APIs are the backbone of modern software applications. However, API failures can bring businesses to their knees, with each hour of downtime costing $300K on average. This article explores the 15 top API monitoring tools to maintain availability and meet demand.
The Rising Importance of API Monitoring
APIs now serve as the core middle layer connecting modern applications. However, increased reliance on APIs also opens up risks of failure. When APIs go down, vital business functions grind to a halt. Customers get frustrated by errors and latency issues. Revenue and productivity take major hits.
Some real-world examples of API mishaps:
- In 2017, a leaky API at Panera Bread exposed private data for millions of customer accounts. The fallout included GDPR violations, lawsuits, and lasting brand damage.
- In 2013, eBay had an API failure that brought down its entire site for several hours during the peak holiday shopping season. The outage cost an estimated $66K per minute in lost sales.
Monitoring APIs proactively is no longer an option. The costs of downtime and data leaks easily justify investments into robust API monitoring platforms.
Choosing the Right API Monitoring Solution
With API adoption soaring, the market now offers many capable tools to monitor availability and performance. Here are key factors to evaluate when choosing an API monitoring system:
Team Size & Structure
Larger dev teams often need more advanced enterprise tools like AppDynamics and New Relic. Smaller teams can start with lightweight options like Uptrends and Checkly. Evaluate collaboration features like role-based dashboards and Slack notifications.
Tech Stack & Integrations
If your stack centers on AWS, CloudWatch will be easiest to implement. Opt for tools with out-of-the-box integrations with your dev infrastructure.
Business Requirements
Are you focused on customer experience metrics? Rigor with its emphasis on synthetic monitoring may be the pick. Does load testing matter more? Blazemeter is purpose-built for scale. Define must-have capabilities based on business priorities.
Budget
Monitoring tools range from free tiers to over $1000/month based on checks, data retention policies, and advanced capabilities. Outline key capabilities justifying the price tag for your organization.
Ease of Setup
If your team prefers simplicity, Assertible and Better Uptimes are Configure-and-Go options needing minimal customization. Platforms like New Relic offer more controls at the cost of steeper learning curves.
Setting Up Effective API Monitoring & Alerts
Choosing the right monitoring solution is step one. You still need to configure intelligent checks, metrics thresholds, and alerts channels to run an efficient monitoring program.
Metrics to Track
Go beyond just monitoring overall uptime. Key API metrics to track include:
- Response time by endpoint
- Error rates by code (404s, 500s etc)
- Traffic volume patterns
- Endpoint availability by region
Defining Alert Thresholds
Set metric thresholds aligned to business needs before critical levels are reached. Customize alerts based on:
- Average vs unusual traffic patterns: Spike vs gradual
- Acceptable response time per endpoint
- Maximum failed request % by groups (admin, customers etc)
Integrating Monitoring With Collaboration Tools
Streamline information flows by integrating monitoring systems with collaboration platforms like:
- Slack: Get pings in relevant channels in your workspace
- PagerDuty: Connect with on-call schedules of eng teams
- ServiceNow: Create and track issues in your ticketing flow
Now let‘s examine 15 leading API monitoring platforms available today.
1. Uptrends
Uptrends is an industry leader in synthetic monitoring. It offers an all-in-one platform to monitor websites, APIs, web apps, and infrastructure.
Notable Features
- Browser-based testing: Uses actual browsers like Chrome to monitor app experience
- Waterfall diagrams: Visualize request flows across assets
- Performance budgets: Set expectations and get alerts on deviations
- Real user monitoring: Tracks interaction metrics from customer devices
Uptrends seamlessly integrates with 300+ cloud apps via Zapier. It starts at $14.99 per month for up to 10 uptime checks.
The tool works well for teams prioritizing synthetic checks through an end user lens. The highly configurable platform scales from small teams to enterprises.
2. Dotcom-Monitor
Dotcom-Monitor is an affordable monitoring tool starting at just $1.99 per month. It boasts over 29 years of experience in the web monitoring space.
Notable Features
- API uptime checks: Configurable monitors for SOAP & REST APIs
- Real-time alerts: SMS, Slack, email etc
- Global monitoring: Coverage from 30+ regional endpoints
- Flexible integration: API & webhooks to connect with other tools
The vendor offers team collaboration features including custom user permissions and role-based dashboards. For SMBs that want pro monitoring at modest rates, Dotcom-Monitor hits the sweet spot.
3. Checkly
Checkly positions itself as a next-gen API monitoring solution designed for modern dev teams. It integrates tightly with cloud-native stacks.
