Greatest web site monitoring companies
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Website monitoring can help you identify your website's performance issues in real time. Most of these services record, among other things, the availability of websites, the average loading time of websites and the functionality of websites.
Did you know that a 2017 Google study showed that just one second of delay in loading pages can cut your page views by 11% and lower your conversion rate by 7%?
In addition, 53% of visitors leave the page if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Also note that the Google algorithm categorizes websites according to their loading speed, among other things. We haven't even seen the impact of an unavailable website on your business.
In this day and age, website monitoring is all but mandatory if you want to stay competitive.
We've selected the top seven website monitoring services to get your website up and running and staying healthy.
The top 7 options for website monitoring
- UptimeRobot – Best Free Website Monitoring Service
- Pingdom – best for small and medium businesses
- AppDynamics – Best for WebApps
- Site24x7 – Best for multiple websites and apps
- Monitis – best for custom monitoring plans
- LogicMonitor – Best for Service Providers
- Uptrends – best for internal server monitoring
How to choose the best website monitoring service for you
Even a seasoned webmaster would have trouble selecting the best website monitoring services without help. There are currently more than 150 services available. Therefore, a lot of attention is paid to details when choosing the best service.
The secret to all important decisions lies in the functions of the services. The features instantly show you whether the service is good, mediocre or horrible. Here are the key points to consider when comparing website monitoring services.
Operating time monitoring
The most basic function of a website monitoring service is to let you know that your website is working properly. If your website is down, you cannot make sales and quickly lose customers to the competition. The service should periodically check the website and report back the status.
The most common checks include HTTP (S), DNS, SSL, and domain expiration checks to ensure that the required infrastructure is working properly. Additional protocols to consider can include SIP, TCP, FTP, PING, and UDP.
Some services run these scans from various servers around the world to ensure that your global audience can access your site. In addition, the monitoring schedules can vary from once every four hours to once every minute or less.
Ideally, you want 99.9% uptime, so this monitoring is critical to holding your hosting service accountable.
Average loading time of the website
Once you know that your website is working and available, you need to figure out how it works. Whole Page Load Monitoring primarily checks how long it takes your web pages to load. Some services also report the cause of a problem they find.
A good website monitoring service should keep a record of the average load time of each page. Some allow you to set a maximum load time and notify you when pages are taking too long to load based on your criteria.
You may also want a monitoring tool that is specifically targeted at content. This feature ensures that page issues, words, or phrases that are important to your conversion funnel are loaded correctly.
Load test
Your website may perform at its best until it becomes overloaded. Special events like the Black Friday sale or the Christmas season come to mind. Load testing or web stress testing puts a strain on the website to see how it works under pressure. For example, the tool can apply a load of 3000 users for 20 minutes to see if your site remains stable.
Reports & Analysis
Regular reports and analysis will help you track your website's performance over time. It helps if the information makes sense so that your DevOps, executives, or anyone else who has access to the data knows how to handle it.
Also consider public reporting. Website visitors can view simple reports on the website or on a special status page. This option can drastically reduce unnecessary customer support calls.
The different types of website monitoring services
There are two main types of website monitoring. These are Synthetic Monitoring and Real User Monitoring (RUM). Many services offer both types, so this is an option worth considering. Let's take a closer look at what synthetic and real user monitoring is and what it means to you.
Synthetic surveillance
Website monitoring services are heavily based on synthetic monitoring. This process is also known as "active monitoring" and simulates real users. The test first determines the performance variables of the front end such as browser, device, geography and / or networks. Agents then simulate real users and collect data. This process identifies problems before the end user encounters them.
Synthetic tests cover all of the fundamentals of a surveillance system. The tests review and provide feedback on the availability of critical service and API endpoints.
In addition, synthetic monitoring checks interactive aspects of your website, including links and buttons, to make sure everything is working properly. This is crucial if you want to avoid broken link or mislabeled functionality issues before your users encounter them.
Synthetic monitoring can also help identify the source of the problem (such as an Internet service provider or third party), the extent of the problem, and possible solutions.
Real user monitoring
Real User Monitoring (RUM) collects information from real website users. The system is also known as "passive monitoring" and collects data from users. As such, RUM can collect complex combinations of data including geographic location, performance measurements, web browser type, device type, and users' operating system.
The website owner places JavaScript tags in the website page headers to implement RUM. From here the script collects data from users across various performance metrics and reports back to the RUM interface.
Monitoring real users helps optimize the customer experience and report problems in real time. Website owners can also track new deployment performance and website experience across regions, devices, and web browsers.
# 1 – UptimeRobot – Best Free Website Monitoring Service
UptimeRobot offers a free plan if you're not ready to spend money on a surveillance service. This option is great for a blog or if you are just starting out with e-commerce. The service has more than 800,000 customers including GoDaddy, Expedia and IBM.
