Overview
Pingdom, owned by SolarWinds, is one of the oldest website monitoring services. Synthetic monitoring checks availability from over 100 locations, measures page load speed element by element, and runs scripted transactions such as sign-up, login, search and checkout. Alerts go by email, SMS and the mobile app, and results can be published on public status pages and shareable reports.
Real User Monitoring is a separate product that collects load times from actual visitors, broken down by browser, device and country, with 13 months of retention and unlimited sites.
There are no named plans: you pick a tier of uptime checks (10, 25, 50, 100 and up), each with a small number of advanced checks and SMS credits. There is no free plan, only a 30-day trial, and advanced transaction checks grow much more slowly than uptime checks across tiers.
Pricing and plans
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Synthetic 10 | $18/mo ($16.50/mo annual) | 10 uptime checks, 1 advanced (page speed or transaction) check, 50 SMS |
| Synthetic 50 | $78/mo | 50 uptime checks, 10 advanced checks, 200 SMS |
| Synthetic 100 | $149/mo | 100 uptime checks, 20 advanced checks, 350 SMS |
| Real User Monitoring | From $18/mo | 100,000 pageviews, unlimited sites and users, 13-month retention |
What it does
- Uptime monitoring
- Availability checks from 100+ locations worldwide with email, SMS and app alerts.
- Transaction monitoring
- Scripted multi-step checks for flows like registration, login and checkout.
- Page speed monitoring
- Tracks load time and the size and timing of every page element.
- Real User Monitoring
- Visitor performance by browser, device and location, with 13-month retention.
- Status pages and reports
- Public status pages and shareable uptime reports; unlimited users.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Long-established service with a large network of 100+ check locations.
- Unlimited users on every tier.
- Real user monitoring included as an option alongside synthetic checks.
- Shareable SLA-style reports suit agencies and hosting providers.
Limitations
- No free plan; only a 30-day trial.
- The entry tier includes just 1 advanced (transaction or page speed) check.
- Synthetic and RUM are billed as separate products.
- No error tracking, APM or logs without other SolarWinds products.
Who it suits
Good for
- Business and marketing sites that need uptime and speed reports
- Agencies and hosts reporting SLAs to clients
- Teams wanting real user performance data without code changes
Look elsewhere if
- Hobby projects, which can use free uptime tools
- Developers wanting monitoring as code or error tracking
Alternatives to Pingdom
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana Cloud Hosted metrics, logs, traces and dashboards | $19/mo | Free tier | |
| Healthchecks.io Cron job and heartbeat monitoring | $20/mo | Free tier | |
| Rollbar Error tracking and session replay | $15.83/mo | Free tier | |
| GlitchTip Open-source error tracking (Sentry SDK compatible) | $15/mo | Free tier | |
| OneUptime Open-source uptime, status pages, on-call, APM and logs | $22/mo | Free tier | |
| AppSignal APM with errors, logs, hosts and uptime | $23.25/mo | Free tier |
Questions
Does Pingdom have a free plan?
No. Pingdom offers a 30-day trial; paid synthetic monitoring starts at about $18 a month for 10 uptime checks.
How much does Pingdom cost?
Its calculator starts Synthetic Monitoring at $18 a month ($16.50 on annual billing) for 10 uptime checks, and RUM at $18 a month for 100,000 pageviews.
What is an advanced check in Pingdom?
A page speed or transaction check. Tiers include far fewer of these than uptime checks, for example 1 with 10 uptime checks.
Who owns Pingdom?
Pingdom is a SolarWinds product.
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