I recently did a small experiment to evaluate the reliability and response time of various website monitoring services available on the Internet.
In case you are new, these services continuously monitor your website(s) for downtime and send email alerts as soon as your web server goes down or becomes slow and inaccessible. You get another alert when the site is up again.
For this test, I configured my site with Uptime Party, Pingdom, Watch Mouse, Site Uptime and Zoho’s Site 24×7. They are all commercial site monitoring services but also offer a trial version which is good for around 30 days.
Now as you would know, the site went down last week for a couple of hours due to some issues with the file server of the web hosting company but this was a good opportunity to test how quick and reliable these site monitoring services are.
Here’s a snapshot of email alerts that came from all the above services along with the exact time when these alerts were received.
As you may have noticed, Pingdom was able catch the downtime within seconds while Watch Mouse and Site Uptime were late by 5-10 minutes. Uptime party sent a notification almost 30 minutes after the site went down.
When the site was up and running again, Pingdom and WatchMouse were the first one to send an uptime email alert while the rest two were late by 10-15 minutes.
The problem resurfaced yesterday night when the site went down and here’s a snapshot of email alerts from the second instance. Pingdom response time impressed again.
I was not too sure why there were no email alerts from Site24×7 and it later turned out that site monitoring was disabled in the control panel. Have no clue why that happened so can’t really comment on Zoho’s service.
Finally, here’s a quick chart comparing the price of various website monitoring services for bloggers and small web publishers.
| Site Monitoring Services | Free Service | Monitoring Interval | Number of Allowed Sites | Cost per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uptime Party | Yes | 30 minutes | 1 | $0 |
| Site Uptime Free | Yes | 30 minutes | 1 | $0 |
| Site Uptime Premium | No | 5 minutes | 3 | $5 |
| Pingdom | No / 30 Day Trial | 1 minute | 5 | $10 |
| Watch Mouse Free | Yes | 60 minutes | 1 | $0 |
| Watch Mouse Premium | No / 30 Day Trial | 5 minutes | 1 | $36 |
| Site 24×7 Free | Yes | 60 minutes | 2 | $0 |
| Site 24×7 Premium | No / 15 Day Trial | 5-30 minutes | Unlimited | $1-4 per URL |
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/best-website-monitoring-services-for-site-uptime/4742/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
It’s bit werid to test reaction speed when update interval is 30-60 minutes. :) And of course Pingdom wins with 1 minute interval… Except that trial expires but free service from alternatives doesn’t.
Written by Rarst on 10.02.08
Though these services are pretty good, they lack the ability of call to action on downtimes, I had written about a application [ link ] which could be run from the desktop and used to monitor website, when there is any downtimes you can call a custom script or application, that for instance initiates a recovery or reboot process for your server.
Written by Keith Dsouza on 10.02.08
After having checked a number of commercial services for site monitoring, we settled on nagios. This is by far one of the most impressive options for site monitoring and uptime reporting.
Written by Vaibhav on 10.02.08
It looks like siteuptime.com is down… how’s that for irony?!
Written by El Fiscal on 10.02.08
Amit,
For lightweight use such as mine, Site 24X7 offers a decently good service.
Written by Rajesh Kumar on 10.02.08
Is there any free uptime monitoring tool? I have been looking for a similar tool and infact have contemplated setting up a PHP script to check my servers and email me when it is down. This script will offcourse be hosted on a more relaible hosting provider.
Written by Akshay Jain on 10.02.08
Pingdom service is good but is also prone to give many false positives.
try websitepulse.com that is free for monitoring a site for 30 mins from any 1 of its servers that is located worldwide.
u can aslo make use of a free service Uptimedog that gives a 1 minute montoring for free..but this too gives a lot fo false +ves.
Written by mgn on 10.03.08
The ones mentioned are good, but most of the good ones are paid. And the free ones mentioned here have too long ping intervals, which is why their notification comes so late.
I use LogicReach - link - which allows you to monitor up to 5 sites for free, and has a short ping interval. It also monitors from multiple locations and can send email updates. The best thing I like about the service is its clean interface. It’s really the best option for webmasters to keep an eye on their own site.
Written by Ankur Banerjee on 10.03.08
@Akshay: Whats wrong with a shell script using ping, tail, mail combo?
Written by Shantanu Goel on 10.03.08
@Shantanu, the problem is that
1. Not many shared hosting companies allow Shell access. So, ultimately, the whole purpose of a uptime monitoring service is defeated if you have to buy a brand new server or a VPS for the same.
2. I am confortable with PHP more than shell scripting.
Written by Akshay Jain on 10.03.08
Hi Amit,
basicstate.com
- free
- 15 minute check interval
- full http transaction
- sms capable(sms fee applies)
- unlimited sites
- featured by msnbc.com
- featured by networkworld.com
Written by spenser on 10.09.08
I’m a little surprised and disappointed that we were missed for this review.
WatchOur.com has been monitoring sites since 2001 and have a 5 star rating from PC Magazine and helped create the marketplace for website monitoring.
We have, literally, had copy and functionality lifted from our website and copied to competitors. We are one of the oldest and still one of the best out there. Seven years of business proves this.
We monitor every 5 minutes from multiple locations, have sensitivy settings to manage false positives, as well as a host of other features.
I hope you will give us a try - we have a 30 day free trial.
Thanks!
Written by WatchOur on 11.22.08