There are important differences between free web application monitoring tools and paid ones. It can be confusing and challenging to separate the differences between the two. If you can get what you need from free web monitoring tools, you might ask yourself what a paid version has to offer. In this article, we’ll answer that question and more.

What Is Website Monitoring?

Web monitoring is important, especially if you have revenue and a large user flow, but it’s not always easy to determine how to go about checking your site’s performance. This is where web monitoring tools can help. Web monitoring:

“… makes sure websites are accessible by gathering extensive data on site performance metrics like load times, service response times, page element performance, and more. Organizations then use this information to optimize site uptime, functionality and performance.”
– GoDaddy

Generally web monitoring refers to synthetic or automated testing, or what is known as Real User Monitoring (RUM). However, there are many cases in which sites are not tested at all, instead relying on periodic check-ins completed by employees. Needless to say, this is not a reliable method when it comes to securing your business’ most important online assets.

One issue with manual testing is that there’s too much room for error. Not only are manual tests inconsistent, but they’re not reliable when considering how many variables influence a site’s availability, function, and performance. If you want your site to run smoothly, it’s good to consider web monitoring tools that are both thorough and consistent.

Let’s take a look at the different types of web monitoring.

website application monitoring

Types of Web Monitoring

Web monitoring can be split into four different categories, each focusing on a specific area of the monitoring process.

  • Availability monitoring: This is a pretty simple type of monitoring. Its purpose is to analyze uptime, which is just another way to say it helps ensure your website is accessible and generally functional. This type of monitoring often includes domains, pages, and various web services.
  • Website/API monitoring: These are basic monitoring infrastructures that checks for specific feedback from websites and APIs (application programming interfaces) that support HTTP protocols. They may also perform basic monitoring for authentication purposes. Basic website monitoring also has the capacity to assess size and response times and send you and your team alerts when it detects slow response times.
  • Performance monitoring: This checks a website’s speed. It not only identifies connection speeds, but it is also measuring load times for browsers. It’s possible that performance monitoring could use RUM and/or synthetic monitoring technology to complete the task.
  • Functionality monitoring: Another name for this is transaction monitoring. It puts a site’s functionality to the test. It does this by utilizing script files that communicate with a site’s elements, such as site search, user login, and shopping carts.

Open-source web monitoring services are likely not going to provide this level of analysis without a lot of hassle and configuration. There are certainly going to be some drawbacks to free monitoring services, but this doesn’t mean that they can’t be useful for rudimentary monitoring.

The Reality of Free Web Monitoring

It’s important to realize that free web monitoring services are not actually free. Many are nested within a business plan that relies on you taking advantage of the paid version of the service after getting hooked in by a “free” service. The entire purpose of free web monitoring is for the business offering the service to maximize on sales. Keep this in mind.

The free version of a web monitoring service will usually be missing the most essential elements that protect your site. This is what separates free web monitoring from paid web monitoring. Though the free version is likely not limited in terms of time, it will certainly be limited in how thoroughly you can monitor your site. It’s possible to take advantage of a free trial version of an otherwise paid web monitoring service, which gives you all the best features, but this is only available for a limited time.

Limitations of Free Web Monitoring

Let’s take a look at the most relevant distinctions between free web monitoring services and paid versions. Depending on the size and success of your site, you could benefit from the free versions, but there’s no question that everyone will benefit from the paid versions for the professionalism and support.

Monitoring Frequency Is Low

Almost every free web monitoring service provides site testing with a five-minute frequency, which can be detrimental for a high-profile site. The five-minute frequency means that you could learn about an issue with your site five minutes after the users do.

Additionally, with such a small sample size, the monitoring may not register failures that do not last five minutes. If these short bursts of downtime crop up again and again, you could believe that your site is doing well when it’s really not. This could not only hurt your business, but it could also see users moving to your competition out of frustration.

Availability Monitoring with Basic Features

Availability monitoring sets out to ensure that your site is accessible and generally functional to users. This service is usually available through free web monitoring services. The way the availability monitoring service works is that it checks your site by fetching the server’s response. If the server happens to respond correctly, then the monitoring services assume that everything is working the way it’s supposed to. However, if the server comes back with an error message, or if it doesn’t respond at all, then the monitoring tool reports the error.

There are some potential issues in assuming that these messages are always accurate.

“The problem lies in the fact that the server sending the correct response is not synonymous with the fact that the website works correctly—or even that it loads at all! Such a monitoring service will not detect a situation where, instead of a website, a blank white page is displayed—or blank templates with no content are loaded. Also, it will not notice a sudden slowdown of page loading, failure of an important feature, etc.”
– Super Monitoring

SMS Alerts

SMS (short message service) is the most efficient way to be informed about site failures. They do not rely on the Internet, and they are fast and generally reliable. While a single message isn’t spendy, it can become a financial burden if, say, thousands of users are sending SMS messages about potential failures.

Free web monitoring will by and large only communicate with you through email. You can also purchase an SMS notification package with some free web monitoring services, for a free.

Customer Service

Web monitoring requires a lot of resources, which makes serious web monitoring an investment for businesses. Aside from automated monitoring resources, human work on web monitoring can be very expensive.

It’s for this reason that free web monitoring generally doesn’t come with customer support. The most help you will likely receive for a free tool would be FAQ pages and forums on the Internet. There may be instances where email or chat are available, but these can’t be relied upon, whereas a paid service like Dotcom-Monitor will have a dedicated team to support you.

Liability

Because you’re not paying for any of the web monitoring in the free version, you shouldn’t expect any guarantees with the service provided. Your service, in the eyes of the company, is pretty far down on the priority list, because you’re not paying the company anything. Everything they help you with in the free version amounts to investment of time with no guaranteed payoff. Therefore, they are going to focus on the paid customers instead.

Are Free Web Application Monitoring Tools Worth It?

There can be a temptation to take advantage of free web monitoring services because, well, they’re free. However, there’s no question that there are significant drawbacks and limitations in taking the free route.

If you use a casual blog, website, or forum, it may be your best bet to take the free monitoring route because there are no critical risks you’re taking. However, if you rely on traffic and revenue from your site for your business, free web monitoring is not for you. You will need infrastructure and web monitoring that can make your site as reliable and functional as possible, and one that has the capacity to identify failures and malfunctions.

Paid & Professional Web Application Monitoring

Consider one of the leading web application monitoring tools at Dotcom-Monitor for your professional monitoring needs.

“Monitor performance, functionality, and uptime from real browsers to accurately understand how your web pages, web applications, APIs, and services are performing for users in real-time.”
– Dotcom-Monitor

You’ll be amazed at the level of support and quality of tools a professional service like this offers over “free” and open-source web application monitoring competitors. As they saying goes, you get what you pay for, and given your website is your company’s digital home, it’s absolutely essential you budget and take time to ensure it performs well and remains online 24/7 without exceptions. Your bottom line will thank you.