SiteGuardian vs Pingdom. Pingdom watches synthetic scripts; SiteGuardian watches the URLs your scripts cannot reach.

SiteGuardian is a paid URL-side monitor (uptime, SSL expiry, broken-link coverage on the URL list, checkout-failure monitoring, form-failure monitoring) that emails one inbox per outage at three flat tiers in USD. Pingdom is SolarWinds’ paid monitoring platform — synthetic transaction recorder (record a browser script, replay it from 100+ probe locations), real-user monitoring with per-region page-load breakdowns and 13-month data retention, public status pages, and a Subscription Calculator that prices Synthetics by Uptime + Advanced + SMS and RUM by pageviews. The two overlap on uptime; Pingdom adds the synthetic recorder and RUM, SiteGuardian adds the four URL-side checks Pingdom does not run.

Pingdom is better when you need a synthetic transaction recorder (a real browser script that walks the cart, login, or search), per-region real-user monitoring with 13-month data retention, and a public status page in the same product. SiteGuardian is better when you have a storefront, a URL list, and a checkout or form you want watched from the outside without recording a browser script, and when one inbox and one price beat the Pingdom Subscription Calculator.

SiteGuardian Starter is $19 a month for one site and ten URLs; SiteGuardian Pro is $39 a month for three sites and fifty URLs. Pingdom is per-check (Uptime + Advanced + SMS) and per-pageview (RUM), with the dollar total rendered by the Subscription Calculator and full Enterprise pricing behind contact-sales. Across twelve months of paid use on a single storefront, SiteGuardian Starter at $228 a year is cheaper than the smallest Pingdom bundle, and the four SG-killer checks (uptime, SSL, broken links, checkout, forms) are bundled in.

Pingdom ships synthetic transaction monitoring, which lets you record a browser script that walks the cart and replays it on a schedule from 100+ probe locations. That is the surface that catches a checkout failure while the page is still up — but it requires recording and maintaining the script. SiteGuardian probes the checkout URL on the same cadence as your uptime checks and emails you when it goes slow or returns errors, without needing a recorded script.

No. Pingdom used to ship a free uptime tier; it has been sunset. The current free entry point is a 30-day free trial that bundles Synthetic Monitoring and RUM, then monthly or annual billing. SiteGuardian does not run a free tier either — both are paid from the first URL. The cheapest paid path on SiteGuardian is Starter at $19 a month for one site and ten URLs on a five-minute cadence.

Yes — Pingdom ships over 100 probe locations and runs synthetic transaction checks (recorded browser scripts that walk login, search, cart, checkout) from those locations. RUM ships alongside with per-region page-load performance and a 13-month data retention. SiteGuardian does not run probes from multiple regions and does not ship a synthetic recorder; one URL, one inbox, one price.