Comparison
Website Monitoring vs Uptime Monitoring
Your uptime dashboard is green. Your checkout page is broken. That missing stylesheet, that script returning HTML instead of JavaScript, that redirect loop -- your uptime tool sees none of it. This is the gap website monitoring exists to close.
- Understand the gap between "server responds" and "page actually works"
- See exactly what website monitoring catches that uptime tools cannot
- Real-world failure scenarios where uptime says OK but users see broken pages
Uptime says OK -- page is broken
Detected in last check
Hidden failures
Recent activity
- Uptime ping -- 200 OK, 140msjust now
- main.bundle.js -- 404 Not Foundjust now
- checkout-form.css -- MIME type mismatchjust now
- /api/cart -- Redirect loop detectedjust now
Why it matters
Your uptime tool is lying to you
Silent failures are the norm
Most user-facing failures happen while servers return 200 OK. A broken JavaScript bundle, a missing stylesheet, a script served with the wrong MIME type -- your uptime dashboard stays green while users see a broken page.
Deploys break things that pings cannot see
You push code, your CI passes, your uptime tool says OK. But the new bundle path 404s in production, or a stylesheet reference broke during the build. These are the most common causes of "up-but-broken" pages.
Third-party failures are invisible to pings
Your payment form script goes down. Your analytics provider serves a 500. Your font CDN returns a MIME mismatch. Revenue drops. Conversions tank. Uptime stays at 99.9%.
Page content changes without warning
A CMS update, a CDN purge gone wrong, a misconfigured redirect -- your page HTML changes in ways you did not intend. SHA-256 fingerprinting catches structural drift that status codes never will.
"Up" is not the same as "working"
A page can respond in 80ms and still be completely broken for users. Missing scripts, failed stylesheets, MIME type errors -- uptime tools call this a success. Your users call it broken.
Small failures compound into big problems
One missing CSS file. Two images returning 404. A font served as text/plain. Individually minor. Together they destroy the user experience -- and your conversions.
11
Detection rules
2-of-3
Confirmation before alerting
$19/mo
Pro plan, 100 sites
Head to head
Uptime monitoring vs. website monitoring
| Feature | Uptime monitoring | Website monitoring |
|---|---|---|
| What is checked | Server responds with 200 | Page and every linked asset verified |
| JavaScript verification | Completely invisible | Every script checked for status and MIME type |
| CSS and styling | Not checked at all | Stylesheets validated via HEAD requests |
| Images and fonts | Assumed working if server is up | Each asset verified for availability |
| Third-party scripts | Outside the scope of a ping | External assets validated same as internal |
| Content type validation | MIME type ignored entirely | MIME mismatch flagged as incident |
| Page structure | No concept of page content | SHA-256 fingerprint detects HTML changes |
| Detection method | HTTP ping or TCP check | Fetch, parse HTML, HEAD-request every asset |
| Evidence quality | Up or down -- binary | Full report: which asset, what status, what MIME type |
| Post-deploy safety | Total blind spot | On-demand check catches regressions immediately |
What is checked
JavaScript verification
CSS and styling
Images and fonts
Third-party scripts
Content type validation
Page structure
Detection method
Evidence quality
Post-deploy safety
Beyond the ping
How website monitoring works differently
Fetch the full page
Instead of pinging a server, Sitewatch fetches your page over HTTP and downloads the complete HTML response -- the same content a browser would receive.
Parse and discover assets
The HTML is parsed to extract every linked script, stylesheet, image, and font. This builds a complete map of what your page depends on.
Validate every asset
Each discovered asset gets a HEAD request to check its HTTP status code and MIME content type. A CSS file returning 404? A JavaScript file served as text/html? Flagged immediately.
Alert with full evidence
Incidents include exactly which asset failed, what HTTP status it returned, what MIME type was expected versus received, and when it was detected. Alerts go to 6 channels including Slack, email, and PagerDuty.
Find out what your uptime tool is missing
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The blind spots
Failures your uptime tool will never catch
Asset failures
- JavaScript bundles returning 404 after a deploy
- CSS stylesheets missing or serving wrong content type
- Images and fonts unavailable or returning error status codes
Infrastructure failures
- Redirect loops that leave users on a blank page
- Host drift -- domain resolving to wrong server
- MIME type mismatches causing scripts to fail silently
Content and structure
- Page HTML changing unexpectedly after deploys or CMS updates
- URLs serving non-HTML content (JSON, XML, downloads) instead of a webpage
- Sites becoming completely unavailable while other monitoring stays silent
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Website monitoring is a superset of uptime monitoring. If your server is down, Sitewatch detects that too -- it is one of the 11 detection rules (UNAVAILABLE). But it also catches the much larger category of failures where the server responds with 200 OK while the page is broken for users. Many teams run both.
Most user-facing failures happen while servers return 200 OK. A deploy breaks a bundle path. A CDN serves a script with the wrong MIME type. A redirect chain creates a loop. The server is fine -- the page is broken. These are the failures that generate 3 AM client phone calls and burn ad spend on broken landing pages.
Configurable per site -- every 30 minutes on Free, as often as every 5 minutes on Pro. On-demand checks are available from the dashboard and via deploy hooks. Near-zero false positive rate thanks to 2-of-3 confirmation: Sitewatch retries before alerting.
Yes, and many teams do exactly that. Keep your uptime tool for basic availability and sub-minute response time checks. Add Sitewatch for the layer uptime tools cannot see: asset verification, MIME validation, page fingerprinting, and redirect chain verification.
Sitewatch checks concrete, verifiable facts: does each asset return a valid HTTP status? Does the MIME type match what is expected? Is the page HTML consistent? If you deploy intentional changes, you can trigger an on-demand check to establish the new baseline. The 2-of-3 confirmation system also prevents false alerts from transient issues.
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