Best Website Change Detection & Monitoring Software

To run a successful business, keep your website updated and free from issues at all times so that visitors to your website can enjoy a seamless experience.

A website is the first line of contact users, such as associates, customers, and prospective employees, have with a company.

If it shows any issues, it can lead to missed sales opportunities or leave a negative impression on prospective users.

So, what's the solution?

It seems continuous web monitoring is the only way you can tackle the challenge. The idea is to constantly head off any potential issues and keep your website up and running the way it should.

Luckily, plenty of website monitoring software are available that performs this task exceptionally well.

These tools give valuable insights on website downtime, speed, health, and reliability to the ones using them. 

What is Website Monitoring Software?

Source: Uptrends

Website monitoring software enables users to easily measure website performance metrics and create actionable reports. 

The best part is you can customize the baseline performance metrics to meet the minimum uptime and performance requirements of websites. 

When speaking of web monitoring software, you will frequently come across the terms "uptime" and "downtime."

The higher the uptime, the better it is for websites because it will mean there's a consistent flow of data between the web server and the users.

On the other hand, downtime refers to interference in your website wherein your website traffic isn’t able to access a complete website.

The best web monitoring tools maximize uptime and minimize downtime, thus giving users a seamless experience when they are trying to learn about a company or engaging with the site's content.

These software utilize web API and transaction monitoring to monitor a site from all angles actively and offer real-time alerts addressing any issues that crop up.

In short, with these software, you can gain valuable insights into your website(s), so you can prevent problems from occurring in the first place. 

Who Uses Website Monitoring Software?

1. IT Team

   Traditionally, a company's IT department or IT professionals are responsible for developing, monitoring, and maintaining its web infrastructure.

   If there is a performance problem, the IT people should be first informed as they possess the necessary skill to find the solution. 

   Data from the web monitoring tools is thus valuable for IT departments to understand and strive towards improved customer experience.

   Additionally, user tracking features help organizations gain a better understanding of their audience and their unique association with the brand.

2. ITSM Tool Implementation, Consulting, and Managed Service Providers

   Small businesses that do not have a dedicated IT team can outsource software development and maintenance to web design firms or other companies.

   These companies will purchase website monitoring software for use on customer sites.

Types of Website Monitoring Software

Overall, there are two types of website monitoring software - free and paid. 

1. Free Website Monitoring Software: 

   Free plans for website monitoring apps check a website's uptime at regular intervals, which can be several times a day to every few minutes.

   They come with comprehensive website monitoring services, including real user monitoring (web user analytics), web content monitoring (monitoring unexpected changes with website content), and checks multiple locations (how the server is performing in another geo). 

2. Paid Website Monitoring Software:

   With paid software, you get more frequent uptime checks, from every few minutes to less than a minute.

   The paid website offers comprehensive services such as web user analytics, web content monitoring, website monitoring services, and multiple location checks (how the server performs in another geo).

   Thus companies can quickly identify critical performance errors and rectify them for a smooth and error-free user experience on their websites.

What are the Common Features of Website Monitoring Software?

Here are some essential features of website monitoring software that can help users track website performance, monitor traffic and user data, and alert users of technical issues and their causes:

1. Uptime Monitoring

Uptime monitoring tracks the live stream and access of the website. A real-time crawler crawls a website at a time using a web API.

These programs generate a report detailing the website's uptime. Based on the platform that is used, web pages (CSS, HTML, scripts, and images) are tested by accessibility crawlers.

Source: Site24x7

Some web monitoring tools help businesses understand how their site performs across browsers, platforms, and countries. 

Moreover, such tests can be scheduled periodically with a website monitoring service.  Periodic tests can be scheduled with a website monitoring service. Moreover, companies can also manage and plan the tests to meet the required specifications.

2. Downtime Alerts

Downtimes are interruptions in website availability and usually range from a few seconds to several hours. Delays may occur during heavy traffic.

Depending on the situation, immediate attention may be required to restore the site to regular operation. Many web monitoring platforms provide downtime notices and pings to appropriate users when the site or some content is unavailable, regardless of the reason.

Every minute that a site is down is translated into a lost sales opportunity or a poor user experience. Therefore, downtime notifications bring immediate attention to such situations so that the admins can start working on finding the solution.

Monitoring levels can be scheduled in advance so that the most appropriate action can be taken. 

With real-time and up-to-date information, teams can make intelligent decisions to resolve the issue with minimal downtime. Some service providers have also set up public site notification pages and social media to let customers know when a website is down.

3. Performance Data

 

Source: Hubspot

In addition to uptime and downtime, webmasters benefit from analyzing the overall performance of the company's website.

Some website monitoring software collects data such as load time, page speed, and network data, as it improves the understanding of the website and enhances user experience. 

4. Real User Monitoring (RUM)

Source: Devopedia

Businesses use RUM to monitor customers' digital experiences by analyzing how online visitors interact with websites.

It monitors every aspect, starting from page load events to HTTP requests and bounce rates. Advanced website monitoring packages comprise of RUM to correlate the performance of the website and revenue levels.

5. Log Monitoring

A log is a fixed, time-stamped record of events occurring over time. All network devices, applications, servers, etc., create logs classified into three parts - plain text, structured and binary logs.

Logs can be categorized in ways it is easy to sift through them. For example, an error log shows an error notification and provides details about the same.

Thereafter, the information is used by the website admin, which helps him troubleshoot the errors before they cause significant downtime.

