Best Synthetic Monitoring Tools Compared (2026)

Introduction

Every synthetic monitoring tool sends scripted traffic at your site or API on a schedule and tells you when something breaks. Beyond that, the field splits quickly. Some tools are part of a sprawling observability suite, some are developer tools built around Playwright, and some are inexpensive uptime pingers that never open a browser at all.

This guide ranks twelve synthetic monitoring tools and services for 2026 and explains the tradeoffs between them. It’s written for the typical team monitoring a web application and a few APIs, so if your needs are unusual, your ranking will be too.

Loadster is our product, and it’s in the ranking where we think it belongs rather than at the top by default. Here’s a fact-based comparison from the team behind Loadster. Prices and limits come from each vendor’s own pricing pages and documentation as of September 2026, cited in the footnotes. Please contact us if anything is out of date.

If you’re new to the topic, our synthetic monitoring guide covers how it works and how it differs from real user monitoring.

How We Ranked These Synthetic Monitoring Tools

We weighted the criteria based on what most teams monitoring web applications and APIs actually care about:

• 30%: Realistic checks. Can the tool run multi-step transactions in a real browser as well as API checks, so it catches broken flows and not just outages?
• 25%: Script creation and maintenance. How easy is it to build checks, understand them later, and keep them current as the application changes? Can you reuse tests or scripts you already have?
• 15%: Diagnostics and alerting. When a check fails, do you get screenshots, traces, and alerts in the places your team watches? Are status pages included?
• 15%: Coverage. How many locations can checks run from, and can you monitor private apps from inside your network?
• 15%: Pricing clarity. Is pricing published, and can you predict what next month will cost?

We split the field into three groups. Synthetic monitoring platforms run scripted browser and API transactions. Uptime monitoring services focus on simpler availability checks, some with transaction checks on the side. And there’s one open source tool worth knowing about if you’d rather host it yourself.

Synthetic Monitoring Tools at a Glance

“Not documented” means we couldn’t find the feature in the vendor’s own documentation or pricing pages. It might still be available through an integration.

The Best Synthetic Monitoring Platforms

These tools run scripted multi-step transactions in real browsers, along with API checks, which is what most people mean by synthetic monitoring. They’re ranked by overall fit to the criteria above.

1. Datadog Synthetic Monitoring

Datadog Synthetic Monitoring is one of the most complete synthetic products available, and it earns the top spot on breadth. API tests cover HTTP, SSL, DNS, WebSocket, TCP, UDP, ICMP, and gRPC, with multistep API tests chaining requests together, and browser tests are recorded with a Chrome extension and run on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.¹ There’s also mobile app testing on real Android and iOS devices.²

The bigger advantage is integration. If your team already uses Datadog for APM and logs, a failing synthetic test links straight to the backend traces behind it, and the same tests can run in CI pipelines.²

The tradeoff is cost predictability. Datadog lists API tests at $5 per 10,000 test runs and browser tests at $12 per 1,000 test runs, billed annually ($7.20 and $18 on-demand).² Every location and every run counts, so a test running every minute from three locations is 180 test runs per hour, and browser tests count an extra run for every 25 steps.²

Strengths: Huge range of test types, recorder-based browser tests, real-device mobile tests, deep APM integration.

Weaknesses: Per-run pricing adds up quickly with frequent checks across many locations; no Playwright support.

Best for: Teams already invested in Datadog who want synthetic results next to their traces and logs.

2. Checkly

Checkly is a developer-focused monitoring platform built around Playwright. Browser checks are Playwright Test scripts in JavaScript or TypeScript, and Playwright Check Suites can run an existing Playwright test suite as monitors without rewriting it.³ Multistep API checks use Playwright’s request API, and there are uptime, TCP, DNS, ICMP, SSL, and heartbeat monitors as well.³⁴

Checkly leans hard into monitoring as code. The Checkly CLI lets you write checks in TypeScript, test them locally, and deploy them from Git, and there are Terraform and Pulumi providers too.⁵ We think it’s a really nice tool for teams that already live in Playwright and want their monitors reviewed in pull requests like everything else.

Pricing is published. The free Hobby plan includes 10,000 API check runs and 1,000 browser check runs per month, and paid plans start at $24 per month, with 22 public locations and private locations on the Team plan and above.⁴

Strengths: Native Playwright, excellent monitoring-as-code workflow, published pricing with a useful free tier.

