Now I can start cracking down on bad web hosts, and trust me there is no shortage of them! I have had major outages on the biggest like Digex so its not just the small hosts with problems.
I have been using siteuptime for years without any problems, but I havent tried any other services... until now!
I've seem a limit of like 10 SMS messages per month, but no email limit. A method around monitoring service SMS limits is to send alerts to your phone's SMS email. Most phones have an email address tied to your SMS, like 111222333@txt.att.net or 111222333@tms.suncom.com . So, just have alerts emailed to the phone's SMS and you'll still get a regular SMS message, bypassing any limits.
Ad Manager
· 1 year ago
Very nice list. Montastic is simple and fast, the live RSS feed is very useful. Host-tracker is slow and bloated.
Livewatch
· 1 year ago
Thanks about your report on our service. We are understanding us as a web 2.0 service, which keeps an eye on our customer needs.
Nathan
· 1 year ago
What about servralert.com? It can monitor 5 websites on the free account, and sends email alerts (and sms, if you are willing to pay for them) and it has a windows client so you can check things inside your LAN.
Olben
· 1 year ago
You should check out Panopta (http://www.panopta.com) as well - they've got great service, very high accuracy, plus a number of advanced features such as escalation-based notifications.
Dirk Paessler
· 1 year ago
With the freeware version of our monitoring software PRTG Network Monitor (http://www.paessler.com/prtg) you can set up your own monitoring system with up to 10 sensors. PRTG supports more than 35 sensor types (not only http checks for websites) and multi location monitoring with remote probes.
Utah SEO
· 1 year ago
Great resource, very helpful. Especially is you are hosting other peoples websites, there is nothing worse then having your client call you to tell you the server is down (when they have paid ads).
They can even physically call you if there's a problem with your servers.
An amazing number of really powerful features.
Kevin
Stephen Harrison
· 1 year ago
Great list - thanks for taking the time to compile it, wish you had done it 2 months ago – would have saved me some work.
Having recently had a couple of unexpected outages I would recommend anybody serious about running a web site to sign up for a decent monitor, if for no other reason than piece of mind. I signed up for with SiteUptime and have been very pleased with their monitoring, the only problem is getting woken early in the morning by a pile of text messages saying the sites down then up again when the hosting provider was doing maintenance on their network.
I used to rely on the hosting providers own monitoring application but that has failed a few times and you never know when something crazy is going to happen that will effect your serversransformer blowing up in the data centre that also has the monitoring host in it as well!), Monitoring services are so much better than checking your website a couple of times a day to check on it.
BTW – if you are running a server make sure you don't use an email address that goes to the same server that you are monitoring, you don't get the emails until the servers back up and running! I've found SMS messages much better than email.(like a transformer blowing up in the data centre that also had their the monitoring server in it as well!), Monitoring services are so much better than checking your website a couple of times a day to check on it.
BTW – if you are running a server make sure you don't use an email address that goes to the same server that you are monitoring, you don't get the emails until the servers back up and running! I've found SMS messages much better than email.
I tried montastic thinking "once very ten minutes for free this is too good to be true". It is. Checking my server logs they ping my site on average less than once every two hours. At work we use watchmouse - expensive maybe - but incredibly reliable. You get what you pay for it seems.
Jeff
· 8 months ago
OK, more specific question: a service that provides an immediate alert when someone else's website is updated?
Let's say I want to know right away when a new product is posted for sale by an online store... Any good service (free or pay) for this?
WebMaster1
· 7 months ago
Google Alerts? Or use an "iMacros" sensor of AlertFox.
Great List! I recommend 100pulse.com - worth to add to this free listing.
HostMasterGeneral
· 6 months ago
I have been using www.techout.com for many years now and would not switch. All my websites are under constant surveillance by Techout and this SaaS has really saved my butt more times than once. They offer a great website monitoring application and I highly recommend!
I've extensively tested six online website monitoring services (a couple of which are above) and found three to be good products - Wormly, Site24x7 and Pingability. Most of these services offer notification via email, phone, sms, twitter and IM. Here are the results:
If you have any other suggestions, I am very happy to receive feedback about the article.
Good luck Justin
alisonjuli23
· 2 months ago
We help you discover topics that best fit your industry niche. www.contentunltd.com
EZ Website Monitoring
· 2 months ago
Nice comparison Rob. There are tons of them out there. I'd like to include http://www.ezwebsitemonitoring.com as well, its in open beta right now so its free for now.
All Comments
Now I can start cracking down on bad web hosts, and trust me there is no shortage of them! I have had major outages on the biggest like Digex so its not just the small hosts with problems.
I have been using siteuptime for years without any problems, but I havent tried any other services... until now!
http://www.zenoss.com/
http://www.websitepulse.com/
They do a FREAKING AMAZING job!
They can even physically call you if there's a problem with your servers.
An amazing number of really powerful features.
Kevin
Having recently had a couple of unexpected outages I would recommend anybody serious about running a web site to sign up for a decent monitor, if for no other reason than piece of mind. I signed up for with SiteUptime and have been very pleased with their monitoring, the only problem is getting woken early in the morning by a pile of text messages saying the sites down then up again when the hosting provider was doing maintenance on their network.
I used to rely on the hosting providers own monitoring application but that has failed a few times and you never know when something crazy is going to happen that will effect your serversransformer blowing up in the data centre that also has the monitoring host in it as well!), Monitoring services are so much better than checking your website a couple of times a day to check on it.
BTW – if you are running a server make sure you don't use an email address that goes to the same server that you are monitoring, you don't get the emails until the servers back up and running! I've found SMS messages much better than email.(like a transformer blowing up in the data centre that also had their the monitoring server in it as well!), Monitoring services are so much better than checking your website a couple of times a day to check on it.
BTW – if you are running a server make sure you don't use an email address that goes to the same server that you are monitoring, you don't get the emails until the servers back up and running! I've found SMS messages much better than email.
It isn't free, but it's far cheaper than the online services that charge per monitor and usually for how often something is monitored.
Let's say I want to know right away when a new product is posted for sale by an online store... Any good service (free or pay) for this?
http://opinionroad.com/2009/07/12/website-monit...
If you have any other suggestions, I am very happy to receive feedback about the article.
Good luck
Justin
www.contentunltd.com