Self-Hosting changedetection.io: Track Changes on Any Website Automatically

Monitoring 2026-02-09 changedetection monitoring web-scraping notifications automation

You want to know when a price drops on a product page. When a government website updates a policy. When a competitor changes their pricing page. When a job listing appears. You could check manually every day, or you could have a self-hosted tool watch the page for you and send a notification the moment something changes.

changedetection.io does exactly this. Point it at any URL, tell it what part of the page to watch, and it'll check on a schedule and notify you when something changes. It handles JavaScript-rendered pages, visual diffs, and integrates with dozens of notification services.

Why changedetection.io?

Monitor any URL — Track changes on any public web page
CSS/XPath selectors — Watch specific sections, not the whole page
Visual diff — See exactly what changed, highlighted
JavaScript support — Uses a real browser to render dynamic pages
Notification integrations — Email, Slack, Discord, Telegram, ntfy, webhooks, and 70+ more via Apprise
JSON/API monitoring — Track changes in API responses, not just HTML
Import/export — Share watch lists as JSON

The self-hosted advantage: commercial alternatives like Visualping charge $10-40/month for 100-1,000 checks. changedetection.io is free and unlimited.

Docker Deployment

Basic setup (no JavaScript rendering)

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  changedetection:
    image: ghcr.io/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io:latest
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    volumes:
      - changedetection_data:/datastore
    environment:
      - BASE_URL=https://changes.yourdomain.com
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  changedetection_data:

With Playwright for JavaScript-rendered pages

Many modern websites render content with JavaScript. Without a real browser, changedetection.io only sees the raw HTML (which is often empty). Add Playwright:

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  changedetection:
    image: ghcr.io/dgtlmoon/changedetection.io:latest
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    volumes:
      - changedetection_data:/datastore
    environment:
      - BASE_URL=https://changes.yourdomain.com
      - PLAYWRIGHT_DRIVER_URL=ws://playwright-chrome:3000
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
    depends_on:
      - playwright-chrome
    restart: unless-stopped

  playwright-chrome:
    image: dgtlmoon/sockpuppetbrowser:latest
    environment:
      - SCREEN_WIDTH=1920
      - SCREEN_HEIGHT=1080
      - MAX_CONCURRENT_CHROME_PROCESSES=5
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  changedetection_data:

docker compose up -d

The web interface is at http://your-server:5000.

Adding Your First Watch

Click Add Watch
Enter the URL to monitor
Set the check interval (default: 3 hours)
Click Save

changedetection.io fetches the page and stores the initial snapshot. On the next check, it compares the new content with the previous version and flags any differences.

Filtering: Watch What Matters

Most pages have headers, footers, ads, and timestamps that change constantly. You don't want notifications about those. Use CSS selectors or XPath to watch only the content you care about.

CSS selector filtering

Edit a watch and set CSS/XPath Filter:

/* Watch only the product price */
.product-price

/* Watch a specific div */
#main-content .article-body

/* Watch multiple elements */
.price, .availability-status

XPath filtering

//div[@class="price-container"]
//table[@id="schedule"]/tbody

Text filtering

Ignore lines matching a pattern:

# In "Ignore Text" field
/Last updated:.*/
/Copyright \d{4}/
/Session ID: [a-f0-9]+/

This removes dynamic content that would trigger false change notifications.

Notification Setup

changedetection.io uses the Apprise library, which supports 70+ notification services with a simple URL format.

Discord

discord://webhook_id/webhook_token

tgram://bot_token/chat_id

Slack

slack://token_a/token_b/token_c/#channel

ntfy (self-hosted push notifications)

ntfy://ntfy.yourdomain.com/changedetection

Email (SMTP)

mailto://user:[email protected]:587/[email protected]

Configure notification URLs in Settings > Notifications for global defaults, or per-watch for specific URLs.

Practical Use Cases

Price monitoring

Watch a product page, filter to the price element:

CSS filter: .price-now or [data-test="product-price"]
Check interval: Every 6 hours
Notification: Send to your phone via Telegram or ntfy

Job listing monitoring

Track a company's careers page:

CSS filter: .job-listing or #open-positions
Check interval: Every 4 hours
Trigger: Any new content in the filtered section

API monitoring

changedetection.io can monitor JSON API responses:

Set the URL to an API endpoint
Choose "JSON" as the fetch type
Use JSONPath to watch specific fields: $.data.price or $.results[0].status

Competitor monitoring

Watch a competitor's pricing or feature page:

CSS filter: .pricing-table or .features-list
Check interval: Daily
Visual diff: See exactly what changed

Government and legal monitoring

Track policy pages, license renewals, or regulatory updates:

CSS filter: #content or .document-body
Check interval: Daily
Ignore text: Remove timestamps and session IDs

Advanced Features

Visual selector tool

Don't know the CSS selector? Use the built-in visual selector:

Edit a watch
Click Visual Selector
The page renders in your browser
Click on the element you want to watch
changedetection.io generates the CSS selector for you

Conditional notifications

Only notify when specific text appears or disappears:

Trigger text: "In Stock" — Only notify when this text appears
Trigger text (negative): "Sold Out" — Notify when this text disappears

Proxy support

If you're monitoring many pages, use proxies to avoid rate limiting:

# In Settings > Proxy
http://proxy-user:proxy-pass@proxy-host:8080

Restock detection mode

changedetection.io has a built-in restock detection mode for e-commerce. Enable it per-watch to automatically detect "Add to Cart," "In Stock," and similar indicators across major e-commerce platforms.

Resource Usage

changedetection.io is lightweight on its own:

Without Playwright: ~50 MB RAM, minimal CPU
With Playwright: ~500 MB RAM (the browser is the heavy part)

For most homelabs, the Playwright container is the main resource concern. Limit concurrent browser processes with MAX_CONCURRENT_CHROME_PROCESSES to control memory usage.

The Bottom Line

changedetection.io automates the tedious task of manually checking websites for updates. The combination of CSS selector filtering, JavaScript rendering support, and Apprise notification integration makes it versatile enough for everything from price monitoring to regulatory compliance tracking. Deploy it with Playwright for JavaScript support, set up a notification channel, and let it watch the internet for you. It replaces manual checking habits that waste hours per month with automated, instant notifications.