Which tools can monitor website uptime and infrastructure?

For monitoring whether a website is online, consider UptimeRobot or Uptime.com. If you also need coverage for servers, cloud environments, and networks, evaluate Site24x7, Zabbix, or Middleware. Uptrends, Pingdom, and Dotcom-Monitor also offer relevant features for tracking web applications, APIs, transaction flows, and performance under load. The key is to first decide what you need to monitor, rather than simply comparing the number of tools or their feature lists.

The features below are based on a roundup published by Semrush in November 2024. They serve as a starting point for shortlisting tools, not a guarantee of what current plans include. This article does not treat the prices, free plans, or monitoring location counts reported at that time as current.

Just need to know whether your website is down? Start with uptime and notifications

• UptimeRobot: Monitors website downtime and can also be configured to monitor SSL certificate status and domain expiration. According to the roundup, it checks from multiple locations to reduce false alarms and supports notification channels including email, text messages, voice calls, and Slack.
• Uptime.com: Offers API and real user monitoring in addition to uptime monitoring. You can create status pages to inform users about downtime or scheduled maintenance and set up automated maintenance notifications.

The differences between the two go beyond how they send alerts. For example, if you need certificate and domain expiration reminders, start by looking at UptimeRobot. If you also need to communicate maintenance status publicly, Uptime.com’s status pages are worth including in your comparison. Notifications help you stay aware of problems, but they do not mean those problems will be fixed automatically.

Investigating infrastructure issues: compare monitoring coverage, logs, and thresholds

• Site24x7: Designed for DevOps and IT operations teams, it covers websites, servers, cloud environments, and networks. It can collect and analyze logs, use AI to help identify anomalies, and send notifications based on custom thresholds and trigger conditions.
• Zabbix: Covers networks, servers, cloud deployments, websites, and applications. It supports custom problem thresholds, dashboards, and scheduled reports sent daily, weekly, or monthly.
• Middleware: Can monitor website infrastructure, logs, and databases in real time. It also offers synthetic monitoring to look for problems in simulated environments, as well as real user monitoring.

If you need a centralized view of logs from different servers and networks, Site24x7’s relevant features are a more direct match. If your priorities are organizing custom metrics and receiving regular reports, look at Zabbix’s dashboards and scheduling capabilities.

Beyond whether a website loads: check user workflows and performance under load

• Uptrends: Supports web application, web performance, API, and uptime monitoring. It can send problem notifications through multiple channels and lets you create public status pages.
• Pingdom: Offers synthetic and real user monitoring, along with suggestions for improving page speed. Its transaction monitoring can track important workflows such as registration, login, search, and purchases, and send notifications when problems are detected.
• Dotcom-Monitor: Supports page speed, uptime, protocol, and API monitoring. It can also run load tests using large numbers of real browser connections and report server failures and website downtime.

For example, an online store looking to monitor its purchase flow could evaluate Pingdom’s transaction monitoring. To test website performance under a large number of connections, consider Dotcom-Monitor’s load testing. These requirements should be listed separately in your tool selection checklist, rather than lumped together under “whether the website is online.”