AI Indexes
IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › IT operations and endpoint › September 2026 Edition

Website and synthetic monitoring

Asked as “uptime monitoring tool”, and as “synthetic and digital experience monitoring”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 54 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each. Added to the September 2026 Edition; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories: how the two compare.
Standing · first-choice share
24%
Contested · Better Stack 22%
24UptimeRobot22Better Stack07Datadog Synthetic Monitoring46others

24% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01UptimeRobot24%26%53criticized challenger
02Better Stack22%7%43accepted challenger
03Pingdom7%13%39accepted challenger
04Uptime.com7%16%25accepted challenger
05Datadog Synthetic Monitoring7%34%44criticized challenger
06Checkly6%0%19accepted challenger
07Hyperping6%0%19accepted challenger
08Site24x74%4%28accepted challenger
09Uptime Kuma4%0%19accepted challenger
10New Relic Synthetics2%21%29accepted challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Dynatrace0%47%19criticized challenger
11StatusCake0%0%19accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
D05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01UptimeRobot24%
02Better Stack22%
03Pingdom7%
04Uptime.com7%
05Datadog Synthetic Monitoring7%
06Checkly6%
07Hyperping6%
08Site24x74%
09Uptime Kuma4%
10New Relic Synthetics2%
11StatusCake0%
12Dynatrace0%

What they warned about

Zero of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
UptimeRobot
26%
14 of 53 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“If you rely on it for anything critical, the false positives alone can erode trust in your monitoring system. The ToS change was also a significant red flag” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Datadog Synthetic Monitoring
34%
15 of 44 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Mentioned in Reddit discussions as having "really scummy" sales practices” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt
Dynatrace
47%
9 of 19 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“starts at ~$350/host/year and is designed for large-scale multicloud estates” Kimi K2, paraphrase prompt
Pingdom
13%
5 of 39 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Aggressive pricing... Outdated metrics... False positives... Poor UI/UX... Limited integrations” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

76 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1002 links across 238 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · UptimeRobot47 answers · 92 citations · 13 models
vendor site · Hyperping41 answers · 73 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Motadata27 answers · 27 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Contentsquare19 answers · 20 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Site24x719 answers · 20 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Better Stack18 answers · 36 citations · 8 models
18 answers · 18 citations · 7 models
18 answers · 18 citations · 10 models
vendor site · CubeAPM17 answers · 18 citations · 9 models
16 answers · 16 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Uptimia14 answers · 17 citations · 8 models
13 answers · 15 citations · 9 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best uptime monitoring tool”, “uptime monitoring tool”, “website monitoring tools”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
UptimeRobot uptimerobot.com24%1826,60049287,44228
Better Stack betterstack.com22%2851,6001,01741,811119
Uptime.com uptime.com
Uptime.com 7%, Uptime Kuma 4%
11%59110250,059$4212
Pingdom pingdom.com7%993,60065111,8481
Datadog parent site
Datadog Synthetic Monitoring 7%
7%10774,0003,541
Checkly checklyhq.com6%361,30043,80148
Hyperping hyperping.com6%58140067,358
Site24x7 site24x7.com4%2141,30061174,542$5221207
HetrixTools hetrixtools.com4%1339041,3541
New Relic newrelic.com
New Relic Synthetics 2%
2%7614,80084383,276 company$41289

