It’s not enough to build a website with a great design. You have to keep a watchful eye on it as well. But manual monitoring tasks like uptime and server status are time-consuming. It’s a much better idea to use website monitoring tools instead.
Website monitoring is a catch-all term that describes any online service that checks a website for its availability, function, speed, and performance. Most often, these monitoring services are set up then run independently, only alerting you when a problem arises.
In this guide, we’ll discuss:
- The main types of website monitoring software
- Why you should use website monitoring tools
- The 12 most popular website monitoring tools
Main Types of Website Monitoring Tools
There are a few key types of website monitoring software you should be aware of. Let’s spend a moment defining each.
- Server availability: This type of monitor can detect if certain servers are available, such as websites, external servers, databases, and mail. This includes what would be called “uptime” monitoring. It can also detect if more advanced services are available like DNS, FTP, and SSL.
- API monitoring: This is often used for keeping tabs on apps. Web service HTTPS, multistep API, and app transactions can be monitored this way.
- Performance monitoring: This type of monitoring pertains to browser checks and full-page checks that report on how your website is performing overall and piece by piece. It’ll tell you if there are any issues with scripts, CSS, images, or timeouts.
Why You Should Use Website Monitoring Software
Whether you opt to use a website traffic monitor, website analytic tools, or a more general performance monitor, one thing is for certain — there are several reasons to use these monitors in your day-to-day website operations.
Here are just a few of these reasons:
- Website monitoring software gives you an accurate indicator of how your website is performing.
- Website monitoring tools alert you of website downtime so you can resolve the issue quickly. This means fewer people are likely to attempt to visit your website while it’s down, so you can mitigate any potential revenue loss.
- Website monitoring software gives you a heads-up of potential problems. You can see if certain pages on your site are loading slowly, if people aren’t scrolling down to your call to action, or if some aspect of your website is broken.
- Monitoring tools provide key performance metrics. Once installed, you’ll gain at-a-glance access to data about how every aspect of your website is faring.
- You can also use these tools to evaluate your hosting provider to ensure they live up to their promises. Most providers offer an uptime guarantee. Website monitoring software lets you see firsthand if that is the case.
Now that you have a clear sense of what these tools do and why you should use them, let’s get to our list of the 12 top performance tools currently available.
Website Performance Monitoring Tools
- Pingdom
- Montastic
- Dotcom-Monitor
- UptimeRobot
- New Relic
- StatusCake
- Site24x7
- SolarWinds
- Updown.io
- Uptrends
- SmartBear AlertSite
- Sematext
Top 12 Website Monitoring Tools
We’ve broken down each of the top website monitoring software options so you can see them side-by-side. This website monitoring tools comparison will make it easier for you to make an informed decision about which tool or tools will best serve your website and your specific needs.
1. Pingdom
Pingdom is an easy-to-use and budget-friendly website monitoring service that tracks things like website availability and performance. It also uses both synthetic and real-time user monitoring to better understand how people may and do interact with your website. This can help you foster an improved user experience.
Key Features:
- All-in-one website uptime and performance monitoring
- Relies on 70 global polling locations to conduct website tests
- Synthetic monitoring for simulating visitor interaction on your website
- Page speed analysis
- Transaction monitoring for ensuring user registrations, shopping cart checkout, and user logins perform as they should
- Real user monitoring for detecting browser, device, and location
- Compare user metrics over time
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
Pingdom suits best for startups and small-to-medium-sized business owners looking for inexpensive and in-depth website monitoring features.
Price:
Pingdom offers a free 30-day trial. Pricing is offered monthly and annually. Monthly plans let you opt-in to synthetic and real user monitoring, each priced at $15/month ($10 if you choose annual payment).
Further adjustments can be made based on uptime monitoring, advanced features, and SMS monitoring for synthetic plans and pageviews for real user plans. Opting for just one will cost $120/year. Both start at $240/year.
2. Montastic
Another service worth checking out is Montastic. It offers a robust feature set designed to give website and app owners total control over performance monitoring. It makes use of webhooks and empowers you to manage incidents as they arise and send out email notifications to subscribers.
