Why Should You Use a Website Performance Monitoring Tool?
A website performance monitoring tool is a software application that tracks various metrics related to a website's performance. This can include page load and server response times and error rates.
Page speed statistics show that a one-second delay in page loading makes page views drop by 11%.
Same statistics reveal that 79% of online shoppers will be less likely to shop at an online retailer where they have experienced performance issues.
That's only about your page speed, but there is more to website performance.
Website performance monitoring is a broad term that encompasses a variety of monitoring approaches and practices. You can collect data by simulating your users' behavior or by tracing and evaluating the steps of real human interaction with your website.
Each way, the performance of your website may now serve as a critical differentiator and predictor of digital experience, brand perception, and e-commerce success. It can provide you with a significant competitive advantage.
Wouldn’t it be great to detect performance issues and errors, and be notified in the event of any downtime?
That definitely reduces the risk of losing clients, and consequently, revenue. It also helps ensure that each user has an excellent experience.
Top Website Performance Monitoring Tools
Now that we know why it is vital to use a website performance monitoring tool, let's see the options to pick the one that suits your business the best.
1. Websiteuptime
Websiteuptime is a simple and dependable website uptime solution for website performance monitoring with configurable, quick, and free status pages.
Top Features:
- Ability to use the predefined domains or connect your domain.
- Access to the custom status page QR code builder.
Pros:
- Possible to control your monitors from various points around the world.
- Custom HTTP requests and responses.
- Custom CSS styling and custom JS.
- Notifications when the tracked services go up or down.
- Ability to create projects to classify your managed resources and projects.
- Multiple notification handlers.
- Custom back-half URL.
- Possible to block search engine indexing.
Cons:
- The number of integrations could be increased.
- More features, in general, could be added.
Price: There is a free plan available. The basic plan starts at $19 if you pay monthly.
Rating: Since Websiteuptime is relatively new on the market, there is no rating score on major review sites so far.
2. TeamViewer Web Monitoring
TeamViewer Web Monitoring allows you to monitor your website's performance and user experience.
Top Features:
- 24/7 monitoring assurance.
- Uptime, page load, transaction monitoring.
Pros:
- Servers at 30+ locations.
- Check frequency is high.
- Ability to see in graph view.
- You can see historical data on charts.
- Comprehensive reporting is provided.
- Instant alerts are in place.
Cons:
- Reporting could be improved.
- User interface might be confusing.
Price: There is a 14-day free trial with all features available. The basic plan starts at €9,90/mo.
Capterra Rating: 4.8⭐️
3. Sematext
Sematext is a global software company that develops cloud and on-premises systems to provide logging, monitoring, and analytics solutions.
Top Features:
- Easy integration with cloud platforms.
- Transaction tracing.
Pros:
- Synthetic and real user monitoring.
- Cloud application and infrastructure monitoring
- Infrastructure, website uptime monitoring.
- Log management.
- Public website status pages.
Cons:
- The UI may not respond or become slow (rarely).
- Not supported by all languages.
Price: There is a 24-days free trial. The standard plan starts at $0.005/mo per agent per hour.
Capterra rating: 4.8⭐️
4. New Relic
New Relic is a real-user monitoring solution. It can assist you in optimizing your end-user experience by identifying backend latency and its effects on browsers.
Top Features:
- See the geography page for a world view with color-coded Apdex scores and other performance information about your end users' experience.
- Ability to use Core Web Vitals data to improve SEO.
Pros:
- You can examine page views.
- Provides information about the end user's experience with your apps based on which browser they use.
- Real user monitoring.
- Provides visibility for how long it takes for pages to load in all browsers and reports details for JavaScript errors and AJAX calls.
- Have minimal impact on SEO and overall page load time.
- Infrastructure and browser monitoring.
Cons:
- Support could be improved.
- Has a steep learning curve due to the complex user interface.
- Log management could be more efficient and user-friendly.
Price: Standard Plan offers one free full platform user and 100 GBs/mo data. You pay for more data or users as you grow.
So the actual price goes like: the data you send + the number of users. You have 100 GB of free data ingested monthly and then $0.30/GB for more.
