In short: Maintena quietly photographs your most important pages across desktop, tablet and mobile, then compares each new shot with the last one and highlights anything that has visibly moved or changed. You spot a broken or shifted layout early, and you can export the evidence as a clean PDF.
What it is
Your other monitors answer "is the site up?" and "is it fast?". Visual Change Detection answers a different question: "does this page still look right, and what changed since last time?"
Maintena takes a full-page screenshot of each page you choose, at three screen sizes: desktop, tablet and mobile. On a regular schedule it takes fresh shots and compares them with the previous ones. When a page has visibly changed, Maintena saves the new version and highlights exactly where the difference is, so a broken layout, a missing section or a shifted button does not sit there unnoticed until a customer complains.
It is designed to catch the things that do not throw an error: a plugin update that nudges your header out of place, a font that fails to load on mobile, a form that collapses, an image that vanishes. The page is still online and still fast, but it no longer looks the way it should.
How it works
The basics
You pick a handful of key pages to watch. Maintena photographs each one at three sizes, compares each new shot with the last saved version, and only keeps a new record when something has actually changed. Unchanged pages cost you nothing and do not clutter the history, so what you see is a tidy list of the moments a page genuinely changed.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Capture | Each watched page is photographed full-length at desktop, tablet and mobile sizes. |
| Compare | The new shot is measured against the previous one for that page and size. |
| Highlight | If enough has visibly changed, the difference is marked so you can see it at a glance. |
| Keep on change | A new record is saved only when a page changed, or when it is the very first shot. |
| Tidy up | Maintena keeps the most recent few change records per page and clears out older ones automatically. |
Honest, low-noise comparisons
A naive screenshot tool flags a "change" every time a carousel rotates or an animation plays. Maintena works hard to avoid that. Before each shot it settles the page: it lets fonts and images finish loading, holds animations on their final frame, stops sliders and videos, removes cookie and consent banners, and keeps sticky headers from printing twice. It also allows for a page growing a little taller or shorter between visits. The result is that a flagged change usually means a real change, not visual noise.
What each plan includes
How many pages you can watch and how often they are photographed depends on your plan.
| Plan | Pages watched | Capture frequency | On-demand recaptures per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Up to 3 | Weekly | 2 |
| Professional | Up to 10 | Daily | 5 |
| Advanced | Up to 20 | Daily | 15 |
Captures are spread across quiet, off-peak hours so monitoring never slows your site down for real visitors. See Billing & Subscriptions for current plan pricing.
Recapture on demand
If you have just pushed a change and want to see it straight away, use the "Recapture now" button rather than waiting for the next scheduled run. To keep things gentle on your site, on-demand recaptures have a small daily allowance and a short cooldown between uses, both shown right on the button. Scheduled captures are never affected by this.
PDF reports
Any page's change history can be exported as a branded PDF, either the whole set of watched pages or a single page. Tall pages are laid out cleanly across multiple sheets rather than squashed into a thumbnail, so the export is genuinely readable. These are great for sharing with a client or keeping a record before and after a redesign. See Reports for more on Maintena's reporting.
What you need to do
Visual Change Detection does not switch itself on. It is opt-in, so you choose which pages matter before anything is captured.
- Turn it on for the site. You will be taken to a short setup screen. (It stays off until you do this, so you are always in control of what gets photographed.)
- Choose your pages. Maintena reads your site's sitemap and suggests pages for you. Tick the ones that matter most, and add any specific web addresses by hand. Keep up to your plan's page allowance, and lead with the pages your business depends on: your homepage, key landing pages, checkout or contact pages.
- Save. Your pages are locked in and the first set of screenshots is taken right away, so you see snapshots without waiting for the overnight run.
- Staging or password-protected sites: if a page sits behind a simple username and password prompt, add those details to the site (the same ones the Uptime monitor uses) so Maintena can reach the real page instead of a login screen.
- Review and share. Check the highlighted changes on the site's Uptime & Snapshots view, recapture on demand when you make edits, and export a PDF whenever you need one.
Good to know
- Where to find it. Visual Change Detection lives alongside Uptime under the "Uptime & Snapshots" area for each site. The two work completely independently; they simply share a home in the interface.
- It does not affect your Health Score. A visible change is a "did this change?" signal, not a pass-or-fail metric, so it is kept separate from your Health Score.
- The most recent shot is the reference point. Each comparison is against the last saved version of that page. After an intended redesign, the page may keep flagging as changed for a capture or two until the new look becomes the settled baseline.
- A note on privacy. These are full-page screenshots of your public pages, exactly as an anonymous visitor would see them. If a watched page shows personal information (for example a public staff directory or profile), that will appear in the saved images and in any PDF you export. Keep that in mind when choosing which pages to watch, and mention it in your own privacy notice where relevant.
On the roadmap
These are not available yet, so please do not rely on them today. They are on our list:
- Change alerts. Right now a change is shown in the interface and in PDFs, but Maintena does not yet email you the moment a page changes. For now, check in on the snapshots view or export a report.
- Watching a specific element. Today the comparison looks at the page as a whole. Being able to say "alert me only if this button disappears" is planned.
- Accept as the new normal. A one-click "this change is expected, treat it as the baseline" step is on the way.
- Before-and-after slider. An interactive slider to wipe between the old and new versions is planned, beyond the highlighted difference shown today.
- Logged-in pages. Pages behind a full login form (rather than a simple password prompt) cannot be captured yet.
- Scheduled PDF delivery. PDFs are on-demand downloads today; automatic emailing on a schedule is planned.