---
title: SSL certificate monitoring
description: An expired certificate is the outage everyone saw coming and nobody was watching for. SSL monitoring now has its own home: certificate overview cards…
canonical: https://watchfor.io/changelog/2026-05-10-ssl-monitoring
---

[All updates](/changelog/page/9#2026-05-10-ssl-monitoring) ✨ New May 10, 2026 · v 1.2.0

# SSL certificate monitoring

An expired certificate is the outage everyone saw coming and nobody was watching for. SSL monitoring now has its own home: certificate overview cards, ready-made alert presets including expiry, and incidents that recognize certificate problems for what they are.

Days left, the issuer and the details of the certificate in use.

## What it tracks

- Days until expiry, the issuer, the names the certificate covers and its validity dates.

- Whether it matches the host name and chains to a trusted root.

- The TLS version the server negotiated.

## Alerts

Certificate Expiry is on by default, as a warning at 14 days. Hostname Match , Certificate Chain and Minimum TLS Version are one toggle away. An incident names the check that failed, such as the days remaining or a host name mismatch, instead of a bare "SSL error".

## Example

The certificate on mail.example.com:465 is renewed by hand once a year, and nobody remembers who did it last time. Fourteen days before it expires, a warning incident reaches your channels. If renewal needs a purchase order, raise the threshold to 30 days.

## When to use it

HTTP monitors already record days until expiry, so a website you monitor over HTTPS is covered. Add an SSL monitor for mail servers, databases and other TLS services (target host:port ), or when you want the full certificate view. See [SSL / TLS certificate](/docs/monitors/certificates#ssl--tls-certificate).

Since then, SSL monitors show the cipher suite and [flag servers that only speak old ciphers](/changelog/2026-07-18-legacy-tls-monitoring), and on supported plans they get a daily [TLS grade](/changelog/2026-09-02-ssl-tls-grade-monitoring).

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Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/changelog/2026-05-10-ssl-monitoring · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt