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Synthetic Monitoring Software · Rank #1 of 10

Checkly review and pricing

Modern code-first synthetic monitoring built on Playwright.

By Checkly · Founded 2018 · Berlin, Germany · private

Checkly is the leading code-first synthetic monitoring platform, built around Playwright (now the dominant browser automation framework) and a monitoring-as-code workflow via CLI, Terraform, and GitHub Actions. The product is opinionated and engineering-led, synthetic checks are versioned in Git alongside application code, reviewed in pull requests, and deployed through CI pipelines, rather than authored in a vendor-hosted point-and-click recorder. Closed a $20M Series A in 2022 (Accel, CRV, others). The trade-offs: not a full observability platform (no APM, no logs, no infrastructure monitoring), pricing scales with check runs (high-frequency global checks add up fast), and the Playwright learning curve excludes non-engineering teams used to recorder UIs.

Visit Checkly Vendor pricing Compare to Datadog Synthetic Monitoring
Best for

Engineering teams (10-2,000 engineers) who treat synthetics as part of the SDLC, want Playwright-native authoring, and prefer monitoring-as-code over recorder UIs.

Worst for

Non-engineering buyers (marketing teams, compliance teams) who need a point-and-click recorder, or organizations wanting full observability convergence in one vendor.

Vendor Trust Score

Is Checkly a trustworthy vendor?

9.0/10
High trust
Pricing transparency
Published rates; no hidden fees
9.5
Contract fairness
Reasonable terms; no auto-renew traps
9.0
Incident response
How they handle outages and breaches
8.5
Post-acquisition behavior
Customer treatment after M&A or PE
9.0
Executive stability
Leadership churn over 24 months
9.0
Roadmap honesty
Public commitments held
9.0
Trust signal log
  • 2022-04-12
    Closed $20M Series A led by Accel and CRV
    Validates the code-first synthetic monitoring model; signals strong product-market fit with engineering teams
  • 2024-11-20
    OpenTelemetry trace export released; synthetic runs now plug into existing observability stacks
Vendor Trust is scored independently of product quality. A great product from an unfair vendor still earns a low trust score.
Review Intelligence

What 180 reviews actually say

Synthesized from G2, Capterra, Reddit, Trustpilot. Patterns >15% prevalence shown.

Last synthesized
2026-05-01

Praise patterns

  • Playwright-native authoring fits engineering workflows
    87% ↑
  • Monitoring-as-code via Terraform and CLI is differentiating
    78% ↑
  • Predictable transparent pricing (no enterprise opacity)
    71% →
  • Modern UI and responsive engineering-led support
    64% →

Complaint patterns

  • Not a full observability platform (no APM or logs)
    47% →
  • Run-based pricing spikes with high-frequency global checks
    41% ↑
  • Smaller vantage-point footprint than Catchpoint
    31% →
Sentiment trend (6 months)
90/100 +3 pts
12
01
02
03
04
05
Patterns are extracted from review corpus and human-verified. We surface trends, not anecdotes.
Verified Pricing

What buyers actually pay

78 anonymized deal disclosures · last updated 2026-05-01

Contribute your deal price
Company size Median annual
10-50 employees $960
50-200 employees $4,800
200-1,000 employees $18,000
Verified pricing is crowdsourced from buyers under anonymity guarantees. Vendor-listed prices are validated against actual deals quarterly.
Compliance & Security

Auto-verified certifications

Verified 2026-05-01
SOC 2 Type II
ISO 27001
HIPAA
GDPR
CCPA
PCI DSS
FedRAMP

Editorial: Strengths

  • Playwright-native authoring; ships the same browser automation engineers already use for E2E tests
  • Monitoring-as-code via CLI, Terraform, GitHub Actions, and Pulumi
  • Heartbeat checks, API checks, browser checks, multistep checks all in one product
  • Predictable pricing with published tiers and run-based overage (no enterprise opacity)
  • Modern engineering-led product culture (founder Tim Nolet)
  • Strong OpenTelemetry support; can export traces from synthetic runs
  • Private locations for behind-the-firewall checks

Editorial: Weaknesses

  • Not a full observability platform (no APM, logs, or infrastructure monitoring)
  • Run-based pricing creates bill spikes when teams add high-frequency global checks
  • Playwright learning curve excludes non-engineering buyers
  • Smaller global vantage-point footprint than Catchpoint or ThousandEyes
  • Newer brand; enterprise procurement teams sometimes prefer legacy vendors

Key features & integrations

  • +Playwright-based browser checks
  • +API checks with multistep workflows
  • +Heartbeat monitoring
  • +Monitoring-as-code (Terraform, CLI, GitHub Actions)
  • +Private locations
  • +OpenTelemetry trace export
  • +Status pages
  • +Alert channels (Slack, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, webhooks)
60+ integrations
GitHubGitLabTerraformPagerDutySlackOpsgenieVercel
Geography supported
Global; 20+ public vantage points (AWS regions) plus unlimited private locations
Best fit
10-2,000 employees · Engineering teams across SaaS, B2B, and modern enterprise
Editorial deep-dive

Read our full ranking of Synthetic Monitoring Software

Checkly ranks #1 in our editorial review of 10 synthetic monitoring software platforms. The deep-dive covers methodology, comparison tables, decision matrix, migration scoring, and FAQs.

Read the full ranking

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#4
AlertSite
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★ 4.2 opaque
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