Capterra Rating: 4.5⭐️
5. Dynatrace
Dynatrace is a software intelligence platform that provides application performance management, artificial intelligence for operations, cloud infrastructure monitoring, and digital experience management.
Top Features:
- Cloud automation is available.
- Mobile app monitoring.
Pros:
- Server-side service monitoring.
- Network, process, and host monitoring.
- Cloud and virtual machine monitoring.
- Container and infrastructure monitoring.
- Application security systems.
- Digital experience monitoring (DEM).
- Real user monitoring.
- Root-cause analysis.
Cons:
- Has a steep learning curve as it has so many features.
- If you have a big infrastructure, pricing might be costly.
- You may receive false alarm notifications from time to time.
Price: There is a 15-day free trial. The pricing changes according to the category, such as full-stack monitoring starts at $74/mo, infrastructure monitoring starts at $22/mo, and so on.
See Dynatrace's pricing page for detailed info.
Capterra rating: 4.4⭐️
6. Checkly
Checkly is an API & E2E monitoring platform that checks websites and APIs for uptime and performance.
Top Features:
- API and synthetic monitoring
- Ability to monitor private applications.
- Threshold alerting system.
Pros:
- Alerting systems.
- CI/CD integration.
- Public dashboards.
- Integrates with open source and developer tools.
- Public and private locations.
- SSL expiry alerting.
Cons:
- Efficient documentation is needed.
- Only the English language is supported.
Price: There is a forever free plan available. The paid plan works in pay as you grow model, where you are charged $ 2.50 for 10k API check runs and $6.00 for 1k browser check runs.
G2 Rating: 4.0⭐️ (with only one review🤔)
7. Calibreapp
Calibreapp is a web performance monitoring platform that helps users enhance their site's and applications' user experience, speed, SEO, and accessibility.
Top Features:
- Core Web Vitals support.
- Third-party tracking.
Pros:
- Unlimited data retention.
- Global testing infrastructure.
- Full encryption.
- Testing authenticated pages.
- Performance budgets.
- Built-in Google Lighthouse.
- Insights email report system.
Cons:
- Might be pricey.
- So few service reviews.
Price: There is a 15-day free trial. The starter plan starts at $75 per month.
Rating: There are no reviews of Calibreapp on major review sites.😔
8. Host-tracker
Host-tracker is a website monitoring service that assists businesses in tracking and testing the functionality of their websites.
Top Features:
- Auto-pause the ads if your site is down by Google Ad management.
- Black lists to check if your domain is on any black list.
Pros:
- Availability check from 140+ locations.
- Instant alerts to get notified about any issues.
- Domain & SSL check.
- Response time and page speed monitoring.
- Detailed reports.
- CPU, RAM, and HDD load to see your server load parameters.
Cons:
- Alert notifications may be problematic in some channels.
- Exporting statistics in XML format can sometimes result in a broken layout.
- You might need to check if you are on the blacklist manually.
Price: The webmaster plan's monthly monitoring starts at $14, with 10 sites included. Plus, there is an extra site cost of $0.70/month.
TrustPilot Rating: 4.6⭐️
9. Pingdom by Solarwinds
Pingdom is a Swedish website monitoring SaaS company later acquired by Solarwinds. It is a part of SolarWinds DevOps solution that provides a full-stack monitoring service.
Top Features:
- Log management and analytics powered by SolarWinds Loggly.
- Page load performance and user behavior metrics.
Pros:
- Infrastructure and application performance monitoring powered by SolarWinds AppOptics.
- Alerting systems.
- Page speed and transaction monitoring.
- Unlimited number of sites and users.
- Shareable reports and performance filtering.
- 13-month data retention.
- Synthetic and real user monitoring.
Cons:
- The root cause might be complex due to the alert system
- Pricing might be an issue if you also monitor micro-services.
- Lacks a mobile app.
Price: There is a 30-day free trial. The synthetic monitoring starts at $10/mo if you choose to pay annually. Real user monitoring starts at $10/mo as well.
So both combined yearly prices are $240 for the minimum features.
Capterra rating: 4.4⭐️
10. GTmetrix
GTmetrix was developed by Carbon60 to help you discover how your site performs, why it's not working as you want it to, and how you can improve it.
Top Features:
- Advanced analysis options.
