Grafana Synthetic Monitoring vs Checkly

Free tier available

From $24 per month (Starter; Team is $64)

Cheap if you already run Grafana Cloud; results are plain Prometheus metrics you already know how to use.

Priced by check runs; browser checks cost more than API checks, and frequency multiplies the bill. Team at $64 adds 75 monitors, 30-second frequency, all 22 locations and private locations.

Included in the Grafana Cloud free tier with a monthly check allowance.

Hobby: 10 uptime monitors, 10k API and 1k browser check runs a month across 6 locations.

Established

Grafana Labs · since 2021

Widely used

Checkly · since 2018

• Results are Prometheus metrics, so alerting and dashboards use tools you already have.
• Same k6 scripts serve load testing and synthetic monitoring.
• Good free tier within Grafana Cloud.

• One Playwright script serves as both an E2E test and a production monitor.
• Monitoring-as-code fits GitOps workflows and code review.
• Excellent developer experience and clear, published pricing.

• Assumes you are in the Grafana ecosystem; standalone it makes little sense.
• Browser checks are less mature than Datadog's or Checkly's.
• Fewer probe locations than the dedicated vendors.

• Playwright-centric; teams on other frameworks get less benefit.
• Browser checks at high frequency across many locations get expensive.
• Not a full observability platform — no APM or log management.

Teams already running Grafana Cloud and k6.

Engineering teams already using Playwright who want production journeys monitored.