Weaknesses: Code-first by design, so less approachable for non-developers; no recorder of its own; no load testing.

Best for: Developer teams with existing Playwright suites who want monitors in version control.

3. Loadster

Loadster is our own platform. It’s a load testing platform with synthetic monitoring built in, and some of its strong points include flexible scripting and the ability to reuse the same scripts for both monitoring and load testing.

Loadster monitors run three kinds of scripts. Browser Bots drive real Chrome browsers through steps like navigate, click, and wait for an element, and you can record them with the free browser extension and refine them in the web-based editor. Playwright Test scripts run as monitors too, so existing end-to-end tests can run on a schedule. Protocol Bots handle lightweight HTTP and API checks, including multi-step flows with captured tokens.

Monitors run from 8 dedicated locations across 5 continents, or from self-hosted engines for private apps. Browser-based monitors capture TTFB, FCP, LCP, and CLS, every cycle keeps a full trace with screenshots, and failures open incidents that alert by email, SMS, phone call, Slack, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, or webhooks. Hosted status pages are included at no extra cost.

The reuse is what sets it apart. The checkout script that monitors your site every five minutes can also run as a load test with thousands of bots before a big launch. Loadster customers have run load tests with more than 170,000 concurrent Chrome browsers, and Protocol Bot tests go well into the millions.

Pricing is flat rather than per run: monitoring plans start at $29 per month, or monitors can burn a small amount of pay-as-you-go Fuel instead.

The caveats: 8 locations is fewer than most platforms here, there are no network-level checks like DNS, TCP, or ICMP, and Loadster doesn’t do real user monitoring or APM. If you need a full observability suite, look higher on this list.

Strengths: Browser Bots, Playwright, and Protocol Bots in one tool; recorder and web-based editor; monitoring and load testing from the same scripts; flat monitoring plans; free status pages.

Weaknesses: Fewer locations than the big suites; HTTP-based checks only (no DNS, TCP, or ICMP monitors); no APM or RUM.

Best for: Teams who want real browser transaction monitoring with predictable pricing, especially if they also load test.

See Synthetic Monitoring with Loadster for the full picture.

4. Grafana Cloud Synthetic Monitoring

Grafana Cloud Synthetic Monitoring offers HTTP, MultiHTTP, DNS, TCP, ping, and traceroute checks, plus k6 scripted checks and k6 browser checks.⁶ Browser checks run Chromium through the k6 browser module, which has a Playwright-inspired API rather than being Playwright itself.⁷ Checks run from 22 public probes, or from private probes running Grafana’s open source agent.⁸

Its standout feature is the free tier: 100,000 API test executions and 10,000 browser test executions per month.⁹ Beyond that, the Pro tier has a $19 monthly platform fee plus usage, starting at $5 per 10,000 API executions and $50 per 10,000 browser executions.⁹ Grafana also says k6 browser check scripts can be reused for performance tests in Grafana k6 or Grafana Cloud k6.¹⁰

Strengths: Generous free tier, k6 script reuse for load testing, natural fit for Grafana dashboards and alerting.

Weaknesses: Browser checks use k6’s API rather than Playwright; status pages aren’t part of the product.

Best for: Teams already on Grafana Cloud, or k6 users who want monitoring from the same scripts.

5. Dynatrace

Dynatrace Synthetic Monitoring includes single-URL browser monitors, browser clickpaths recorded with a Chrome extension, HTTP monitors with pre- and post-execution scripts, and network availability monitors for ICMP, TCP, and DNS on private locations.¹¹ Its public location list has more than 80 entries across Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud.¹²

Pricing comes from the Dynatrace Platform Subscription rate card: $0.0045 per synthetic browser action and $0.001 per HTTP monitor request, drawn down from an annual commitment.¹³

Strengths: Large public location footprint, tight integration with Dynatrace APM, fine-grained billing per action.

Weaknesses: Requires a Dynatrace platform subscription; no Playwright support.

Best for: Enterprises already standardized on Dynatrace.

