Pingdom Technology Intelligence

What is Pingdom?

Pingdom is a website monitoring service that tracks uptime and performance. Founded in 2007 in Sweden by Sam Nurmi and Jonatan Heyman, Pingdom was acquired by SolarWinds in 2014 and provides monitoring for over 850,000 websites.

Pingdom monitors website availability from multiple global locations, alerting teams when sites go down or experience performance issues. Features include uptime monitoring, page speed analysis, transaction monitoring, and real user monitoring. Pingdom helps organizations maintain SLAs and resolve issues before they impact users.

Key Features

Uptime Monitoring

• HTTP/HTTPS: Website availability
• TCP/UDP: Port monitoring
• Ping: Server reachability
• DNS: DNS resolution checks

Page Speed

• Full Page Load: Complete page analysis
• Waterfall: Resource loading breakdown
• Performance Grade: Optimization score
• Recommendations: Improvement suggestions

Transaction Monitoring

• User Flows: Multi-step transactions
• Login Checks: Authentication testing
• Checkout: E-commerce monitoring
• API: API endpoint testing

Alerting

• Email: Email notifications
• SMS: Text message alerts
• Integrations: Slack, PagerDuty, etc.
• Escalations: Alert chains

Use Cases

Website Uptime Monitoring

Operations teams monitor website availability 24/7. Checks run from multiple global locations. Instant alerts when sites become unavailable. Historical data tracks uptime SLA compliance.

E-commerce Monitoring

Online stores monitor critical user journeys. Transaction checks verify checkout works. Payment gateway monitoring ensures sales continue. Cart and product page monitoring.

Performance Optimization

Development teams identify performance bottlenecks. Waterfall analysis shows slow resources. Recommendations guide optimization efforts. Trend analysis tracks improvements over time.

SLA Compliance

Service providers prove uptime to customers. Detailed reports document availability. Root cause analysis for incidents. Status pages communicate with stakeholders.

Global Performance

International sites monitor regional performance. Tests from multiple continents reveal geographic issues. CDN effectiveness validation. Regional infrastructure problems detected.

API Monitoring

API providers monitor endpoint availability. Response time tracking ensures performance. Status code verification confirms functionality. JSON response validation.

Code Examples

API Authentication

# Bearer token authentication
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
    "https://api.pingdom.com/api/3.1/checks"

Get Check Status (Python)

import requests

headers = {
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN'
}

# Get all checks
response = requests.get(
    'https://api.pingdom.com/api/3.1/checks',
    headers=headers
)
checks = response.json()['checks']

for check in checks:
    print(f"{check['name']}: {check['status']}")

# Get specific check details
check_id = 12345
response = requests.get(
    f'https://api.pingdom.com/api/3.1/checks/{check_id}',
    headers=headers
)

Create Check

const createCheck = async () => {
    const response = await fetch('https://api.pingdom.com/api/3.1/checks', {
        method: 'POST',
        headers: {
            'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN',
            'Content-Type': 'application/json'
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({
            name: 'My Website',
            host: 'example.com',
            type: 'http',
            resolution: 5,
            sendnotificationwhendown: 2
        })
    });

    return response.json();
};

Webhook Integration

// Handle Pingdom webhook alerts
app.post('/pingdom-webhook', (req, res) => {
    const { check_name, current_state, description } = req.body;

    if (current_state === 'DOWN') {
        // Alert team about outage
        notifyTeam(`${check_name} is DOWN: ${description}`);
    } else if (current_state === 'UP') {
        // Notify recovery
        notifyTeam(`${check_name} is back UP`);
    }

    res.status(200).send('OK');
});

Platform Comparison

Pingdom vs UptimeRobot

• Pricing: UptimeRobot more affordable
• Features: Pingdom more comprehensive
• Page Speed: Pingdom includes speed testing
• Enterprise: Pingdom better for large orgs

Pingdom vs Datadog

• Scope: Datadog full observability
• Focus: Pingdom website-focused
• Simplicity: Pingdom easier to start
• Cost: Datadog more expensive

Strengths

• Established, reliable service
• Global monitoring locations
• Real user monitoring
• Transaction monitoring
• Good integration options

Considerations

• Pricing per check model
• Interface dated compared to newer tools
• Limited synthetic monitoring
• Part of larger SolarWinds suite
• Basic RUM features