Synthetic monitoring, also known as active monitoring or proactive monitoring, is a technique used to monitor the performance and availability of applications, websites, or services by simulating user interactions. It involves creating automated scripts or tests that mimic user actions, such as clicking buttons, filling out forms, or navigating through web pages.

The purpose of synthetic monitoring is to proactively detect and identify issues or bottlenecks in the application or service before they impact real users. It helps organizations ensure that their systems are functioning properly and meeting performance expectations. Synthetic monitoring can provide insights into various metrics, including response time, availability, error rates, and transaction completion rates.

Here are some free and open-source self-hosted applications for synthetic monitoring:

Monika

Monika is a command line application to monitor every part of your web app using a simple YAML configuration file. Get alert not only when your site is down but also when it’s slow.

Cloudprober

Cloudprober is a monitoring software that makes it super-easy to monitor availability and performance of various components of your system. Cloudprober employs the “active” monitoring model. It runs probes against (or on) your components to verify that they are working as expected. For example, it can run a probe to verify that your frontends can reach your backends. Similarly it can run a probe to verify that your in-Cloud VMs can actually reach your on-premise systems. This kind of monitoring makes it possible to monitor your systems’ interfaces regardless of the implementation and helps you quickly pin down what’s broken in your system.

Grafana:

Grafana is a popular open-source analytics and visualization platform. It can be used for synthetic monitoring by integrating with other tools like Prometheus or InfluxDB to collect and analyze metrics.

Selenium:

Selenium is a widely used open-source automated testing framework. It can be used to create and run synthetic monitoring scripts that simulate user interactions with web applications and check for specific behaviors or issues.

K6:

K6 is an open-source load testing tool that can also be used for synthetic monitoring. It allows you to write test scripts in JavaScript to simulate user behavior and monitor the performance and availability of your web applications.

Apache JMeter:

Apache JMeter is another open-source load testing tool that can be used for synthetic monitoring. It supports a wide range of protocols and allows you to simulate user interactions and monitor the performance of your applications.

Nagios:

Nagios is a popular open-source monitoring system that can be extended to perform synthetic monitoring. You can use Nagios plugins or create custom scripts to simulate user interactions and monitor the availability and performance of your systems.

Zabbix:

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring solution that includes features for synthetic monitoring. It allows you to create synthetic tests that simulate user actions and monitor the availability and response time of your applications.

WebPageTest:

WebPageTest is an open-source web performance testing tool. It can be used for synthetic monitoring by scheduling tests to run at regular intervals and monitoring the performance of your websites or web applications.

Sitespeed.io:

Sitespeed.io is an open-source tool for analyzing web performance. It can be used for synthetic monitoring by running tests on your websites or web applications and monitoring metrics like response time, page size, and more.

Yandex Tank:

Yandex Tank is an open-source load testing tool that can also be used for synthetic monitoring. It allows you to create and run test scenarios to simulate user interactions and monitor the performance of your applications.

Gatling:

Gatling is an open-source load testing tool that can be used for synthetic monitoring. It allows you to create and run test scenarios to simulate user behavior and monitor the performance and availability of your applications.

Rajesh Kumar

I’m Rajesh Kumar, a DevOps, SRE, DevSecOps, Cloud, and Platform Engineering expert passionate about sharing practical knowledge, real-world experiences, and industry best practices. I have worked at Cotocus and regularly write about technology, travel, investing, health, product reviews, and digital marketing through my various platforms.

I publish technical articles at DevOps School, travel stories at Holiday Landmark, stock market insights at Stocks Mantra, health and fitness guidance at My Medic Plus, product reviews at TrueReviewNow, and SEO and digital marketing strategies at Wizbrand.