Checkly review

Checkly is the strongest pick for developers who want monitoring to behave like tests. Checks are written in code, run on a schedule and deployed from the terminal with the Checkly CLI, or managed through Terraform and Pulumi providers, so they go through code review like everything else. Uptime monitors cover HTTPS, TCP, DNS, ICMP, SSL, gRPC, traceroute and heartbeats, and synthetic monitoring runs browser checks and full Playwright Check Suites. The free Hobby plan includes 10 uptime monitors at 2-minute frequency, 1,000 browser runs and 10,000 API runs a month. Starter at $24 per month billed annually raises that to 50 monitors at 1-minute frequency with SMS alerts, and Team at $64 adds 30-second checks, 21 locations, private locations and every alert channel. The catch is metering: runs beyond your plan are billed as overages, so a busy schedule of browser checks needs a budget.

Who it is for

Engineering teams that write Playwright tests and want monitoring stored in their repository.

Price

Free Hobby plan; Starter $24 and Team $64 per month billed annually.

Starter $ 24 per month, billed annually
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 9, 2026.

Key features

• Uptime monitors over HTTPS, TCP, DNS, ICMP, SSL, gRPC and heartbeat
• Browser checks and full Playwright Check Suites on a schedule
• API and multistep checks that chain requests
• Checkly CLI, Terraform and Pulumi providers for monitoring as code
• Status pages and alerts to Slack, SMS, webhooks and incident tools

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Reuses Playwright tests the team already maintains
• Strength: Hobby plan includes 1,000 browser and 10,000 API check runs
• Strength: Checks live in version control next to the code
• Weakness: Usage-based run limits need monitoring to avoid overages
• Weakness: Starter supports 6 locations and no private locations
• Weakness: Best value comes from coding checks, not point-and-click

Key facts

• Free plan: Yes, Hobby with 10 uptime monitors
• Starter limits: 50 uptime monitors, 1-minute frequency
• Team frequency: 30 seconds from 21 locations

Where it ranks

Checkly is No. 3 in our Best Uptime Monitoring Tools verdict.