UptimeX vs Pingdom
Pingdom is the long-running uptime brand, now part of SolarWinds, sold as bundles of checks beside transaction and real-user monitoring. UptimeX is a smaller, focused monitor with a free plan, flat pricing, a native app, and a latency breakdown on every check.
What’s the difference between UptimeX and Pingdom?
Pingdom sells monitoring by the check. UptimeX sells it by the plan.
Pingdom's synthetic monitoring comes in bundles: a quantity of uptime checks, advanced transaction checks and SMS messages, billed monthly or annually, with real-user monitoring as a separate product and no free tier beyond the trial. UptimeX is a flat plan with a monitor count and a check interval, free to start, and it spends its effort on what one check tells you: up, slow or down, with connect time and time to first byte separated.
UptimeX vs Pingdom at a glance
The gap is in pricing shape, the free tier, and what a single check reports.
5 monitors, 5-minute checks, push and webhook alerts, 7 days of history
None. A free trial, then a paid bundle
1 minute on Pro and Team
1 minute on uptime checks
Flat plans. Pro is $7 a month, $5 billed annually
Bundles sized by quantity, starting at 10 uptime checks with 1 advanced check and 50 SMS; from around $10 to $15 a month
HTTP, keyword, API, DNS, TCP port, heartbeat, scheduler
HTTP, TCP, ping, DNS and mail-server uptime checks; transaction and page-speed checks in the advanced tier
Native push first, plus Slack, Discord and webhooks on every plan; email on Pro and Team
Email and SMS in the bundle, mobile app push, Slack, PagerDuty, Opsgenie and webhooks
Up, slow or down, with connect time and time to first byte split on every check
Up or down, with response time and a root-cause snapshot
Heartbeats and schedulers for cron jobs; status pages, incidents, maintenance
Transaction checks, page speed, and real-user monitoring as a separate product
Included
Public status pages and reports included
Native app with push, same account on the web
Web dashboard with an iOS and Android app; unlimited users
Compare your setup across providers
Pick how many monitors you run and see the monthly list price side by side at 1-minute checks. No sales call, and no add-ons hidden in the number.
Each provider is priced at the cheapest published plan that covers this many monitors at 1-minute checks. Free tiers run slower and are left out.
- UptimeX$7/moPro covers 30 monitors, Team 50; the free plan checks every 5 minutes
- URUptimeRobot$10/mo1.4×SMS and voice alerts are credits on top; the free plan checks every 5 minutes
- Better Stack$25/mo3.6×monitors come in blocks of 50; phone and SMS on-call needs a $34 Responder seat
- Pingdomthis page$18/mo2.6×bundles of uptime checks with SMS included; no free plan
- Uptime Kuma≈$5/mo71%the software is free; the figure is a small VPS to run it on, before your time to update and back it up
Public list prices with monthly billing, read in November 2026; SMS, phone calls and extra seats are excluded. Check each provider's pricing page before deciding, and ours.
Common questions
Pricing
No. Pingdom offers a free trial and then a paid bundle. UptimeX's free plan is five monitors at 5-minute checks with push and webhook alerts, with no card required.
UptimeX Pro is $7 a month for 30 monitors at 1-minute checks. Pingdom's smallest synthetic bundle covers 10 uptime checks, 1 advanced check and 50 SMS messages, priced from around $10 to $15 a month depending on billing. More checks means a larger bundle.
Switching
Yes. Add the same URLs to UptimeX, send its alerts to the channel Pingdom already posts in, and compare incidents for a week before pausing the Pingdom checks.
UptimeX does not send SMS. The native app's push notification is the primary alert, with Slack, Discord, webhooks and email behind it. If SMS is a hard requirement, Pingdom includes a quantity in each bundle.
Capabilities and fit
No. UptimeX checks endpoints, keywords, DNS, ports, heartbeats and schedules, and classifies each result. Multi-step browser transactions and real-user performance data are Pingdom territory.
Transaction checks that script a user flow, page-speed and real-user monitoring, SMS included in the bundle, and the SolarWinds ecosystem around it. If you need synthetic browser tests, Pingdom is built for that.
Which one is right for you?
Choose UptimeX if…
- You want a free plan or a flat monthly price instead of a per-check bundle
- The alert should be a native push on your phone
- You need to know whether a slowdown was the network or your server
- You want heartbeats and scheduled jobs next to HTTP checks
- Endpoint and keyword checks cover what you run
Choose Pingdom if…
- You need scripted transaction checks of a user flow
- Real-user monitoring and page-speed data are part of the job
- SMS alerts included in the price are a requirement
Switching from Pingdom without a gap in coverage
Keep the Pingdom checks running while UptimeX watches the same endpoints. Compare the incidents for a week, then pause Pingdom one check at a time.
- 1Add the endpoints you care about to UptimeX. The free plan covers five, Pro covers thirty.
- 2Send UptimeX's Slack, Discord or webhook alerts where Pingdom already posts, and install the app for push.
- 3When both tools report the same incidents, pause the Pingdom checks.
See how UptimeX compares across the lineup
The same comparison for the other monitors people usually shortlist.