5 Best Uptime Monitoring Services To Check Your Website Downtime

Today, it is hardly possible to run a successful business without having a decent website. For this reason, great care must be taken to get it to operate properly. There is always a possibility of downtime due to a technical issue or hack. Even a brief shutdown can cause a serious financial and/or reputational loss. The likelihood of these largely depends on the quality of a website hosting provider. Any website owner needs to be sure that his/her chosen hosting service is not going to let him/her down. There are uptime monitoring services, who track the work of the most popular web hosting providers and share this information with potential and/or current users. Here are a few examples.

Hrank

The top uptime checker services - Hrank

Hrank is one of the top uptime checker services. Holding hundreds of web hosting providers on notice, it runs a continuous check on thousands of shared IPs and can estimate the work of millions of websites simultaneously. Uptime is the number one in terms of service quality, although Hrank takes other criteria into account as well, such as response time, technical support, services’ age, etc. The company uses advanced methods of analysis and research, and it has built an effective rating system that keeps the growing clientele up to date on web hosting services’ work.

The Good:

1. Hrank holds a continuous and thorough research on each hosting service provider and shares basic information with users.
2. The company uses a >50 approach, as it tracks only shared IPs with >50 domains. This allows them to embrace a maximal number of servers. All in all, the company monitors 300 web hosting providers, about 40,000 IPs and 12 mln websites.
3. The company uses advanced software and hardware and updates information on a regular basis.
4. The service is absolutely free.

The Bad:

1. Hrank covers only the 12 mln websites, which live up to the >50 domains rule.
2. Hrank is not a service provider. It is a provider of important information for users who are choosing a reliable and trustworthy service and want it to run their websites.

Uptime Robot

A good uptime monitoring service - Uptime Robot

Uptime Robot addresses personal and corporate websites, monitors uptime/downtime and signals owners once their websites are down. The company uses a technique that requests a status code from a website at a set interval of time (for example, 5 minutes, depending on the monitor’s settings). There are several status code, each one denoting the website’s current state: for example, 200-ok means that the website is working properly, while +400, +500, and 404-not found indicate problems. Once the system gets such a code, it runs a few additional checks and, when the site proves to be down, it sends an alert to the owner.

The Good:

1. UptimeRobot uses advanced software and equipment that checks a website every 5 minutes and alerts once it detects a downtime.
2. It has lots of free options that have been around since the company’s inception.
3. UptimeRobot uses 50 monitors simultaneously and verifies downtime from a number of locations.
4. You get Premium-like support for the company’s free services.
5. UptimeRobot makes several checks before sending an alert signal to ensure that the website is really down.

The bad:

1. Because the service is mostly free, there are some limitations: no page speed insights or manual alert testing.

Pingdom

A website performance checker company - Pingdom

Pingdom is another popular website performance checker company, which uses advanced tools and provides a quick and clear glimpse into websites’ availability and performance.  To notify customers of problems, the company sends an SMS message once it spots a problem. Also, the company keeps users informed via email, messengers and push notifications, allowing users to get signals with the help of mobile apps. The system makes several checks prior to alerting users to rule out false alerts.

The Good:

1. Pingdom provides a whole spectrum of monitoring options (uptime, page speed, real user, transaction) and advanced alerting.
2. Four flexible pricing plans for different budgets and preferences.
3. A SMS notification service will alert you via mobile connection when your website is down.

The Bad:

1. Many users find Pingdom a little expensive.

Uptrends

A good uptime monitoring service - Uptrends

Uptrends is a service with a good uptime monitoring option that uses numerous advanced techniques to keep users informed on their websites’ status. The service takes steps to minimize or prevent downtime by monitoring HTTPs, DNS, SSL Certificates, etc. It uses effective alerting options. In case there is an uptime problem, the system will make several automatic checks before signaling the user that the website is down. This method helps prevent false alerts, which can be sheer nuisance.

The Good:

1. A hefty choice of monitoring options: web performance, uptime, web application, real user, IP, etc. The palette ensures ultimate monitoring of your website’s general performance.
2. Uptrend provides mobile apps and enables you to monitor your website via your Android or iOS device.
3. There are a good number of useful free tools.
4. There are five pricing plans, three providing basic website monitoring and the other two – advanced monitoring.

The Bad

1. Many users view the three basic plans too limited.

Uptimia

Website monitoring services - Uptimia

Uptimia is one of the most reputable and reliable website monitoring services. It provides easy access to any website owner by letting them sign in. Once they do, the company starts checking them from 171 checkpoints distributed around the globe. Once the system detects a malfunction and spots a downtime, it makes several checks (from different checkpoints) and, based on the collected data, reports the downtime via email, SMS, and/or other messenger services. This way of checking rules out the possibility of false alarms. Websites are put to a check every 30 seconds, so it takes but a couple of minutes for the system to get a user to know there is a problem. Uptimia runs two datacenters and works 24/7.

The Good:

1. High performance and availability thanks to wide distribution around the globe.
2. Extensive monitoring opportunities: real user, speed, uptime, and transaction monitoring.
3. Flexible and varied pricing plans: Starter, Standard, Advance and Enterprise.

The Bad:

1. Some users have complained about slow response.