Website monitoring tools for agencies, compared

Website monitoring tools for agencies: what each one checks

Five monitoring tools for an agency’s client sites, Pathly included. The table shows what each tool’s public page states, read on 10 November 2026. No prices, no ranking.

What each tool checks
What each tool checks	UptimeRobot	Better Stack	Oh Dear	WP Umbrella	Pathly
The site responds (uptime)	Yes : HTTP and API	Yes : yes	Yes : every minute	Yes : continuous	Yes : Ping
Multi-step browser journey	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : Playwright monitor	Not stated on its page : not stated	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : Flow, real browser
Journey built without code	Not stated on its page : not stated	No : Playwright test in JavaScript to paste	Not stated on its page : not stated	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : click-by-click recorder
Screenshot of the failure	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : screenshot of the site down	Not stated on its page : not stated	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : screenshot of the broken step
Client report	Partly : monthly report emailed to you	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : monthly email report	Yes : white label	Yes : monthly PDF, your brand on Business
Public status page	Yes : yes	Yes : yes	Yes : yes	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : status page and badge
WordPress updates and backups	Not stated on its page : not stated	Not stated on its page : not stated	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : yes	No : not its job: keep your tool
EU data hosting stated	Not stated on its page : not stated	Not stated on its page : not stated	Yes : data in Belgium	Yes : EU infrastructure stated	Yes : GCP europe-west1, public DPA

The site responds (uptime)

Pathly: Yes : Ping
UptimeRobot: Yes : HTTP and API
Better Stack: Yes : yes
Oh Dear: Yes : every minute
WP Umbrella: Yes : continuous

Multi-step browser journey

Pathly: Yes : Flow, real browser
UptimeRobot: Not stated on its page : not stated
Better Stack: Yes : Playwright monitor
Oh Dear: Not stated on its page : not stated
WP Umbrella: Not stated on its page : not stated

Journey built without code

Pathly: Yes : click-by-click recorder
UptimeRobot: Not stated on its page : not stated
Better Stack: No : Playwright test in JavaScript to paste
Oh Dear: Not stated on its page : not stated
WP Umbrella: Not stated on its page : not stated

Screenshot of the failure

Pathly: Yes : screenshot of the broken step
UptimeRobot: Not stated on its page : not stated
Better Stack: Yes : screenshot of the site down
Oh Dear: Not stated on its page : not stated
WP Umbrella: Not stated on its page : not stated

Client report

Pathly: Yes : monthly PDF, your brand on Business
UptimeRobot: Partly : monthly report emailed to you
Better Stack: Not stated on its page : not stated
Oh Dear: Yes : monthly email report
WP Umbrella: Yes : white label

Public status page

Pathly: Yes : status page and badge
UptimeRobot: Yes : yes
Better Stack: Yes : yes
Oh Dear: Yes : yes
WP Umbrella: Not stated on its page : not stated

WordPress updates and backups

Pathly: No : not its job: keep your tool
UptimeRobot: Not stated on its page : not stated
Better Stack: Not stated on its page : not stated
Oh Dear: Not stated on its page : not stated
WP Umbrella: Yes : yes

EU data hosting stated

Pathly: Yes : GCP europe-west1, public DPA
UptimeRobot: Not stated on its page : not stated
Better Stack: Not stated on its page : not stated
Oh Dear: Yes : data in Belgium
WP Umbrella: Yes : EU infrastructure stated

How to read this table

Each cell comes from the tool’s public page, cited below the table with the date it was read. What a page does not say is written “not stated”, not “no”: the tool may still do it. Prices are not copied, because they change. Check each tool’s page.

Choose by the job to be done

For WordPress updates and backups, a maintenance tool such as WP Umbrella does that job. To know whether a site responds and publish a status page, UptimeRobot, Better Stack and Oh Dear state it. Better Stack also runs Playwright tests written in code. Pathly replays the cart, the login or the form in real Chrome without code, and attaches the screenshot of the step that breaks. These tools combine: each covers part of the job.

What Pathly does not do

Pathly does not run WordPress updates or backups. It does not look for broken links page by page across a whole site. It checks from one location in Europe, not from several continents. It sends no SMS and no voice call: route them through PagerDuty or Opsgenie. The dashboard and alerts stay Pathly-branded, only the PDF report carries the agency’s brand, on Business. A Flow stops before payment: it does not prove that a real payment goes through. Pathly is neither an APM nor a load-testing tool.

What Pathly adds to your tool

Pathly checks from the outside, with no plugin on the site. A Ping checks that the site responds. A Flow replays the journey in real Chrome, on Google Cloud europe-west1. Lumi prepares it on WooCommerce, Shopify, PrestaShop, Magento, WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, and you validate each step. The monthly PDF report shows the client what was checked. The Solo plan is free, with no card.

Common questions

Which monitoring tool should a web agency choose?

It depends on the job. For WordPress maintenance, a maintenance tool. For uptime and a status page, an uptime tool. For the cart, the login or a form, a tool that replays the journey in a browser, such as Pathly. The table shows what each tool’s page states.

Why no prices for the other tools?

Prices change often. We cite each tool’s page rather than copy a figure that goes stale. Pathly’s prices are on the Pricing page.

Does Pathly replace these tools?

Not for WordPress maintenance nor for crawling a whole site. Pathly adds the visitor journey: it replays the cart, the login or the form, and alerts with the screenshot of the step that breaks.