COMPARE
Upclock vs Pingdom
The legacy incumbent, owned by SolarWinds since 2014.
www.pingdom.comIs Upclock a good Pingdom alternative?
Pingdom is the original uptime brand. It still has 100+ global probe locations and deep transaction monitoring. But the product has barely moved since SolarWinds acquired it: iOS and Android apps were retired in 2021, page speed reports still use the deprecated YSlow grading system, the status page UI hasn't been touched in over a decade, and HTTPS on custom-domain status pages is an open feature request from 2018. Pricing climbs in 22 steps with no per-check overage. Cross a breakpoint and your bill jumps fivefold.
Quick verdict
PICK UPCLOCK
Pingdom invented uptime monitoring. Upclock is the version that didn't spend ten years inside SolarWinds.
PICK PINGDOM
If you need multi-step browser transaction monitoring (login → cart → checkout), Real User Monitoring, or your enterprise procurement requires a recognized brand with formal SLA paperwork, Pingdom has these and Upclock does not.
Pricing, head to head
No free tier (only a 14-day trial). 22 step-tier prices. No per-check add-ons, so you upgrade a whole tier. SMS credits gated by tier. Real User Monitoring (RUM) is a separately billed product.
Pingdom has no free tier
Pingdom min interval is 1 min
Pingdom custom-domain status pages are HTTP only
Feature matrix
- HTTP / TCP / DNS / ICMP
- SSL monitoring
- Heartbeat / cron monitoring
- Multi-step transaction monitoring
- Real User Monitoring (RUM)separately billed
- Min check interval1 min10s
- Free tier
- Status pages per org1 hard cap25 on Pro
- HTTPS custom domain on status page
- Private status pages
- Mobile appdiscontinued 2021
- Page speed (Lighthouse / Core Web Vitals)legacy YSlow only
- Real-time dashboard (push)
- On-call scheduling
Where Pingdom wins
Brand and procurement trust
A "Pingdom report" is a recognized artifact in enterprise SLA reviews. Long history (since 2007), known to your CFO.
100+ global probe locations
One of the deepest geographic check footprints in the category, rivaled only by Site24x7 and Catchpoint.
Multi-step browser transactions
Multi-step flows in real Chrome, with a code-free recorder. It is strong, and Upclock has no equivalent.
Mature RUM and SLA reporting
Combined synthetic + RUM (separately billed but unified UI), plus formal SLA reporting for compliance audits.
Where Upclock wins
~8× cheaper at the same monitor count
50 monitors on Pingdom = $50–65/mo at 1-minute intervals with a single status page over HTTP. Upclock Basic = $8/mo, 30-second checks, three HTTPS status pages, SSL monitoring, SMS + PagerDuty.
Faster checks, 6× the cadence
Pingdom's published minimum is 1 minute. Upclock Pro runs 10-second intervals at $25/mo, less than half the cost of Pingdom's Standard tier.
Status pages that don't look like 2010
Pingdom hard-caps at one status page per org, custom domains over plaintext HTTP, UI untouched in a decade. Upclock Pro: 25 pages, unlimited HTTPS custom domains, private pages, postmortems.
Built in 2026, not stuck in 2014
Pingdom's mobile apps were killed in 2021 and page speed still uses YSlow. Upclock runs on Convex, so the dashboard updates in real time, and there is no parent observability bundle to be migrated into.
No SolarWinds brand or supply-chain overhead
SolarWinds settled SEC charges related to the 2020 SUNBURST breach for $26M. Upclock is solo-built with no parent-company supply-chain exposure.
BOTTOM LINE