Key Features:
- Advanced response time
- SMS notifications
- Fully white-labeled and branded status pages
- Real-time incident reporting
- Embed service status anywhere you want
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
Montastic is best for app developers and SaaS website owners. If you have a subscriber base and people rely on your service’s uptime, Montastic might be a good fit.
Price:
You can use Montastic for free. The free plan includes most features and allows you to monitor up to nine URLs every 30 minutes. It does not include SMS notifications, however.
Paid plans start at $10/month with the Business plan, which allows for monitoring of up to 50 URLs per five minutes. This plan also includes 50 SMS notifications. The Enterprise Max plan is priced at $49/month and allows for monitoring of 500 URLs per five minutes and 600 SMS notifications.
3. Dotcom-Monitor
Dotcom-Monitor, which takes an all-in-one approach to website monitoring, offers tools for tracking performance on websites, web services, applications, servers, and stress testing.
Key Features:
- Monitoring for apps, websites, web services, and website infrastructure
- Performance counter monitoring
- Load and stress testing
- Global monitoring locations
- Customizable reports
- APIs for custom monitoring
- Tons of integrations with third-party apps
- Custom script support
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
Anyone doing business online can benefit from using Dotcom-Monitor.
Price:
Pricing is broken down by the type of monitoring you need. Web service monitoring starts at $19.95/month. Web page monitoring starts at $29.95/month. Web app monitoring is priced at $38.95/month, and infrastructure monitoring starts at $39.95/month.
A 30-day trial is available for all subscriptions.
4. UptimeRobot
UptimeRobot offers straightforward, clutter-free website tracking software. It empowers you to keep tabs on websites and includes SSL to ensure website security, port, ping, and cron jobs.
Key Features:
- Easy-to-setup monitors for a variety of purposes
- Create quick monitors of websites, SSL certificates, servers, and cron jobs
- Response time charts
- Keyword monitoring
- Custom HTTP requests
- Send incident updates to subscribers
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
A variety of people can benefit from UptimeRobot. Simple website monitoring is available, as are more complex features and advanced reporting. It spans the extent of need.
Price:
UptimeRobot is free to use on up to 50 websites with five-minute checks. If your needs extend beyond that, expect to pay $7/month for the PRO plan, which covers 50 monitors with one-minute checks (though you can expand the number of monitors in this plan — 100 monitors cost $21/month, 200 monitors is $28/month, and so on).
An enterprise plan is available as well for those with greater needs.
5. New Relic
New Relic offers a broad set of tools and is described as an observability platform that enables creators to make more effective software. It places tools for monitoring analytics and optimization in one place.
Key Features:
- Telemetry data with AI insights that transcend the traditional website performance monitor
- Full-stack observability
- Applied intelligence with quick incident response
Best Website Monitoring Tool for:
New Relic is best for larger companies with complex monitoring needs.
Price:
It’s free to get started with New Relic across most features, including telemetry data and applied intelligence. The Standard plan is free for one user and $99 for each additional user per month.
For more in-depth monitoring, the Pro plan and Enterprise require custom price quotes based on your specific needs.
6. StatusCake
StatusCake offers a slew of monitoring features presented in an easy-to-use format. It covers everything from uptime to server monitoring to page speed tracking.
Key Features:
- Uptime, domain, server, page speed, and SSL monitoring
- A variety of alert options, including SMS, email, Slack, and Twitter
- Test intervals ranging from five minutes to 30 seconds
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
StatusCake suits the most for small to mid-sized businesses seeking straightforward yet reliable monitoring tools.
Price:
The Basic plan is free and offers 10 uptime monitors with five-minute tests. If you require more than that, the Superior plan is priced at $24.49/month, which includes 100 uptime monitors, 1-minute tests, and adds on server and domain monitoring.
The Business plan is priced at $79.99/month and comes with 300 uptime monitors, 30-second tests, and all the features of the Superior plan.
7. Site24x7
Site24x7 offers in-depth monitoring tools for DevOps and IT operations, covering the gamut of availability monitoring, website traffic monitoring, cloud monitoring, and network operations.
Key Features:
- Dubbed an all-in-one monitoring solution for websites, servers, the cloud, networks, and apps
- Includes real-time user monitoring
- Cloud cost management
- Public status pages for greater transparency
- Cloud log management
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
Any size business can benefit from Site24x7. A slightly greater emphasis is placed on website monitoring, but app devs could still make use of it.
