changedetection.io - Website Change Monitor - AMI by cloudimg

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

changedetection.io is a self-hosted service that monitors web pages for changes and notifies you when something you care about is added, removed, or updated. Point it at any URL, optionally narrow it to a CSS or xpath region, and it periodically re-fetches the page, stores a snapshot, and shows you a clear visual diff of what changed. This AMI delivers changedetection.io fully installed and running behind an nginx reverse proxy, so a change-monitoring console is serving within minutes of launch.

Deploying changedetection.io from source requires installing Docker, configuring a reverse proxy with WebSocket support, setting up persistent storage, hardening credentials, and building health checks - hours of work for each environment. This AMI eliminates that effort entirely. You get a production-hardened stack with automatic container restart, a dedicated data disk for independent resizing, and a unique per-instance password generated on first boot with no shared or default credentials. Compared to SaaS alternatives, you retain full data ownership on your own AWS infrastructure, avoid per-watch pricing limits, and control check frequency without throttling. Backed by 24/7 cloudimg support, you get the convenience of a managed solution with the flexibility of self-hosting.

changedetection.io runs as a container bound to the loopback interface and fronted by nginx on port 80, with the WebSocket upgrade its live-updating watch list needs already configured. The Docker engine and the reverse proxy start on boot and the container restarts on failure. All settings, page-content history snapshots, and diffs live on a dedicated data disk so they are independently resizable and separate from the operating system disk.

Add a watch for any URL and choose how often it is checked. Restrict monitoring to a page region with a visual selector, CSS, or xpath so navigation and adverts do not create noise. Every check stores a snapshot and produces a side-by-side or inline diff highlighting exactly what changed. Get notified through dozens of channels including email, webhooks, Slack, Discord, and Telegram, with the notification body templated from the change. Group watches with tags, filter for keywords, and monitor price and stock changes on product pages.

On the first boot a one-shot service generates an access password unique to that instance, applies it using the application's own salted hash format, verifies the sign-in round-trip, and records the password in a file only the root user can read. No shared or default credentials ship in the image. The application container is bound only to the loopback interface so it is never directly exposed to the network. For encryption in transit, cloudimg recommends placing an AWS Application Load Balancer with TLS termination in front of the instance or configuring nginx with your own certificate. For data at rest, enable EBS encryption on the dedicated data disk via the AWS console. Security group best practice is to restrict inbound access to port 80 (or 443 with TLS) from your trusted IP ranges only.

Open the web UI in your browser, read the generated password from the instance, sign in, and start adding watches immediately. A built-in health endpoint answers on the reverse proxy for load-balancer and uptime checks. The watch database and history live on a dedicated, independently resizable data disk that survives instance replacement.

• E-commerce and product teams: Track competitor pricing across hundreds of product pages. When a price drop or stock change is detected, trigger a webhook to your pricing engine or alert your category manager in Slack.
• Compliance and legal teams: Watch terms of service, privacy policies, and regulatory pages for edits. Maintain an audit trail of every version with timestamped diffs.
• DevOps and site reliability: Monitor your own public-facing pages for unexpected edits or defacement. Integrate alerts into PagerDuty or Opsgenie via webhooks.
• Recruiters and researchers: Watch job boards, grant listings, and availability pages and get notified the moment new content appears.