Any good tools for ensuring sites are live?

Question

I'm looking for some recommendations for website tools to ensure that deployed sites are always live and available. Ideally, I'd like to have a decent reporting / messaging mechanism from it to report when any faults occur.

I've considered using CruiseControl and having some custom .Net libraries ping each site and analyse the response but I'd prefer to use a dedicated tool.

Thanks,

Brian.

Answer 1

I like http://host-tracker.com/

Answer 2

Use nagios. It's a proven solution that works well in many scenarios and has very flexible reporting possibilities.

Answer 3

If you are looking for a simple solution, try this:

http://aremysitesup.com/

It will email you if one your websites goes down and when it goes back up.

Answer 4

Also nice for quick manual check: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Answer 5

I used http://www.montastic.com for a while, but it wasn't that quick at reporting when the site went down. The site claims they try to check every 10 minutes, but I'm sure I had cases where users reported problems and they were resolved before Montastic e-mailed me. However, YMMV.

Answer 6

I use this site http://www.watchmouse.com for some sites, it is excellent although might be too expensive if this is the case then look at http://www.internetvista.com/ which is cheaper still good but a little slower at reporting problems sometimes. Both have great reports.