- Ability to record the page loads and pinpoint precisely where bottlenecks or stoppages occur.
Pros:
- Track performance with monitoring, graphs, alerts, and waterfall charts.
- 82 servers in 22 different locations.
- Possible to analyze your page on mobile devices.
- Disable ads on your page to see the performance difference in page load.
- Simulate Dial-Up, 2G/3G, DSL, or cable by loading your page on several connection speeds.
- Analyze pages behind HTTP authentication by passing through credentials.
- Block or only allow specific resources that load on your page.
- API functionality.
Cons:
- Test server locations could be increased.
- Test results may vary without reason, making them difficult to understand.
- User interfaces might be confusing.
Price: There is a forever free basic plan available. The starter plan is $25/mo.
Capterra rating: 4.9😍
11. UptimeRobot
UptimeRobot is a website monitoring system that helps track response time, monitor keywords, share issue updates, and more.
Top Features:
- Ability to send status updates to your subscribers.
- Customization of colors and adding your logo.
Pros:
- Ability to see your response times.
- Possible to set up maintenance windows to prevent alarms during the planned maintenance.
- Custom HTTP requests.
- Multi-location checks.
Cons:
- Not fully open source.
- The look of the web interface could be improved.
- Might be a bit hard to set up.
Price: There is a free plan available with limited features. The paid plan starts at $7/mo.
Capterra rating: 4.4⭐️
12. StatusCake
StatusCake monitors your website and sends alerts when it goes down or has other technical issues.
Top Features:
- StatusCake pages where you can inform visitors when your site is down.
- SSL monitoring.
Pros:
- Uptime monitoring from 30 different countries.
- Page speed monitoring from different locations.
- Domain and server monitoring.
Cons:
- The number of locations could be improved.
- Reporting can be problematic if the filters are incorrectly applied.
- Free version doesn't have many useful features.
Price: There is a free plan available. The superior plan starts at $24.49 if you choose to pay monthly.
G2 Rating: 4.5⭐️
13. Site24x7
Site24x7 is an all-in-one monitoring solution for monitoring the availability of your website and the end-user experience.
Top Features:
- Cloud-hosted log management.
- Real user monitoring (RUM).
Pros:
- Root cause analysis capabilities.
- Synthetic web transaction monitoring.
- Application performance and server monitoring.
- Public and private cloud monitoring.
- 120+ global monitoring locations.
- Router and firewall monitoring.
Cons:
- The interface might be confusing at first.
- Technical support could be improved.
- There could be more features in general.
Price: There is a 30-day free trial. The starter plan is $9/mo if you pay annually for the website monitoring tool only. The all-in-one plan is $35/mo annually.
Capterra rating: 4.5⭐️
14. SmartBear AlertSite
SmartBear AlertSite helps you monitor your websites, web apps, and APIs from anywhere in the world as well as within your private networks.
Top Features:
- Unified UI and API performance view.
- 350+ global nodes and private network coverage.
- Integration with Ops and DevOps tools.
Pros:
- Root-cause analysis.
- Ability to create web and API monitors code-free.
- Monitors UI and API layers for availability, performance, and functionality.
- Public and private cloud monitoring.
- Monitoring multi-step API transactions and verification payloads.
- Mobile web apps and API performance monitoring.
Cons:
- Monitoring locations might be problematic, sometimes causing false alerts.
- Dashboard becomes unavailable from time to time.
- Customer support could be improved technically.
Price: There is a 30-day free trial. After that custom pricing system is available, and there are three categories as Internal Monitoring, External Monitoring, and Hybrid Deployment. Contact SmartBear AlertSite for details.
G2 Rating: 4.1⭐️
15. Uptrends
Uptrends provides comprehensive website monitoring and performance services with which you can monitor your website, server, and API.
Top Features:
- Double-check feature prevents false alerts.
- Scheduled maintenance capability.
- Integration with popular tools such as Slack, PagerDuty, StatusHub.
Pros:
- Custom dashboards and interactive charts.
- Ability to get visual confirmation of downtime caused by errors with error snapshots.
- 1-minute monitoring ability.
- Custom metrics to collect custom data from the defined step variables for tracking and reporting.
