Every way to monitor a Wikipedia page

Four free methods and a paid category. Most of the guides ranking for this question are three years old and skip the free options because they are selling something. Here is the complete set, including the two cases where you should not pay us anything.

The short version

How each way of monitoring a Wikipedia page compares
Method	Delivers itself	Shows the change	Keeps working	Setup
Wikipedia Watchlist	Yes	No	No	Account, then two settings tabs
Page history RSS	No	Yes	No	A reader, plus a bridge to email
Google Alerts	Yes	No	No	Minimal
WikiMonitor (this product)	Yes	Yes	Yes	A page URL and an email address

Every row is checkable. The notes and sources are on the full comparison.

The free options

Wikipedia's Watchlist

What it is. Built into Wikipedia. Follow a page from a logged-in account and it appears in your watchlist, optionally with email notification.

Where it stops. The email arrives once; MediaWiki documents that you must revisit the page while logged in before another is sent. Notifications cannot be limited to a single page. The email carries no diff.

Use it if. You are an active editor already logged in most days.

MediaWiki, Manual:$wgEnotifWatchlist · Wikipedia, Help:Watchlist · Full comparison

The page history feed

What it is. Every article history is published as an RSS and Atom feed, and the feed does carry the rendered difference. This is the best-kept secret in the category and it costs nothing.

Where it stops. Nothing delivers it. You need a feed reader running, or a bridge to turn it into email, and free readers typically poll every 15 to 60 minutes. When a bridge breaks, it fails silently, which is the worst property a monitor can have.

Use it if. You already live in a feed reader and a delay of up to an hour is acceptable.

Wikipedia:Syndication

Google Alerts

What it is. A free alert on new content matching a query.

Where it stops. It is the wrong instrument. Google Alerts is built to surface newly indexed content, and a Wikipedia edit is a change to a page Google already has. It frequently produces nothing at all, and never tells you what changed.

Use it if. You want general web mentions. For Wikipedia edits specifically, it is not a monitoring tool.

The paid category

Three shapes, and they are priced an order of magnitude apart.

Monitoring tools

Self-serve, published pricing, roughly $80 to $700 a year depending on page count. We are one of these. Compare on two things: whether the alert is pushed or polled, and whether the difference is in the email or behind a higher tier.

Free tools from agencies

Some reputation firms publish a free Wikipedia alert tool. They are real and they work. Understand what they are: an introduction to a services business, which is a fair trade if you are open to the services.

Managed reputation services

Human monitoring and response, commonly from $750 a month. You are buying analysts and a response capability, not an alert. If you want someone to act on your behalf, this is the category, and it is not what we sell.

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