The free plan gives you all the monitoring features you need, including HTTP (S) monitoring, ping monitoring, port monitoring, and response time monitoring. You also get 50 monitors with five minute reviews.
In addition, the free plan offers two months of log retention and a status page.
You can upgrade to the Pro plan for $ 15 per month for more advanced features on top of what you get with the free plan. Some of the additional features include:
- Voice calls and SMS notifications
- 24 month log retention
- One minute reviews
- Cron job monitoring
- Keyword monitoring
- Maintenance window
- Monitoring the expiry of SSL certificates
- Advanced notification settings
- Unlimited status pages
There's also an Enterprise plan for custom inspection intervals and multiple monitors.
UptimeRobot provides reliable website monitoring tools and scales easily as your business grows. The service has surveillance locations in the US, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Canada and Japan.
# 2 – Pingdom – Best Website Monitoring Service for Small and Medium Business
Pingdom by SolarWinds is a powerful website monitoring service for small and medium-sized businesses. The service is also suitable for startups, digital marketers, and even DevOps.
The service gives you the choice between synthetic or real user monitoring to get a comprehensive overview of what is going on on your website. You can also combine the functionality of both monitoring options with your enterprise plan.
Pingdom's synthetic monitoring checks availability from over 100 locations, provides page speed analysis, and monitors key transactions including shopping cart, checkout, user login, new user registration, and search.
RUM monitoring with Pingdom gives you detailed insights into how real users experience your website across different browsers, devices and geographic locations.
The service also monitors your mobile site every 60 seconds (same goes for the desktop) and performs the same checks on your mobile sites to help you provide a standard experience across all devices.
Pingdom also has a powerful HTTP-based RESTful API for users who want to customize and automate synthetic monitoring interactions. Developers can also write their own applications or scripts depending on their specific needs.
Pingdom integrates with numerous third-party services, including Webhooks, Slack and VictorOps, to further streamline reporting, incident management, alerts and the dashboard.
Additional features include:
- Shareable reports
- Color-coded chart bars
- Web analysis tool
- Bounce Rate Checker
- Monitoring and alerting of SSL certificates
- Monitoring of cloud performance
- Joomla monitoring
- Monitoring of server uptime
- Website uptime
You can try the 14-day free trial of Pingdom to access all of its features. Paid plans start at $ 10 per month, which is very affordable for smaller businesses.
# 3 – AppDynamics – Best software monitoring service for WebApps
Web applications have complex and diverse interactive elements that are not always easy to monitor. While some website monitoring services are looking at apps, what you really need is a service that is primarily aimed at that market.
AppDynamics is a solution for application performance management. It supports everyday application environments like Java, Node.js, C / C ++ (Beta) and PHP. In addition, AppDynamics covers more complex platforms and solutions, including WebMethods, TIBCO, JMS, and queuing technologies.
The service performs real-time transaction monitoring across key metrics including response time, slow rate, error rate, load, and downtime. It also eliminates blind spots in your applications by automatically assigning the relationships between the various levels and services.
AppDynamics automatically detects anomalies and provides quick diagnosis of the root cause. The tool also collects critical debug information to speed up the software debugging process. They also provide detailed diagnostics that can help you identify the problem down to the faulty line of code.
Additional features include:
- End user monitoring
- Application performance monitoring
- Monitoring the infrastructure
- Network monitoring
- Monitoring business performance
AppDynamics has three pricing plans. You need to contact the provider for the real price. The Pro Plan also supports mapping and visualization of complex multi-cloud topologies, creating alert policies and health rules, and key performance metrics.
The Advanced and Peak plans offer additional functions as required. This service is ideal for industries such as retail, media and entertainment, healthcare, and insurance. You can try the free trial or schedule a demo before deciding if it is right for you.
# 4 – Site24x7 – Best website monitoring service for multiple websites and apps
Monitoring a single website is difficult enough, but Site24x7 makes it easy to keep an eye on up to 500 websites at a time. This service is all-encompassing and monitors the website, cloud, server, application and network.
Site24x7 has a single log that collects, consolidates, analyzes, and stores data so that you can easily view and troubleshoot problems. They use synthetic and real user monitoring in every package so you always get the best of both worlds.
The starter plan costs $ 9 per month and monitors up to 10 websites and servers from more than 110 monitoring locations worldwide. All plans support HTTP (S), DNS, SSL / TSL, FTP, REST APIs, URLs, SMTP servers, SOAP web service and more.
You can also manually select the monitoring location from multiple addresses in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Site24x7 supports Ruby, Java, PHP, .NET, Node.js and mobile platforms for apps. The tool also monitors Windows, Linux, Docker, VMware, FreeBSD, GCP and Azure on servers.
