Best alternative to DataDog Synthetics
No credit card required
Trusted by thousands of businesses
Why teams are switching from expensive DataDog Synthetics
Tired of DataDog's complexity and cost? DataDog Synthetics is powerful but overkill for basic uptime monitoring. Most teams only need HTTP checks, SSL monitoring, and multi-location verification - not complex browser automation workflows.
Spending too much on simple monitors? DataDog's synthetic monitoring costs add up fast, especially for teams running dozens of basic uptime checks. OnlineOrNot provides the same core functionality at $2 per check.
Drowning in dashboard complexity? OnlineOrNot focuses specifically on uptime monitoring with clean, simple dashboards. No need to navigate DataDog's sprawling interface just to check if your API is up.
Why pick OnlineOrNot
over DataDog Synthetics?
| Key Features | DataDog Synthetics | OnlineOrNot |
|---|---|---|
| Check frequency | 1 minute minimum | 30 seconds |
| Setup complexity | Complex configuration | Simple setup |
| Pricing model | Per API test (expensive) | Usage-based ($2+ per check) |
| Cron job/scheduled task monitoring | No | Yes |
| Multi-location verification | Yes | Yes |
| SSL certificate monitoring | Basic | Advanced with expiry tracking |
| Custom status pages | No | Included |
| Team collaboration | Part of larger platform | Built for monitoring teams |
| Dashboard complexity | Complex, part of larger suite | Focused on monitoring |
| Customer support | Enterprise support tiers | Direct founder access |
Focused monitoring without the enterprise complexity
Purpose-built for uptime monitoring. OnlineOrNot does one thing well: monitoring if your services are up. No need to learn DataDog's complex synthetic testing workflows for basic HTTP checks and SSL monitoring.
Transparent, predictable pricing. Pay $2 per check with clear usage-based billing. No surprise costs, no complex pricing tiers, no enterprise sales calls required.
Built for development teams. Simple setup, clean dashboards, and team features designed for developers who just want to know when their stuff breaks - without navigating enterprise observability complexity.
Simple migration from DataDog Synthetics:
Export your current monitors
Send us your DataDog Synthetics configuration. We'll identify which monitors can be easily replicated and which might need DataDog's advanced features.
We recreate your essential monitors
Our team sets up your core uptime monitoring in OnlineOrNot - HTTP checks, SSL monitoring, and multi-location verification. Most teams find this covers 90% of their needs.
Start saving on monitoring costs
Within 24 hours, your essential uptime monitoring runs on OnlineOrNot at a fraction of DataDog's cost. Keep DataDog for advanced features if needed, but save on basic monitoring.
No credit card required.
Incidents happen.
Get alerted immediately.
OnlineOrNot detects problems and lets your team know before your customers do.
- Reliable alerts where you need them:
- SMS
- Slack/Discord
- Incident.io/PagerDuty/OpsGenie/Grafana OnCall/Spike
- Webhooks
30-second setup.
Simple to setup,
yet deeply configurable.
You don't have to be an engineer to set it up.
Simple and effective monitoring that lets you sleep a bit better at night.
Also, I just want to thank you for your responsiveness and help.
This is the best uptime monitoring we have seen so far and saved us a ton of time building our own version.
— Engineering manager, SaaS company
- Super-fast checks.
- Check as often as every 30 seconds, and catch the issues that take your website down for less than a minute.
- Configurable HTTP requests.
- You can configure the HTTP method, headers, and body for each check.
- Instant alerts.
- Alerts in the tools you already use: Email, SMS, Slack, Discord, Incident.io, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, Grafana OnCall, Spike, and more.
- No false positives.
- OnlineOrNot runs every check at least twice before sending an alert, with options for even more.
- SSL Monitoring.
- OnlineOrNot will check your SSL certificates for expiration and other issues, and alert you if there's a problem.
- Geo-specific & Multi-location Checks.
- You can choose to run uptime checks from one region, or all of them.
Build trust.
Keep your customers informed
Your customers rely on your products and services. Let them know your real-time status with an automatically updating status page.
- Minimize support load.
- Add your customers as subscribers to your status page, and send consistent incident updates via email.
- Private status pages.
- Share internal status updates with your teammates and internal stakeholders with a private status page.
We pitch our website to investors and influencers all the time. If the website is down, we look like amateurs.
We know our website is online before these important meetings thanks to OnlineOrNot.
— early start-up founder
Frequently asked questions
Software teams ❤️ OnlineOrNot
OnlineOrNot is built for scale and runs millions of uptime checks every week. Thousands of software teams, including some of the world's leading brands have already made the switch from other uptime monitors.
- Uptime Checks last week
- 11.5M
- Users
- 3,784
- Detected incidents last week
- 12,985
OnlineOrNot has been absolutely fantastic for my bot, Noti. It completely transformed the way I monitor online services.
The real-time notifications keep me in the loop about any downtime, allowing me to take immediate action. If you're looking for a reliable way to monitor your project's status, I highly suggest using OnlineOrNot.
Adam HMaker of Noti
Bet on indie hackers 🚀
I tried @RozenMD's OnlineOrNot uptime monitoring, and for a few days got notifications of 2min down time.
I thought that OnlineOrNot was wrong as Uptime Robot wasn't reporting anything.
Turns out it was the other way around.
Khaled BentoumiFounder of Data to Page
We've been using OnlineOrNot and it has been a life saver.
It, by far, has been one of the most responsive uptime services we've tried and it only gets better and better as time goes on.
Alex BowlesFounder of Casterlabs
I just set up some site aliveness checks for @Archium_io with @RozenMD's OnlineOrNot.
Took me less than five minutes and it was completely self-explanatory, not to mention gorgeous. Seriously good experience.
Great job, Max! 👏👏
Graham LeaFounder of Archium.io
OnlineOrNot by @RozenMD is all one needs
It is easy to set up and very reliable. I have been using it for almost an year now.
Rajat SaxenaFounder of CourseLit
I'm using OnlineOrNot to monitor my @cloakist customers' sites, so I can respond quickly if they stop working
Love it. Super clean interface, very intuitive. Particularly impressed at how it can wait for full page load
Thanks @RozenMD for making this awesome tool!
Louis BarclayFounder of Cloakist
OnlineOrNot does the job for me.
Charles MillerSoftware Architect at Atlassian
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