6. New Relic

New Relic Synthetic Monitoring offers ping monitors, simple and scripted browser monitors, no-code step monitors, scripted API tests, certificate checks, and broken-link checks.¹⁴ Scripted browser monitors run in Selenium-powered Chrome or Firefox, written in JavaScript.¹⁴ There are 20 public locations, plus private locations you host yourself.¹⁵

Ping monitors are included at no extra cost on every edition. Other monitor types draw from a monthly check allowance (500 checks on the free edition, 10,000 on Standard) with additional checks at $0.005 each.¹⁶¹⁷

Strengths: Unlimited ping monitors, no-code step monitors, sits alongside New Relic APM and browser monitoring.

Weaknesses: Selenium-based scripting rather than Playwright; the free allowance doesn’t stretch far for frequent browser checks.

Best for: Teams already using New Relic who want synthetic checks in the same place.

7. Catchpoint

Catchpoint, now part of LogicMonitor, is an enterprise digital experience monitoring platform.¹⁸ It supports browser tests with Playwright and Selenium, API tests, and a long list of network protocols including DNS, SSL, ping, traceroute, SMTP, and MQTT.¹⁹

What sets Catchpoint apart is its network. It runs more than 1,400 test agents across backbone, cloud, last-mile, and wireless networks, plus BGP vantage points, in over 100 countries.²⁰ That lets it measure performance from inside ISPs and wireless networks rather than just cloud data centers. Pricing isn’t published.²¹

Strengths: A wide range of vantage points beyond the cloud, wide protocol coverage, Playwright support.

Weaknesses: Enterprise sales process with no published pricing; more than most web teams need.

Best for: Large organizations that care about ISP and last-mile performance across many countries.

8. Site24x7

Site24x7, from Zoho, covers website, REST API, DNS, port, and SSL monitoring alongside synthetic transactions that run in real Chrome, Firefox, or Edge browsers.²² Transactions are built with a no-code recorder or imported from Selenium IDE files, and checks run from more than 130 locations.²²

Pricing is tiered. The $10 Web Uptime plan doesn’t include transaction monitors, while the $39 Web Perf plan includes 8 of them along with 40 websites ($36 per month billed annually).²³

Strengths: Many locations, browser choice, inexpensive entry plans, broader infrastructure monitoring from the same vendor.

Weaknesses: Transaction monitors are limited on the lower tiers; no Playwright support documented.

Best for: Small and mid-sized teams wanting broad monitoring at a modest price.

Best Uptime Monitoring Services

Uptime services focus on fast, inexpensive availability checks: is the site up, is the port open, does the page contain the right text. They’re often the first monitoring tool a team adopts, and some have added transaction checks over time.

1. Better Stack

Better Stack combines uptime monitoring with incident management, on-call scheduling, and status pages. Its monitors cover HTTP keyword checks, ports, mail servers, DNS, ping, SSL, and heartbeats, and it also runs Playwright transaction monitors in a real Chrome browser.²⁴ By default, each monitor is checked from at least 4 locations, and an incident only opens once at least 3 of them fail.²⁵

The free plan covers 10 monitors and a status page. Paid usage is built around responder licenses at $34 per month ($29 billed annually), with Playwright checks billed at $1 per 100 minutes of runtime.²⁴

Strengths: Built-in on-call and incident management, Playwright transaction checks, polished status pages.

Weaknesses: Pricing has several moving parts (licenses, monitor packs, Playwright minutes, status page add-ons).

Best for: Small teams wanting uptime checks, on-call, and status pages from one vendor.

2. Pingdom

SolarWinds Pingdom is one of the longest-running uptime services. Uptime checks cover HTTP(S), ping, TCP, UDP, DNS, and mail protocols, at intervals down to one minute.²⁶ Transaction checks are recorded and run in a real Chrome browser every 5 minutes to once a day, and public status pages are included on every plan.²⁷²⁸

Pricing scales by quantity. The entry tier is $18 per month (or $16.50 per month billed annually) for 10 uptime checks and 1 advanced check, and real user monitoring is a separate line item.²⁹

Strengths: Mature and reliable uptime checks, recorded browser transactions, many probe servers.

Weaknesses: Only a handful of transaction checks on each tier; no Playwright or code-based scripting.

Best for: Teams wanting a dependable uptime service with a few recorded transaction checks.

