The long-standing enterprise name versus a modern, flat-priced alternative.
Pingdom (SolarWinds) is one of the oldest names in uptime monitoring, priced per check on a slider with no free tier. PulseTrace offers a free plan, flat organization pricing, faster checks and the security and change-intelligence layers Pingdom's uptime product does not include.
| Criterion | PulseTrace | Pingdom |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 10 monitors, 1-minute checks, 1 region, 1 status page — free forever | None — 30-day trial only |
| Entry price | Team $29/mo (50 monitors, 30 s), Pro $85/mo (200 monitors, 15 s) | From $18/mo ($16.50 annual) for 10 uptime checks + 1 advanced check; 50 checks ≈ $78/mo, 100 ≈ $149/mo |
| Fastest interval | 60 s Free · 30 s Team · 15 s Pro · 10 s Enterprise | 1-minute uptime checks; 5-minute transaction checks |
| Locations | 12 probe regions, per-region results; private probe agent for internal targets | Global probe network (count not published on the pricing page) |
| Monitor types | 12: HTTP(S), TCP, UDP, DNS, ICMP, WebSocket, traceroute, gRPC, TLS, SSL/TLS security grading, domain security, multi-step API | Uptime (HTTP, ping, port, DNS), transaction (browser), page speed, real-user monitoring |
| Security grading | A+–F grade for TLS config, chain, revocation, security headers, cookies, CORS; domain grade for RDAP, DNSSEC, SPF/DKIM/DMARC | SSL expiry alerts; no configuration or header grading |
| Change detection | Fingerprints DNS, TLS, HTTP headers, redirects, content and infrastructure on every check; change events with before/after; anomaly baselines; CT-log & look-alike watch (Pro) | Not a feature |
| Status pages | 1 page on Free, 5 on Team, unlimited + custom domain on Pro, white-label on Enterprise; trust pages with security grades | Public status pages included on every tier |
| Alert channels | Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, incident.io, Rootly, email, signed webhooks — no SMS/voice | Email, SMS credits, Slack, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, webhooks and more |
| API & automation | REST API with scoped keys and rate limits; MCP server for AI agents; OpenAPI import | REST API |
| Reporting | Availability, SLA/SLO with error budgets, performance, incident and intelligence reports; scheduled delivery (Pro) | Uptime, response-time and SLA reports; 13-month RUM retention |
| Hosting | Hosted SaaS | Hosted SaaS (SolarWinds) |
Pingdom column last checked August 2026 from public pricing pages and dated pricing reviews. PulseTrace column reflects current plans. Plans change — tell us if something is out of date.
you need real-user monitoring or page-speed scores alongside uptime, or your procurement already covers SolarWinds.
you want a free tier and flat pricing, faster checks, and the security and change layers; or you are replacing Pingdom's uptime product specifically.
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