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 22 sites; 3 of them are among the sites the models cited here (dotcom-monitor.com, site24x7.com, uptimia.com). The first result for “best uptime monitoring tool” is greta.sh.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best uptime monitoring tool for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which synthetic and digital experience monitoring would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top website monitoring tools and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best uptime monitoring tool for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating an uptime monitoring tool. What should we look at?”Negative“Which website monitoring tools should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Better Stack
Three alternativesSite24x7, StatusCake, UptimeRobot
against: Paessler PRTG
PingdomChanged
Three alternativesCatchpoint, Pendo, Site24x7
no first choice
Seven alternativesBetter Stack, Checkly, Sematext, Site24x7, Uptime Kuma, UptimeRobot, Uptrace
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Pingdom
UptimeRobot
Six alternativesBetter Stack, HetrixTools, Qodex.ai, Site24x7, StatusCake, Uptime Kuma
no first choiceagainst: Checkmk, Cronitor, Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, HetrixTools, New Relic Synthetics, Site24x7, Uptime.com, UptimeRobot
GPT-5.4 miniUptime.com
Two alternativesBetter Stack, Pingdom
Datadog Synthetic MonitoringChanged
Two alternativesDynatrace, New Relic Synthetics
StatusCake
Four alternativesDatadog Synthetic Monitoring, New Relic Synthetics, Pingdom, UptimeRobot
UptimeRobot
One alternativeUptime Kuma
against: Better Stack
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashBetter Stack
Two alternativesCheckly, Uptime.com
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dynatrace, UptimeRobot
ChecklyChanged
Four alternativesDatadog Synthetic Monitoring, New Relic Synthetics, Sematext, StatusGator
against: Catchpoint, Dynatrace
Better Stack, UptimeRobot
Seven alternativesDatadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dynatrace, GTmetrix / WebPageTest, Pingdom, Sentry, SpeedCurve / Calibre, Visualping
Uptime Kuma
Five alternativesBetter Stack, Healthchecks.io, StatusCake, UptimeRobot, Visual Sentinel
Better Stack
Three alternativesOh Dear, StatusCake, UptimeRobot
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dynatrace, New Relic Synthetics, Pingdom
against: SolarWinds Pingdom, UptimeRobot
Perplexity SonarUptime.com
Three alternativesDatadog Synthetic Monitoring, Hyperping, Site24x7
Datadog Synthetic MonitoringChanged
Four alternativesCheckly, Dynatrace, Pingdom, Uptime.com
no first choice
Eight alternativesBetter Stack, Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dynatrace, Hyperping, New Relic Synthetics, Site24x7, Uptime.com, UptimeRobot
UptimeRobot
Three alternativesSite24x7, StatusCake, Uptime Kuma
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastPingdom
Three alternativesSite24x7, StatusCake, UptimeRobot
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, New Relic Synthetics
Datadog Synthetic MonitoringChanged
Two alternativesNew Relic Synthetics, Site24x7
against: Dynatrace
UptimeRobot
Three alternativesDatadog Synthetic Monitoring, Pingdom, Site24x7
against: New Relic Synthetics
UptimeRobot
Four alternativesFreshping, Jetpack, Pingdom, Uptime Kuma
no first choice
Three alternativesBetter Stack, Hyperping, UptimeRobot
against: Uptime.com, UptimeRobot, Uptrends
Mistral SmallBetter Stack, Hyperping
Two alternativesOh Dear, StatusCake
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring
no first choiceChangedno first choice
Six alternativesDatadog Synthetic Monitoring, FullSession, New Relic Synthetics, Pingdom, Site24x7, UptimeRobot
UptimeRobot
One alternativeUptime Kuma
against: Zabbix
no first choiceagainst: UptimeRobot
DeepSeek V4 FlashBetter Stack
Two alternativesPingdom, Uptime.com
against: UptimeRobot
Site24x7Changed
Three alternativesCheckly, New Relic Synthetics, ThousandEyes
against: Catchpoint, Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dynatrace
Hyperping, UptimeRobot
Six alternativesBetter Stack, Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, New Relic Synthetics, Pingdom, Site24x7, Uptime.com
HetrixTools, UptimeRobot
Two alternativesSite24x7, Uptime Kuma
no first choiceagainst: Pingdom, Uptime.com, UptimeRobot
Llama 4 MaverickManageEngine's OpManager
One alternativeUptimeRobot
no first choiceChangedno first choiceBetter Stack, Hyperping, UptimeRobotno first choiceagainst: Better Stacknothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashBetter Stack
Three alternativesAtlassian Statuspage, Checkly, Site24x7
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring
Catchpoint, SolarWinds App OpticsChanged
Two alternativesCheckly, Site24x7
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dynatrace
Pingdom, UptimeRobot
Five alternativesCheckly, Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dotcom-Monitor, Dynatrace, Freshping
UptimeRobot
Three alternativesBetter Stack, Checkly, Freshping
Pingdom
Eight alternativesBetter Stack, Checkmk, Dotcom-Tool, Dynatrace, Hyperping, StatusCake, Uptime Kuma, Uptime.com
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, New Relic Synthetics, UptimeRobot
against: Distill.io, Pingdom, UptimeRobot, Visualping
Kimi K2Better Stack
Three alternativesPingdom, Site24x7, UptimeRobot
UptrendsChanged
Three alternativesNew Relic Synthetics, Pingdom, SolarWinds Observability
against: Catchpoint, Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dynatrace, ThousandEyes
no first choice
Seven alternativesBetter Stack, Checkly, Pingdom, Site24x7, StatusCake, Uptime Kuma, UptimeRobot
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Dynatrace, New Relic Synthetics
UptimeRobot
Six alternativesCronitor, HetrixTools, Hyperping, StatusCake, Uptime Kuma, Zabbix
Better Stack, Uptime.com, UptimeRobot
One alternativePagerDuty
against: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring
against: SolarWinds, Uptime.com, UptimeRobot
GLM 4.7 FlashXUptime.com