Additional features include:
- Mobile access
- Root cause analysis
- Hosted status pages
- SLA management
- Alerts and reports
- Support for managed service providers
The plans and prices for the 24/7 website are as follows:
- Starter: $ 9 per month
- Pro: $ 35 per month
- Classic: $ 89 per month
- Business: $ 225 per month
If you are looking for an adaptable and flexible service for multiple websites and applications, Site24x7 is an excellent option.
# 5 – Monitis – Best website monitoring service for custom monitoring plans
If you think you should only be paying for what you use, Monitis is the website monitoring service for you. Monitis customers include SIEMENS and the University of Cambridge.
With Monitis you only choose the features you want. The service then creates a custom price and plan that suits your needs. This is the perfect arrangement for users who know exactly what to expect from a website monitoring service, right down to its specific features.
The service scans your website every 60 seconds from more than 30 server locations in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, and Africa.
This is also a comprehensive monitoring tool. You can monitor websites, servers, networks and applications. To monitor the website, Monitis checks availability, page loading and transactions. The service supports Windows and Linux for server monitoring and checks CPU, network, memory and bandwidth, among other things.
Monitis also has a powerful API that you can use to further customize your experience. You also get SDKs for all major languages including Python, Java, Ruby, PHP, Perl, and C #.
Additional features include:
- Real user monitoring
- Diagram view
- Device monitoring
- Tracking of goods
- Backup
- Patching
- Comprehensive coverage
- Checking the website content
- Immediate warnings
- Screen recording
- diagnosis
- Funnel visualization
Montis offers a good range of alert integrations including Slack, VictorOps, OpsGenie, Jira, and PagerDuty.
You can try the 15-day trial version before making a final decision.
# 6 – LogicMonitor – Best website monitoring tool for service providers
Of course, if you are a service provider, your website monitoring needs will be different from those of your customers. LogicMonitor offers products that are specifically tailored to this market so you don't have to rely on the same cutting tools as the stores you serve.
This is another comprehensive monitoring tool that monitors your websites, networks, servers, clouds and IT infrastructures. With LogicMonitor, you can view your entire hybrid infrastructure from one place. You can observe a variety of infrastructure metrics including cloud and container resources, networks and network devices, websites, SaaS services, IoT devices, and more.
LogicMonitor also provides all of the website monitoring features you need, including pinging, web scanning, fast deployment, and customizable alert thresholds.
Additional features include:
- Over 2000 integrations
- Intelligent alerting
- Topology mapping
- forecast
- Encrypted data
- Visualizations
- AIOps early warning system
- SaaS deployment
- Protocol analysis
- Remote monitoring
LogicMonitor also offers remote and on-site training for a seamless implementation. They don't publish their prices online, but you can tour the platform and request a custom quote on their website.
# 7 – Upward Trends – Best website monitoring service for internal server monitoring
Sometimes the problem is on your part with the firewall. For website owners who don't want to take any chances, Uptrends offers robust internal monitoring systems.
The service checks your internal servers and network devices to make sure everything is up to date. Setting it up is as easy as running an installation file on the servers. The agent works seamlessly with your firewall and no special rules need to be created.
The tool supports common protocols and devices, including Windows, HTTP, Ping, SNMP and Connect.
Uptrends also lets you customize your internal server monitoring dashboard to control how data is presented. Once you've created your custom dashboard, you can save it as your home page.
Web monitoring with Uptrends is just as robust. The service has more than 220 monitoring locations around the world that check availability, performance and multi-step transactions. Uptrends uses synthetic monitoring and offers interactive charts, public status pages, bandwidth throttling and error snapshots.
This service is comprehensive and includes additional essential functions such as:
- Monitoring of web applications
- API monitoring
- Multi-browser monitoring
- External server monitoring
If you're not ready to buy, Uptrends has a free plan. Get access to many free tools, including free website monitoring, global availability, website speed test, DSN report, traceroute, availability and SLA calculator, and ping test. However, you can only select one feature to try out at a time, and not a single free package with all the tools.
Paid plans include:
- Starter: $ 12.02 per month
- Premium: $ 34.52 per month
- Professional: $ 168.27 per month
- Business: $ 28.79 per month
- Enterprise: $ 52.08 per month
You can also test a free trial version of the business plan for 30 days.
Summary
If the only benefit you can get from a website monitoring service is increased customer loyalty, your efforts are worth it. These services offer a number of additional benefits, including optimized website performance, increased security, data retention, and much more.
The best advice for choosing a website monitoring service is to find out exactly what the tool is supposed to do. From here, you can compare the features of the services with your needs to narrow down the best options. Also, try to avail of industry-specific services like the ones we've described in this review. You can never go wrong with these strategies.