6. Observability

Observability is based on telemetry derived from instrumentation. In an observability scenario, every software, cloud infrastructure component, hardware, container, open-source tool, and microservice creates records of every new activity.

Observability aims to find out different activities happening across all these environments. You can use the data to detect and resolve issues with your website to keep your systems reliable and your customers happy.

Pros of Website Monitoring Software

Below are the main advantages of using website monitoring software.

1. Enhance Website Performance

   Downtime is inevitable, but a website monitoring solution can reduce downtime by notifying users, identifying the cause of downtime, and providing suggestions to resolve the issue.

   This will enable the IT team to act quickly to resolve downtime and prevent customers from leaving the site due to performance issues. 

2. Increase End-user Satisfaction

   Quick resolution of performance issues makes customers happy.

   Website monitoring solutions help identify bottlenecks within a site so you can focus on troubleshooting exactly where it's needed. They also provide a public notification page to notify end users in the event of an outage.

Limitations of Website Monitoring Software

Here are a few challenges to web monitoring systems. 

1. Lack Of a Good Optimization Strategy

   Website monitoring provides data, but the management has to come up with the best strategy to work in favor of the organization.

   Simply running a website monitoring tool across company websites will not help much. For instance, a customer might be experiencing slow page load speed for two separate websites, one of which has a higher bounce rate than the other.

   The IT team should prioritize building a strategy in which the data from the website monitoring tool is used to improve the speed of the site with a higher bounce rate. 

2. Multi-Location Monitoring

   Businesses should consider that website performance monitoring is carried out through API server interactions between servers in different locations.

   If the eastern Asian server passes the performance check, it indicates that the eastern users will get a good network connection. Companies cannot assume that employees in West Asia will have a similar experience.

   Businesses should find out where their target customers are and do server checks in those areas to make sure end users in different locations get the same web experience. 

List of Top Website Monitoring Software

If you're looking for the best website monitoring software to use for a growing business in 2022, here are our top picks:

1. Uptrends Tool

   Uptrends is an excellent option if you want to know more about your website's user experience, such as bounce rate, time spent on a page, average session duration, etc.

   The tool allows you to dig deeper into user behavior on each page of your site by showing heatmaps and videos showing how users interact with each page.

   It is an all-in-one web analytics and monitoring tool that helps you track website performance, user behavior, and conversion funnels. It's a good fit for small businesses, agencies, and freelancers who want to monitor multiple websites simultaneously.

   The platform provides real-time insights into your website's traffic, conversions, and user actions. It also helps you optimize your content and track its performance at every step. It also provides real-time reports on how your website performs with its built-in dashboard and data visualization tools. You can access the free trial here.

2. StatusCake

   StatusCake is a free website monitoring tool that provides real-time updates on your site's health and performance. You'll get alerts when your site goes down or if there are any issues with your site's code or plugins.

   You can also monitor uptime, response time, and bandwidth usage. You can also use StatusCake to monitor the performance of your website over time and identify any potential bottlenecks or issues that may be slowing it down.

   StatusCake is one of the best website monitoring tools for small to large businesses. It offers a lot of features that are useful for both developers and non-developers alike.

   This tool can monitor uptime, DNS, HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, and more. Moreover, it also provides many other features like API integrations, automated alerts, and visual monitoring.

3. New Relic

   New Relic offers a wide range of tools for managing websites, including performance monitoring, application management, debugging, and security analysis, among many others. New Relic is a software performance monitoring tool that provides real-time information about your website's performance.

   In addition, it has powerful features such as application performance management (APM), accurate user monitoring, and application health monitoring.

   New Relic allows you to monitor your website worldwide, giving you a clear picture of how it performs at different locations and times. The platform also has a dashboard that displays essential metrics such as revenue per visitor and conversion rates.

   You can use this information to make informed and accurate decisions about your online business. You can sign up for its free trial.

4. Pingdom

   Pingdom is a great web monitoring tool that provides real-time data about your website's performance. It offers detailed reports about your website's speed, uptime, and even security issues such as DDoS attacks. It provides an easy-to-use dashboard that allows users to monitor their site from anywhere — whether they want to view graphs or get alerts when something happens, they'll find everything they need right here.

   You can use its free plan to test it before upgrading to one of its paid plans. The basic plan starts at $10 per month, while the annual plan costs $240 per year. You can try out Pingdom for free here.

How to Purchase Website Monitoring Software?

When selecting a website monitoring software, companies should first decide the metrics and data they’ll require.

For example, a user may be interested in monitoring and improving response time performance on their website.

Moreover, you can also create a list of preferred website metrics that fits your requirements. If the requirements are low, free tools may be the best option. 

1. Create a Detailed List

   Buyers should get started with a detailed and all-inclusive list of website monitoring software providers. Then, considering the features that are must-haves, consumers should do consistent research to compare the pros and cons of each software. 

2. Shortlist 

   Go over the reviews from other buyers to shortlist three to five products. From there, shoppers can compare prices and features for the best deals. 

3. Choose a Selection Team

   Regardless of the size of the business, it is essential to include the most important people early in the software selection process. A large company may consist of e-commerce teams, digital teams, IT professionals, security system integrators and developers who work with the software. 

4. Discussion 

   There are various companies that offer more than just website monitoring - infrastructure monitoring, network monitoring, and more.

5.  Final Decision 

   After this, it is essential to conduct tests with a small selection of IT professionals or developers. This will help ensure that the website monitoring tool you choose fits nicely into the IT administrator's system configuration or developer's day-to-day work.

Related Research Articles:

• 15 Best Free & Open Source Monitoring Tools in 2023