3. UptimeRobot

UptimeRobot is known for its free plan, which covers 50 monitors at a 5-minute interval.³⁰ Monitors include HTTP(S), keyword, ping, port, DNS, SSL, heartbeat, and API checks with JSON field validation, and paid plans start at $13 per month ($12 billed annually).³⁰

UptimeRobot doesn’t offer browser or multi-step transaction monitoring, so it can tell you a page is up but not whether login or checkout works. Teams that outgrow it usually move to one of the synthetic monitoring platforms above.

Strengths: Generous free plan, simple setup, inexpensive paid tiers.

Weaknesses: No browser or transaction checks; locations limited to 4 regions.³⁰

Best for: Simple uptime checks for many sites on a small budget.

Best Open Source Synthetic Monitoring Tool

Uptime Kuma

Uptime Kuma is a self-hosted, MIT-licensed monitoring tool with a friendly web interface.³¹ It supports HTTP(S), keyword, JSON query, TCP, WebSocket, ping, DNS, push, and Docker container monitors, along with multiple status pages and over 90 notification services, and it runs with a single Docker command.³¹

There’s no multi-step transaction scripting, and checks only run from wherever you host it, so it can’t tell you whether your site is reachable from other regions unless you run several copies. It’s a great fit for homelabs, side projects, and internal services. For customer-facing web applications, it usually works best alongside a hosted tool with real browser checks.

Strengths: Free, open source, easy to self-host, unlimited monitors and status pages.

Weaknesses: No multi-step browser transactions; a single vantage point unless you run more instances; you operate it yourself.

Best for: Self-hosters and teams who want free uptime checks for internal or low-stakes services.

How to Choose a Synthetic Monitoring Tool

The shortlist usually gets small once you answer a few practical questions.

Synthetic Transaction Checks or Just Uptime Checks?

• Consider an uptime service if… you mainly need to know when a site, port, or endpoint stops responding, and you have many of them to watch on a small budget.
• Consider a synthetic monitoring platform if… your site can be “up” while login, search, or checkout is broken, and you need scripted transaction checks to catch that.

Already Using an Observability Suite with Synthetic Monitoring?

• Consider Datadog, Dynatrace, or New Relic if… you already pay for one of them and want synthetic results next to your APM traces, even if the per-run pricing costs more.
• Consider a dedicated tool if… you want predictable pricing, simpler setup, or features like Playwright support and status pages that the suites don’t emphasize.

Who Writes the Synthetic Monitoring Scripts?

• Developers who like code: Checkly and Better Stack lean into Playwright, Grafana Cloud uses k6, and Loadster runs Playwright Test scripts directly.
• QA engineers and non-developers: Recorder-based tools like Loadster, Datadog, Pingdom, Site24x7, and Dynatrace are usually quicker to get started with.

Do You Need Load Testing from the Same Scripts?

• Consider Loadster or Grafana Cloud if… you want the same scripts to monitor your site and load test it. Loadster reuses Browser Bot, Protocol Bot, and Playwright scripts for both; Grafana reuses k6 scripts.
• Consider a separate load testing tool if… you’re happy with your current monitoring tool. Our load testing tools guide covers the options.

Per-Run Pricing vs Flat Monitoring Plans

Per-run pricing (Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic beyond the allowance, Grafana Cloud beyond the free tier) grows with every check, location, and step you add. Flat plans (Loadster’s monitoring plans, Pingdom, Site24x7, UptimeRobot) are easier to budget but cap what you get. Work out how many checks you’ll run per month before comparing prices.

Conclusion

There’s no single best synthetic monitoring tool, but there’s usually a best fit. Observability suites like Datadog make sense when synthetic monitoring is one piece of a platform you already use. Checkly is great for Playwright-heavy developer teams. Loadster fits teams who want real browser transaction monitoring with flat pricing and the option to load test with the same scripts. Uptime services and Uptime Kuma cover simpler needs at low cost.

Whichever you choose, start with an uptime check on your most important page and one transaction check on your most important flow, then expand from there. If you’d like to try Loadster, a free account comes with 50 units of Fuel, enough to run a few monitors with no credit card required.

Next Steps: Ready to try it? See Synthetic Monitoring with Loadster to set up a monitor with Browser Bots, Protocol Bots, or Playwright.

Related Guides

• Synthetic Monitoring: Tools and Techniques — how synthetic monitoring works and what to monitor.
• Best Load Testing Tools and Platforms — the same kind of ranking for load testing tools.