- Monitor from 229 checkpoints.
- Personal private checkpoint running behind the firewall.
- In concurrent monitoring, the ability to do ten, or more checks from multiple locations at the same time.
- Checks your online status 24/7.
- Off-duty schedules.
Cons:
- The number of server locations could be improved.
- Set up might not be easy without support.
- The user interface could be more modern.
- User and group management could be more simple.
Price: There is a 30-day free trial. The starter plan starts at $16.21/mo with 10 uptime monitors.
Capterra Rating: 4.6⭐️
16. LogicMonitor
LogicMonitor unifies monitoring capabilities and enables observability across data centers, public and private clouds, and applications.
Top Features:
- Future trends forecasting based on your past performance.
- More than 2,000 integrations.
Pros:
- Infrastructure monitoring.
- Third-party certified security.
- Customizable alerting.
- Topology mapping to see the relationships among elements within a communications network.
- Customizable reporting system.
- Customizable and scalable pre-built dashboards.
- Server, network, application, storage, and database monitoring.
Cons:
- Has a steep learning curve.
- Handling the alert management could be more simple.
- Reports could be more in detail.
- Pricing can get costly if you have many servers.
Price: There is a 14-day free trial. There are two packages: Pro-Hybrid Monitoring and Enterprise-Full Observability. The pricing is custom, so you need to contact support.
Capterra Rating: 4.7⭐️
17. Dotcom-Monitor
Dotcom-Monitor offers load testing and performance monitoring solutions to help ensure the availability, functionality, and uptime of your websites, web applications, APIs, and IT infrastructure.
Top Features:
- Real-time dashboards of the monitored devices.
- A mobile app is available.
Pros:
- Instant alerts with detailed information.
- XML reporting service provides APIs.
- EveryStep web recorder.
- Private agents monitor websites, web applications, or network services unavailable outside your network.
- Ability to create custom filter conditions to reduce the number of false alerts.
- Integration with big platforms like Salesforce, BMC, Asana, Zapier, and so on.
Cons:
- The learning process might be complex.
- More server locations could be added.
- Navigating through the software might be hard without support.
Price: There is a 30-day free trial. Pricing for web services monitoring starts at $19.95. There is also a pricing calculator available for custom needs.
Capterra Rating: 4.6⭐️
18. Appdynamics
AppDynamics allows you to monitor your apps and any network, ISP, API, SaaS, or third-party service critical to your business outcomes.
Top Features:
- AppDynamics University.
- Pinpoint root causes of application problems in real-time.
Pros:
- Infrastructure and database monitoring.
- Application performance monitoring.
- Business performance monitoring.
- End user monitoring.
Cons:
- Customization of alerts might be tricky.
- Might be a little complex in general for non-experts.
- May slow down from time to time.
Price: There is a 15-day free trial. There are different packages like Infrastructure Monitoring Edition ($6/mo), Premium Edition ($60/mo), and Enterprise Edition ($90/mo). You can also ask for custom pricing.
Capterra Rating: 4.6⭐️
Before You Leave…
Website performance monitoring is not an easy task. That is why companies hire experts and try to choose the best website performance monitoring tools to monitor their website and ensure everything is going okay.
Website performance monitoring tools are your assistants to monitor your traffic, speed, under-load performance, and many other important metrics to run a successful site. So it is no surprise that the market for these online tools has grown immensely in recent years.
It is wise to find and use the right performance monitoring tools to save time and money while making your website function more efficiently, no matter the size of your business.
How do you monitor the performance of your website? Do you use any of the tools above?
Meet me in the comments below!
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Types of Web Performance Monitoring?
There are two main types: Synthetic monitoring and Real user monitoring.
Synthetic monitoring is a type of active monitoring that uses scripted transactions to simulate real user activity to identify performance issues proactively.
Real user monitoring is a passive monitoring technique that captures all user interactions with a website or client communicating with a server or cloud-based application.
Is Website Performance Monitoring Expensive?
Depending on the functions you need and the number of URLs to be checked, the price of website monitoring can range from a few dollars to many thousand dollars. That's why the price changes for each website and package.
What is Website Performance Testing?
Website performance testing is the process of testing how quickly and efficiently a website loads and responds to user input.