Two alternativesBetter Stack, Hyperping
Checkly, Site24x7Changed
Two alternativesDatadog Synthetic Monitoring, New Relic Synthetics
against: Catchpoint, Contentsquare, Dynatrace, ThousandEyes
Site24x7
Eight alternativesBetter Stack, Checkly, Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Hyperping, New Relic Synthetics, Pingdom, Plerdy, UptimeRobot
Uptime Kuma, UptimeRobot
Three alternativesBetter Stack, Pulsetic, Zabbix
no first choicenothing named
MiniMax M2.5Better Stack, Pingdom
Two alternativesDatadog Synthetic Monitoring, Site24x7
Datadog Synthetic MonitoringChanged
One alternativeNew Relic Synthetics
no first choice
Six alternativesBetter Stack, Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Pingdom, Site24x7, Uptime Kuma, UptimeRobot
UptimeRobot
Three alternativesHostTracker, Site24x7, StatusCake
no first choiceagainst: Datadog Synthetic Monitoring, Pingdom, Sentry, UptimeRobot
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:55yes99 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:36yes34 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:57yes1725 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 22:17yes202 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:35yes2411 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:23yes118 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:24yes2249 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 23:13yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:36no026 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 01:14yes1441 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:42yes2335 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 23:03yes1223 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:27yes97 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:37yes66 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 01:15yes1431 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:42yes193 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 23:36yes229 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:39no02 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:37yes2338 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:44yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:53yes529 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:42yes2134 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:06yes1251 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:24no055 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:17yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 22:37yes58 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:56yes919 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 23:16yes184 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 01:13yes179 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 01:44yes1010 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:29yes20143 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:38yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 01:45yes524 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 01:14yes1428 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:19yes1835 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 23:58yes1522 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:46yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 23:37yes34 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 01:18yes620 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:06yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 22:12yes137 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 01:20yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:27yes1927 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:42yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 23:07no025 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 23:02yes1012 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 22:55yes1048 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:33yes1328 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:43no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:40no06 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 23:06no018 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:30yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:02yes149 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 01:19no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:16yes1450 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:07yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:59yes926 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 01:05yes2330 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 23:01yes1483 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 22:28yes515 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:20yes178 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:05yes510 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:48yes2124 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:08yes203 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 23:51yes258 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 23:20yes54 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:17yes2527 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 23:59yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:18yes1535 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:51yes2440 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 23:58yes2596 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 01:57yes2544 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Datadog read as Datadog Synthetic Monitoring
Datadog (DEM) read as Datadog Synthetic Monitoring
Datadog Synthetics read as Datadog Synthetic Monitoring
Motadata read as Motadata ObserveOps
New Relic read as New Relic Synthetics
Unresolved, counted raw
ChangeTower / PageCrawl
Distill.io
Dotcom-Tool
GTmetrix / WebPageTest
HTML-Diff
Kentik Synthetics
ManageEngine's OpManager
PageCrawl
Pendo
Plerdy
Qodex.ai
SolarWinds App Optics
SpeedCurve / Calibre
Splunk Real User Monitoring
Visual Sentinel
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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