Grafana Synthetic Monitoring vs Pingdom

Free tier available

From $10 per month (indicative, Synthetic starter)

Cheap if you already run Grafana Cloud; results are plain Prometheus metrics you already know how to use.

Transaction checks and RUM are priced separately from basic uptime checks and add up.

Included in the Grafana Cloud free tier with a monthly check allowance.

30-day trial.

Established

Grafana Labs · since 2021

Widely used

SolarWinds · since 2007

• Results are Prometheus metrics, so alerting and dashboards use tools you already have.
• Same k6 scripts serve load testing and synthetic monitoring.
• Good free tier within Grafana Cloud.

• Very large global probe network with a long operating history.
• Simple to set up for basic availability monitoring.
• Combines synthetic checks with real-user monitoring.

• Assumes you are in the Grafana ecosystem; standalone it makes little sense.
• Browser checks are less mature than Datadog's or Checkly's.
• Fewer probe locations than the dedicated vendors.

• Feature development has been slow under SolarWinds ownership.
• Transaction-check authoring is dated compared to code-first alternatives.
• Pricing is no longer competitive against newer entrants.

Teams already running Grafana Cloud and k6.

Organisations wanting an established name for straightforward uptime monitoring.