Uptime Monitoring: Why It’s So Important
Losing clients left and right? Have you checked your website lately? The sad thing about the web is it’s never as stable as we want it to be. A website turns unresponsive, times out, and people become frustrated and leave. To stay on top of things, you must use uptime monitoring tools. Today we’ll take a look at some of those.
Uptime monitoring: what is that?
There are no impenetrable doors. No matter how advanced your lock is, it will get broken with enough time. The same can be said about websites: they will time out, and downtime is inevitable. But you can negate the damage to your reputation by monitoring your site. And if anything happens, you’ll be informed via SMS, email, or push notification.
Your clients can monitor your services, too: if you’re running a big website, you can set up a page that indicates when everything is working fine. Sony uses one, as well as Microsoft or even Last.fm.
Website uptime monitoring tools are easy: all they do is “spy” on your website 24/7. Power outage? They’ll tell you. A cyberattack? Traffic spikes? No matter what happens, you’ll know about it first.
The unfortunate truth is no matter how expensive or modern your website is, it’s still susceptible to a number of issues. Here are some of the more powerful tools you can use.
Zabbix
We love open-source software, and Zabbix is just that. It’s a monitoring tool for extensive networks, servers, cloud servers, and more. Those tools usually cost an arm and a leg, but Zabbix is actually very affordable. How affordable? It’s FREE.
It works on everything, from servers to virtual machines. Is it perfect? Not at all. The UI is especially infuriating as it’s not intuitive at all. But it’s still a good tool that offers you a complete view of a whole IT infrastructure.
Paessler PRTG
Are you looking for something serious? PRTG is an absolute favorite among IT professionals who value its features, device support, and UI. But if you’re still unsure what you’re doing, there are more accessible options.
The unfortunate thing about PRTG is that its licensing is based on the number of sensors, which means it can be costly to use. It also requires a lot of horsepower and a dedicated server. Still, there is a free version that’s great for when you just need to monitor uptime.
Uptrends
Highly customizable and highly powerful, Uptrends is an excellent solution for uptime monitoring. Set it up however you like, and it’ll tell you anything from when your website is straight not working or simply takes too long to load. It also can emulate any web browser on its servers — an invaluable tool for a web developer. It’s not free: the price starts at $16.21.
WP Umbrella
Do you have more than one website? Do they run on WordPress? In that case, you’re in luck since WP Umbrella is an excellent choice for users of WordPress (which is our CMS of choice here at Beluga). Its minimal, intuitive UI allows you to see all your sites’ performance — how fast they are, what their uptime is, and if there are any issues. It also helps locate the misbehaving plugins and themes. There’s a 14-day trial period, and the price of $1,99 per month is very enticing.