COMPARE
Upclock vs Checkly
Browser synthetics and monitoring-as-code, billed per check run.
www.checklyhq.comIs Upclock a good Checkly alternative?
Checkly is one of the best products in synthetic monitoring. It has Playwright-native browser checks, monitoring-as-code through a TypeScript CLI, Terraform and Pulumi providers, OpenTelemetry trace correlation, and an AI triage agent that ships pcap analysis. It's also priced for that scope: $24/mo Starter with consumption-based overages, then $64/mo Team for the full 22 regions, then enterprise. Upclock and Checkly aren't direct competitors. They overlap on uptime checks, and that is what this page compares.
Quick verdict
PICK UPCLOCK
Need browser synthetics? Use Checkly. For plain external uptime checks and status pages, Upclock is 3× cheaper.
PICK CHECKLY
If you write Playwright browser tests, manage monitors as code in a Git repo, need OpenTelemetry trace correlation, or already pay Checkly for synthetic testing, there's no reason to switch.
Pricing, head to head
Free Hobby (10 monitors, 1 user, 6 locations), Starter $24/mo annual (50 monitors, 3 users, 6 locations), Team $64/mo annual (75 monitors, 10 users, 22 locations). Browser-check overages bill at $4–$6.50 per 1,000 runs.
3× cheaper, 4× the raw retention
Feature matrix
- HTTP / API monitoring
- TCP / DNS / ICMP
- SSL monitoring
- Heartbeat / cron monitoring
- Playwright browser checks
- Multi-step API workflows
- Monitoring as code (TS CLI)
- Terraform / Pulumi providers
- OpenTelemetry trace correlation
- Per-run overage billing
- Multi-region origins22 (Team+)roadmap
- Real-time dashboard (push)
- Private status pagesPro
- Flat predictable pricing
Where Checkly wins
The best browser synthetic testing
Headless Chromium driven by Playwright, with DOM interactions, and screenshots and video on failure. Nothing in the lightweight uptime category comes close.
Monitoring as code that works
Native TypeScript CLI plus Terraform and Pulumi providers. You can version your monitors, review them in PRs, and deploy them from CI. The deepest IaC support in the category.
OpenTelemetry trace correlation
Synthetic HTTP calls auto-inject trace context. A failing check links directly to the backend distributed trace, which no other tool here gives teams already on OTel.
AI triage and 22 global locations
The "Rocky" AI agent ships packet capture and traceroute analysis. 22 AWS regions on Team. Well-funded, mature roadmap.
Where Upclock wins
3× cheaper if you only need uptime
Checkly Starter is $24/mo for 50 monitors with 7-day raw retention and 6 locations. Upclock Basic is $8/mo for the same monitor count, 30-day retention, SSL monitoring, 3 status pages, and SMS + PagerDuty + ntfy.
No per-run billing
Upclock prices are flat per tier. Checkly bills per run. A 1-min HTTP check is 43,200 runs/mo per check, and a Playwright check every 5 min from 3 regions is about 26,000 runs/mo. On Upclock there is nothing to calculate.
Unlimited team members on Pro
Checkly Team caps at 10 users for $64/mo. Upclock Pro is unlimited team members for $25/mo.
Status pages are a full product
Upclock ships 3 / 25 status pages with unlimited custom domains and private pages on Pro. Checkly has status pages but they're a side feature, with limited custom-domain and branding control.
Narrower scope
Upclock does no synthetic browser testing and no OpenTelemetry trace correlation. If you need those, Checkly wins outright.
BOTTOM LINE