7 Best Plugins to Monitor your Website’s Uptime

In the current digital era, websites have become the forefront of success for many businesses.

Of course, you wouldn’t want your website to experience any issues, especially downtime or a 504 gateway timeout error which may dramatically reduce your business’s performance. 

According to a Google page load time study, an increase of load time from one second to three makes the bounce probability go up by 32%, lowers conversion rates by 7%, and reduces page views by 11%.

To put it into perspective, Amazon experienced a 63-minute downtime in 2018 which resulted in an estimated loss of $99 million in sales. 

That’s why you’ll want to make sure that your website is always in the best condition, so when issues arise, you’ll be able to solve them swiftly.

To monitor your websites and be notified whenever an issue occurs, use website monitoring tools.

This article will cover seven of the best plugins to monitor your website’s uptime.

1. Jetpack

JetPack is one of the most popular and comprehensive WordPress plugins. It’s a multi-purpose solution with a number of tools, from social media integration to website monitoring.

It operates on a freemium model, with its free plan offering regular uptime monitoring.

JetPack will immediately email you whenever your website is experiencing downtime and when it comes back online. 

If you’re looking for a plugin that offers more than just simple monitoring tools, then JetPack will be right for you.

However, since it has plenty of other tools, JetPack is considered a heavy plugin and may affect your site speed after installation. 

2. ManageWP

ManageWP is a simple-to-use freemium comprehensive monitoring tool. It offers multiple site management, backup, and uptime monitoring tools. The monitoring tool comes with the premium version, which starts at $1/website/month. 

Once you have the monitoring tool, ManageWP will monitor your websites every minute and notify you via email or SMS whenever your site experiences downtime or is back up and running. 

If you want a comprehensive plugin that provides plenty of features for free and are willing to spend some money for the monitoring tool, ManageWP is a great choice. 

3. Freshping

Freshping is a free performance and uptime monitoring tool that allows you to monitor up to 50 URLs from ten global testing locations.

You’ll receive alerts via email, SMS, and even Slack via its multi-channel integration whenever your website goes down in just one minute. 

Freshping also supports multi-user login and lets you create up to 30 users with different permissions and roles, making it a good solution for small to medium-sized businesses.

Freshping can create a public status page. This means that it allows transparency, enabling your customers to view the real-time status of your websites or services. 

4. Pingdom

Pingdom is a popular freemium website monitoring and performance tool. It offers a 14-day free trial allowing you to try out its various features. 

Pingdom provides services such as page speed, real user, and uptime monitoring. It has various test locations that will report back to you in one-minute intervals.

It provides a root cause analysis, so you don’t have to guess what caused an unexpected downtime. 

This tool also allows you to use API integration and automate most of the tasks. Pingdom is speedy and reliable when it comes to alerts and reports, providing swift insights for its users. 

5. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is popular, free, and provides a plethora of analytical functionality tools. It’s best known for delivering reliable website insights.

It utilizes real-time website information to show what kind of visitors you’re attracting and which pages they spend the most of their time on. 

Google Analytics includes an excellent monitoring tool. It allows you to monitor website visitors and see their behavior, paths, and actions. You can also track page views, demographics, and sessions in real time. 

What’s great about Google Analytics is that it offers free courses to help you learn and navigate the tool. 

6. Montastic

Montastic is a simple and free monitoring tool. It’s best suited for webmasters who only want to be alerted in case their website goes down.

You can set this up and let it run in the background. Since it only provides basic functionality, Montastic won’t slow down your website’s load speed. 

It doesn’t offer any extra features or provide detailed reports. That’s why the tool doesn’t feature a dashboard.

Instead, you’ll receive an alert via email if your site goes down. This tool only checks your website for every 30 mins.

It works on various platforms, including Android. Montastic is best for users who have a simple website like a portfolio or blog.

It’s also great for people who already have a lot of plugins installed but want to add a monitoring tool. 

7. Uptrends

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Uptrends is a premium comprehensive monitoring tool. It allows you to monitor your website, API, or server uptime and performance from over 200 locations worldwide.

It will check your site every five minutes. You can use the tool for $13.95 per month.

Uptrends also includes page speed, web application, and API monitoring. You can get Real User Monitoring reports associated with how your visitors use your site to get more accurate data on your website’s performance. 

In case your website is down, you’ll receive alerts via SMS, email, or the mobile app that comes with the paid plans.

Uptrends’ dashboard is also fully customizable, allowing you to view the essential data at the top. 

Conclusion

Experiencing downtime is one of the worst fears of webmasters. Not only will it negatively affect your sales and income, but the customer experience will suffer as well.

Hence, it’s vital that you are aware whenever downtime or any other issues occur. That’s why I’ve covered seven of the best monitoring plugins you can use.

Here’s a recap of them:

1. JetPack
2. ManageWP
3. Freshping
4. Pingdom
5. Google Analytics
6. Montastics
7. Uptrends

All that’s left for you to do is to choose the best plugin so you can take action as soon as your website experiences downtime. 

Good luck!