Checkly

Code-first synthetic monitoring platform utilizing Playwright check suites and deep CI/CD integrations via Terraform and Pulumi.

About Checkly

Checkly represents a paradigm shift in monitoring, pioneering the "Monitoring as Code" (MaC) movement. Designed exclusively for modern software development teams, Checkly treats synthetic monitoring identical to unit or integration testing. Instead of clicking through a UI to set up a monitor, engineers write Playwright scripts or TypeScript API assertions, check them into version control, and deploy them directly to Checkly's global infrastructure.

This approach ensures that monitoring configurations are always perfectly synchronized with the application codebase. By integrating deeply with CI/CD pipelines, Checkly allows teams to run their active monitoring scripts against staging environments during the build process, preventing broken code from ever reaching production.

Key Features

Feature 1: Code-first infrastructure using Playwright and Node.js.
Feature 2: Monitoring as Code via native Terraform and Pulumi providers.
Feature 3: Deep CI/CD pipeline integration (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI).
Feature 4: High-frequency API monitoring with complex assertions.
Feature 5: End-to-end browser testing (Playwright check suites).
Feature 6: Centralized dashboards and automated alerting.

Pricing

Hobby Plan: $0/month Ideal for personal projects. Includes 10 monitors and basic alerting.
Starter Plan: $24/month (billed annually) Unlocks Playwright browser checks, API suites, and standard CI/CD integrations.
Team Plan: $64/month (billed annually) Adds advanced Terraform support, team roles, and higher check frequency limits.

Use Cases

Monitoring as Code (MaC) implementations
CI/CD pipeline deployment gating
Modern SPA and React/Vue front-end testing
Code-driven API contract validation

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Unrivaled "Monitoring as Code" workflow tailored for developers
Uses standard Playwright, avoiding proprietary scripting languages
Stops bad deployments by running checks natively in CI/CD pipelines

Cons:

Requires coding knowledge; not suitable for non-technical users
Lacks native internal server resource monitoring (CPU/RAM)

Integrations

GitHub, GitLab, Terraform, Pulumi, Slack, PagerDuty, Datadog

FAQ

What does 'Monitoring as Code' mean in Checkly?

It means you write your monitoring checks in code (TypeScript/Playwright), store them in your Git repository, and provision them automatically using tools like Terraform or Checkly's CLI.

Can Checkly test my code before it goes to production?

Yes. Through CI/CD integration, Checkly can run your monitoring scripts against a preview or staging environment. If the checks fail, the deployment is blocked.

What framework does Checkly use for browser checks?

Checkly exclusively uses Playwright, a powerful open-source automation library by Microsoft, to execute reliable, headless browser interactions.

Do I have to use code to create a monitor?

While Checkly's strength is its code-first approach, they do provide a UI to quickly create basic API and uptime monitors without writing code.

Does Checkly support Terraform?

Yes, Checkly maintains an official Terraform provider, allowing you to declare your monitors, alert routing, and dashboards as infrastructure as code.