Website monitoring services testing

Monitoring services. Testing.

First of all, every and any website monitoring system is very good to use. They help to eliminate the downtime and take appropriate measures before your users and cusomers start complaining about your website being not accessible. The service is twice good to use when it is free. Every system is good individually in its own way. One is very functional but not very friendly, the other is very cheap to use but as everything free is not very reliable. We tried to find that happy medium.

We put all popular monitoring services under testing for one month and at the end calculated the credits for every system according to the following formula:

Functionality+Usability+Reliability+Locations-Price Position+Min Mo. Charge Position

Functionality: page/ports monitoring and # of additional features. (1-10)
Usability: overall impression of using the service. quality of interfaces and friendliness of the system. (1-10)
Reliability: failed alerts and accuracy of monitoring and alerting. (1-10)
Locations: # of worldwide monitoring nodes. this option is very important. the more locations the more accurate monitoring. (4 and less = -1 credit; 4 locations = standard; over 4 = +1 credit)
Price Position: all services were sorted by minimum price for 15 minites monitor (sufficient interval for most of users needs) to figure out the cheapest. All prices.
Min Mo. Charge Position: all services were sorted by minimum bill at checkout to figure out the cheapest.

	ServiceUptime       Best Price/Quality: Highly Recommended!     Functionality   9     Usability   9     Reliability   9 score:   Locations   10 (4US / Canada / UK / Italy / Australia / Singapore / France) 36   Price Position   1 ($0.50-$15.00)     Min. Charge   9 ($4,95)   Impression:   (+) Many useful features. Reasonable pricing. Many worldwide locations. Quick support. Cheapest sms alerts. Statistics never deleted. (-) No messenger alerts.

	Websitepulse       Recommended!     Functionality   9     Usability   8     Reliability   9 score:   Locations   10 32   Price Position   4 ($7 (with 5 locations)-$19)     Min. Charge   8 ($1)   Impression:   (+) Good customization. You choose the number of services, locations, etc. (-) Too complex account calculator. Many different fees (some hidden. can't use sms without multiple contacts (3USD)). Every additional location +1USD/mo.

	Alertra       Very Good!     Functionality   9     Usability   8     Reliability   9 score:   Locations   8 (5US / Germany / UK / China) 29   Price Position   4 ($0.95-$59.95)     Min. Charge   6 ($7,50)   Impression:   (+) Nice alerting and customization. (-) Very unfriendly interface. sometimes you click yes to some question and get kicked out to index page not knowing where to go next.

	SiteUptime       Good!     Functionality   8     Usability   7     Reliability   8 score:   Locations   4 (3US/UK) 28   Price Position   1 ($5-$15)     Min. Charge   6 ($5)   Impression:   (+) Very good free service. Paid accounts are also pretty cheap. (-) As all free not very reliable. Basic monitoring with no "good to have" additional features.

	Dotcom-monitor           Functionality   9     Usability   8     Reliability   9 score:   Locations   9 (5 US / UK / China / Canada / Germany) 27   Price Position   5 ($12.99-$85.99)     Min. Charge   5 ($12,99)   Impression:   (+) Very customizable. (-) Too complex and too expansive. Regular online user will not be able to easily set up a monitoring service.

	Watchmouse             Functionality   8     Usability   6     Reliability   9 score:   Locations   15 23   Price Position   4 (€29.95-€450)     Min. Charge   8 ($1)   Impression:   (+) Many locations. (-) Excessively complex system of rules. Very expensive.

	@watch             Functionality   7     Usability   4     Reliability   9 score:   Locations   4 (3US / Germany) 18   Price Position   6 ($17.95-$89.95)     Min. Charge   3 ($17,95+setup fee)   Impression:   (+) (-) Too expensive! $10 daily report bacame $29 at checkout. Setup fee $49.95 every service. Only 4 locations. No sms alerting.

	Pingalink             Functionality   8     Usability   6     Reliability   8 score:   Locations   0 (unknown) 15   Price Position   8 ($43.90)     Min. Charge   2 ($21,95+setup fee)   Impression:   (+) Mssql monitoring. (-) Not very reliable. Too expensive. Setup fee $21,95. SMS alerts very expensive. Unknown # of locations.

	Redalert             Functionality   7     Usability   5     Reliability   8 score:   Locations   3 (unknown) 13   Price Position   7 ($19.95-$79.90)     Min. Charge   1 ($39,90+setup fee)   Impression:   (+) Alerts can be assigned to every error type. (-) Too many hidden fees. $19.95 activation. 19.95 fee for the 1st month's monitoring of one device. Confusing, very unclear pricing.