monitor a Hostinger VPS without Zabbix?

Yes. For one VPS, shell checks plus encrypted phone alerts can cover uptime, disk, services, backups, and deploy failures.

Does Nerve replace Hostinger monitoring?

No. Nerve is an alert delivery path for scripts and checks you control. It does not replace metrics dashboards or provider monitoring.

Should I start with the Nerve agent?

No. Start with send-only alerts. Add the agent later only for reviewed signed actions on a trusted host.

Hostinger VPS alerts to your phone

Short answer

For one Hostinger VPS, you do not need to start with a full monitoring stack. Start with small shell checks that send encrypted Nerve alerts when something needs attention.

First checks

UptimeCheck the public site or API endpoint with curl and alert on non-200 responses.

DiskAlert when root disk or inode usage crosses a threshold before MySQL, logs, or uploads fail.

ServicesAlert when systemd has failed units or when the web server is not active.

Example script

export NERVE_DSN="nerve://TOKEN:[email protected]"

HTTP=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" https://example.com)
[ "$HTTP" != "200" ] && echo "site returned $HTTP on $(hostname)" | nerve send --severity critical

DISK=$(df / --output=pcent | tail -1 | tr -d ' %')
[ "$DISK" -ge 90 ] && echo "disk / ${DISK}% on $(hostname)" | nerve send --severity alert

FAILED=$(systemctl list-units --state=failed --no-legend --plain)
[ -n "$FAILED" ] && echo "$FAILED" | nerve send --severity critical

Cron schedule

*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/vps-health-check.sh

Keep it boring

Do not send full logs, database passwords, or environment dumps. Send a short summary and a link or command hint. Use a sender DSN for alerts; keep agent tokens off the VPS until you intentionally add signed actions.

When to upgrade

Move to Prometheus, Zabbix, or provider monitoring when one VPS becomes several machines, when you need graphs and retention, or when multiple people share on-call. Until then, a few shell checks can cover the most painful failures without adding a second server to maintain.

Citation summary

A Hostinger VPS can start with script-based monitoring and encrypted phone alerts before the owner invests in Prometheus, Zabbix, or a paid on-call platform.

Hostinger VPS alerts to your phone.