Notable Features
- Codeless setup: Configurable monitors without scripts
- CI/CD integration: Bake monitoring into automated pipelines
- GraphQL support: Dedicated test creation for GraphQL schemas
- OpenAPI importer: Auto-generate monitors from API specs
- Slack notifications: Alert patterns tailored to your workflow
Checkly is purpose-built formonitors. It auto-generates test cases using OpenAPI definitions. The tool also checks code commits for breaking changes.
Developer teams running cloud-native applications love Checkly for its blend of usability and automation-readiness.
4. Better Uptime
Better Uptime styles itself as a one-stop monitoring dashboard for web apps, APIs, and infrastructure health.
Notable Features
- Uptime SLA reports: Visual status overheads for execs
- Page speed tracking: Monitor real world web performance
- Server monitoring: SSH to Linux servers for resource tracking
- SMS alert integration: Get SMS pings for incidents
- 127 alert integrations: Tools like Slack, Github, Datadog
A key differentiator for Better Uptime is flexibility. You can use it as an early warning system for your customers or drill down on server stats for your DevOps team.
Pricing starts at $24 per month for upto 7 checks . They offer a permanent 10% discount for annual plans.
5. Sematext
Sematext provides end-to-end infrastructure and application monitoring designed for modern containerized environments.
Notable Features
- Docker monitoring: Auto-tracking of Docker health metrics
- API security: Scan for OWASP threats across APIs
- Custom integrations: RESTful APIs to connect with other tools
- CI/CD pipelines: Baked-in tracking across build environments
- Kubernetes observability: Insights on pods, nodes, controllers
With automatic baselining of metrics, you can track anomalies across iterative container deployments. Its application performance solution Sematext APM integrates well for tracing distributed app contexts.
Sematext brings an automation-forward approach while still providing drill-down capabilities for developers. Their pricing model scales as per volume of assets monitored starting at $79 per month.
6. Amazon CloudWatch
For AWS-centric organizations, CloudWatch delivers robust API monitoring tightly integrated across most AWS services.
Notable Features
- Serverless tracking: Metrics for Lambda performance
- AWS X-Ray: Maps request flow across microservices
- RUM integration: Bring in user stats from CloudFront
- Fargate observability: Monitor container runtime health
- Auto scaling triggers: Scale capacity based on demand
CloudWatch offers automatic metrics collection for many AWS services like EC2 and DynamoDB. Its dashboards provide insights ranging from high level trends to granular performance issues.
Most AWS teams already use CloudWatch for infra visibility. Extending it via Synthetics and Dashboards costs nothing extra. Premium features start at an additional $0.30 per GB of data analyzed.
7. Rigor
Rigor specializes in providing a customer experience lens for web and API monitoring. It is designed for digital experience teams focused on conversion metrics.
Notable Features
- Visualized user flows: Map multi-step processes across pages
- Funnel analysis: Evaluate and compare key conversion funnels
- Page speed insights: Waterfall analysis by segments
- True user monitoring: Incorporate RUM data from end users
Rigor really differentiates itself with its rich visualizations modeled around key CX metrics. This makes it easy for non-technical teams to interpret monitoring signals impacting customers.
Their industry focussed packages start at $1499 per month targeting ecommerce and publishing verticals. Rigor is best suited for marketing technology teams with a mandate to improve CX metrics.
8. Assertible
Assertible markets itself as the developer-friendly monitoring tool for testing teams. It minimizes the need to write scripts or code checks.
Notable Features
- Drag and drop test builder: Visual interface to configure monitors
- GitHub collaboration: Shared test suites stored as git repos
- Schedule management: Distribute tests across multiple times and intervals
- CI/CD integration: Incorporate monitoring in release pipelines
The vendor offers Team Management Capabilities with control over notifications, reports, and dashboards for groups. Users praise its clean UI that promotes ease of use over complexity in functionality.
For small QA teams that want to bootstrap test automation in a code-light manner, Assertible hits a sweet spot. Their scaled plans start at $99 per month for upto 75 tests.
9. BlazeMeter
Blazemeter brings performance engineering capabilities for running high intensity load tests at scale. It integrates seamlessly with Apache JMeter.
Notable Features
- JMeter integration: Run heavy duty open source load tests
- CLI integration: Local stress testing via command line
- Geo distributed testing: Multi region load generation
- Jenkins integration: Bake into CI/CD release pipelines
BlazeMeter offers developer-oriented capabilities including the Taurus framework for automated testing. Teams can write tests once and run them against various tools and protocols.
With high intensity capacity testing as the focus, BlazeMeter brings an arsenal of advanced tools. Their pricing and feature set reflect the enterprise orientation starting at $299 per month.
