AlertSite vs Amazon CloudWatch comparison

SmartBear's AlertSite is an application performance management and system monitoring software. AlertSite is an early warning system that users can rely on to monitor their websites, web apps, and APIs from any physical location as well as from within their private networks. It offers real-time alerting with root-cause analytics and robust reporting. AlertSite allows you to proactively monitor from an independent network of over 350 monitoring nodes worldwide.

Here are AlertSite’s 6 use cases: 

1. Monitor web: AlertSite monitors beyond availability to detect performance anomalies and notify the appropriate people when deviations occur, whether it's online apps or websites.
   
   
2. Monitor APIs: Check to see that your internal, external, and third-party APIs are working properly, returning the correct content, and performing as expected.
   
   
3. Monitor apps: With nearly any action, monitor your online sites and applications using actual browsers, just like a consumer. There is no need for scripting.
   
   
4. Monitor mobile: Monitor your mobile-friendly websites, native mobile apps, carrier-based nodes, and network speeds with real devices (3G, 4G LTE).
   
   
5. Monitor SLAs: Make sure you're meeting service-level agreements' requirements. SLA requirements are monitored and reported on by AlertSite.
   
   
6. Monitor cloud: Monitor your cloud-based applications to improve mobility. AlertSite monitors your apps across public and private clouds, giving you complete visibility into their status.

AlertSite Features

AlertSite has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

• Enables a comprehensive view of UI and API performance.
  
  
• Monitoring coverage from 350+ worldwide nodes and private networks.
  
• Integrates with DevOps and Ops tool stacks.
  
  
• Displays availability and performance data that assist in determining the root cause of performance problems.
  
  
• With AlertSite's Single Sign-On (SSO) support, you can assist your authentication procedures.
  
  
• Free training and assistance. AlertSite’s responsive team is always there to assist you, from the initial rollout through day-to-day support.
  
  
• Eliminates the stress of false alerts using these key features:
  
  
  • Tracks the performance of your apps, APIs, and websites.
    
  
  
  • Sets up monitor and alarm schedules, as well as blackout periods and retry choices.
    
  
  
  • Sets alert thresholds that are both static and dynamic.
    
    
  • Calculates the number of failures needed to set off an alarm.
    
    
  • After the first failure, retries logic.
    
  
  
  • Based on error code, sends an alert to recipients and group routing.
    
  
  
  • Tests from over 85 different locations across the world, with internal and external monitoring.
    
  
  
  • Defines assertions and validations.
    
  
  
  • Integrates with PagerDuty, Slack, Splunk, VictorOps, and more.

• Easy configuration with help from these key features:
  
  
  • DejaClick is an intuitive, seamless plug-in for documenting web transactions and user journeys.
    
  
  
  • Use the point-and-click script creation for website, web, and mobile monitor scripts.
    
  
  
  • Benefit from using native API monitor creation.
    
  
  
  • Scripts for functional tests can be reused.
    
  
  
  • Automate monitor creation by using Swagger Specs or OpenAPI Specification files.

Amazon CloudWatch is used for monitoring, tracking logs, and organizing metrics across AWS services. It detects anomalies, sets dynamic alarms, and automates actions to optimize cloud utilization, troubleshoot, and ensure service availability.

Organizations leverage Amazon CloudWatch for collecting and analyzing logs, triggering alerts, and profiling application performance. It's also employed for monitoring bandwidth, virtual machines, Lambda functions, and Kubernetes clusters. Valuable features include seamless integration with AWS, real-time data and alerts, detailed metrics, and a user-friendly interface. It provides robust monitoring capabilities for infrastructure and application performance, log aggregation, and analytics. Users appreciate its scalability, ease of setup, and affordability. Additional key aspects are the ability to create alarms, dashboards, and automated responses, along with detailed insights into system and application health. Room for improvement includes dashboards and UI enhancements for better visualization and customizability, log streaming speed, advanced machine learning and reporting capabilities, pricing, and integration with non-AWS services and databases. Users also seek more real-time monitoring and comprehensive application performance features, and simpler alerts and configuration processes.

What are the most important features?

• Seamless integration with AWS: Ensures smooth operation with AWS services.
• Real-time data and alerts: Provides immediate insights and notifications.
• Detailed metrics: Offers in-depth data on infrastructure and application performance.
• Scalability: Supports growing needs with ease.
• Ease of setup: Quick and straightforward installation.
• Affordability: Cost-effective monitoring solution.
• Alarms and dashboards: Customizable alerts and visual insights.
• Automated responses: Facilitates automatic actions based on set criteria.
• System and application health insights: Delivers comprehensive health reports.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

• Optimized cloud utilization: Ensures efficient use of resources.
• Improved troubleshooting: Identifies and resolves issues quickly.
• Enhanced service availability: Keeps services running smoothly.
• Effective log analysis: Provides valuable insights from collected logs.
• Performance profiling: Assesses and optimizes application performance.
• Scalable monitoring: Adapts to growing business needs.

Amazon CloudWatch is implemented across a range of industries, including technology, finance, healthcare, and retail. Technology firms use it to monitor application performance and traffic, while financial organizations leverage it for ensuring compliance and system reliability. Healthcare entities rely on it for maintaining service availability and monitoring data flow, and retail companies utilize it for tracking customer interactions and optimizing server usage.