Price:
A 30-day trial is available across all plans. The Starter plan is priced at $9/month paid annually and covers 10 websites. Plans increase in price from there, at up to $449/month paid annually at the Enterprise level.
Each plan offers similar features with a variation in the number of monitors allowed, servers covered, pageviews supported, and support offered.
8. SolarWinds
SolarWinds works by detecting internal and external issues with your website, giving you greater opportunities to find and fix problems before they impede your customer’s website experience.
Key Features:
- Full performance monitoring
- Synthetic transaction monitoring
- Load time metrics
- Website speed monitoring
- Integrated web app monitoring
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
SolarWinds is best for enterprise-level website and web application developers.
Price:
Pricing is rather crisp and starts at $1,141 for a license. However, there is a free 30-day trial available.
9. Updown.io
Updown.io is a to-the-point website monitoring tool that’s easy to use and set up. It allows for fast uptime checks and supports several integrations.
Key Features:
- Set the check frequency down to 15-second intervals
- Dual stack monitoring
- Hosted status pages
- Integrations with third-party services like Zapier, Webhook, and Slack
- SSL testing included
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
It’s suitable for anyone who needs quick and easy website monitoring tools at-the-ready. It’s affordable and easy to use.
Price:
Pricing is based on requests made. To check a single website once per minute would cost less than $1/month. If you have more extensive needs, pricing is still affordable. For instance, if you have 100 websites and want them each checked once per minute, you’d pay around $58.60/month.
10. Uptrends
Another tool to consider is Uptrends, which offers a full scope website monitoring and performance service. You can use it to monitor your website, server, and API.
Key Features:
- Website, web app, API, and server monitoring
- Web performance monitoring with load-time alerts and error reports
- Real user monitoring based on browser, device, and OS real visitors use
- Set monitoring checkpoints
- Transaction recorder
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
Any website owner. Pricing is within the budget range of most developers, and features are intuitive enough for beginners.
Price:
There is a 30-day free trial available. After that, the Starter plan is priced at $12.38/month and comes with 10 basic monitors, one operator, and 60 SMS alert credits. Other plans include more monitors, controllers, and text alerts at up to $173.32/month for the Professional plan.
Advanced monitoring plans are available with support for multi-browser monitoring, transaction recording, and API monitoring. Pricing starts at $29.65/month.
11. SmartBear AlertSite
SmartBear AlertSite provides synthetic monitoring tools you can rely on for accurate reporting about your websites, apps, and APIs.
Key Features:
- Internal monitoring for behind firewalls, on local servers, and data centers
- External monitoring for tracking the performance of your servers, APIs, and websites
- Hybrid deploying for tracking internal and external properties
- Full reporting and analytics
- Fast alerts
- Single sign-on, training, and support
Best Website Monitoring Tool For:
Medium to large companies as well as enterprises.
Price:
A free trial is available for all services. You have to contact sales directly for pricing.
12. Sematext
Sematext differs from most other monitoring services because instead of a single product, they offer a comprehensive suite of services, including infrastructure and application performance monitoring and log management solutions.
Key Features:
- Monitoring all Core Web Vitals,
- API monitoring,
- SSL certificate expiration monitoring,
- Page speed monitoring,
- Email alerts.
Best Website Monitoring Tool for:
Sematext is good for everybody from small to large-sized companies that need reliable monitoring.
Price:
Cost: $2/HTTP monitor or $7/browser monitor (minimum $5/mo, includes 30 days of logs and configurable monitoring intervals)
Premium: starts at $29/mo (including 40 HTTP & 5 Browser monitors, 30 days of logs, and configurable monitoring intervals)
All plans come with a 14-day free trial, no credit card is required.
Final Thoughts: Top 12 Website Monitoring Tools To Keep Tabs on Your Website
Using a website monitoring tool can tell you a lot about your website, keep you informed of issues, and empower you to make better decisions about improving website performance in the future.
There’s a wide range of tools, including those suitable for beginners as well as those for enterprise-level companies, so you’re certain to find something that meets your needs.
With website monitoring software in hand, you can improve your website’s performance and pay mind to how the hosting provider you select plays a role. You only stand to make your website better. So, why not invest in these tools?