10. AppDynamics
AppDyanamics markets itself a as full-stack enterprise grade performance monitoring tool. It boasts advanced ML capabilities for baselining environments.
Notable Features
- Dynamic baselining: ML led baseline tuning
- DB visibility: SQL query and code flow tracking
- Kubernetes visibility: Context on containers
- Crawler for services: Auto detection of unknown processes
- Business journeys: Map user workflows across services
AppDyanmics has very deep application topology modeling capabilities. It can automatically baseline environments and trigger alerts only for true anomalies.
Its positioning as a premium enterprise product comes through in the pricing that starts at $3,880 per month. For regulated businesses, AppDyanamics provides the auditability missing in less sophisticated tools.
11. New Relic
New Relic has achieved market leadership through relentless product improvement over a decade. It now offers a very polished set of capabilities for various verticals.
Notable Features
- Pixie auto instrumentation: Zero config microservice tracking
- Database monitoring: Query performance visibility for DBs like Cassandra
- React applied intelligence: Frontend error identification in React apps
- Outage analysis: Automated RCA and restoration analysis
- Report builder: Custom reporting across 300+ dimensions
New Relic supports dozens of programming languages and frameworks. Teams can instrument at a very granular method level if needed. It offers capabilities tailored to roles with over 250 plugins and 350+ partner integrations.
Given its maturity and name recognition, pricing sits on the higher side with mid-market plans starting at $1,116 per month.
12. API Fortress
API Fortress tries to be a comprehensive API testing suite supporting the full development lifecycle. Collaboration features allow product and engineering teams to build reliable APIs faster.
Notable Features
- Mock server: Allows testing before actual API builds
- OpenAPI importer: Generate collections from API specs
- Env specific fixtures: Mock test data per environment
- Testing in CI/CD: Pipeline integration with Jenkins, CircleCI
- Data masking: Anonymize PII data in test reports
API Fortress prioritizes collaboration between API producers and consumers teams with features like real-time communication and version control.
Teams willing to invest in rigorous lifecycle testing rather than backend monitoring find the best fit. Mid market plans start at $299 per month for upto 20,000 API calls.
13. API Science
API Science markets itself as the technology behind world class APIs. It brings fully managed monitoring designed around industry best practices.
Notable Features
- Public API integrations: Monitor critical 3rd party dependencies
- Commitment dashboard: Uptime guarantees displayed publicly
- Topology mapping: Visual trace analysis showing all touch points
- Dependency graphs: Map out linked upstream services
- Error budgeting: Prevent overalerting of known failures
A key differentiator for API Science lies in its managed offering that pairs technology with human expertise. On enterprises plans, it provides dedicated Technical Client Managers for advice.
For Fortune 500 companies seeking battle tested solutions plus high touch support, API Science delivers. Their custom pricing starts at $1500 per month.
14. APImetrics
APImetrics offers unified API monitoring, testing, and analysis accessible by multi-disciplinary teams. It aims for broad use cases beyond just developers.
Notable Features
- Business workflow modeling: Map real world use cases spanning apps
- API simulation testing: Mirror prod scenarios in lower environments
- Codeless test building: Configure sophisticated mocks visually
- OpenAPI import: Generate collections from specs
- Contextual error monitoring: See affected user journeys
APImetrics emphasizes putting business logic at the center of monitoring. It facilitates collaboration between QA testers, product managers, and engineering teams with shared reports and alerts.
For organizations that really buy into mocking and simulation, APImetrics provides differentiated depth in contract testing. Their growth plans start at $1490 per month.
15. Moesif
Moesif specializes in understanding the customer perspective on APIs through advanced analytics.
Notable Features
- Customer metadata: Understand usage across products, segments, roles
- Replay errors: Diagnose issues without access to user devices
- Anonymization: Hide PII but preserve critical context
- Funnels: Conversion tracking across API workflows
- Churn analysis: Evaluate adoption and retention
Moesif really shines in telling the customer story behind the bits. The advanced metadata models allow product analytics teams to glean insights like power users, upsell opportunities, and retention risks.
For online businesses running API driven applications, Moesif delivers product analytics comparable to web/mobile. Their standard plans start at $99 per month for up to 500k events.
Make APIs the Heartbeat of Modern Business
This exploration of the top API monitoring platforms illustrates both the diversity of solutions and criticality of the space.
As investments pour into the API economy, the stakes have never been higher for ensuring availability and reliability. Hopefully, the options and best practices covered here help you implement monitoring that makes APIs the resilient heartbeat of your digital business.
