Analytics and monitoring decision
Checkly
Build a narrow internal replacement (scheduled HTTP + Playwright checks, basic alerts, and a status page) to save costs and control data; keep paying Checkly for global locations, AI-driven root cause, private locations, overage handling, and enterprise polish.
Visit website↗$24/mo
$288/yr
Read off the official pricing page.
$50one-off30 h to build
$40/mo8 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 2 seats.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Checkly alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Schedule and run HTTP or browser (Playwright) checks on a cadence, evaluate assertions, and send alerts on failures.
What it still won’t have
- Global execution from 20+ managed locations
- AI-powered root-cause analysis / agentic checks
- Private locations run from your infra (managed by vendor)
- Integrated billing, SLA, and enterprise support
- Polished UI, dashboards, and built-in status pages
What remains hard
- Brand trust
World-class engineering and SRE teams depend on Checkly to deliver reliable digital experiences
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 2 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal self-hosted synthetic monitoring service using Node.js + TypeScript, Playwright, PostgreSQL, and a small VPS (or single AWS t4g.micro). In scope: (1) HTTP check runner with scheduling (cron or worker queue), (2) Playwright-based browser check runner supporting multi-step flows, (3) results storage in Postgres and simple metrics (uptime, p95), (4) alerting via Slack and email with retry/debounce, (5) a basic status page showing current check states and recent history. Out of scope: distributed global execution from 20+ regions, enterprise billing, AI root-cause analysis, private locations, and polished dashboards. Provide structured error handling, retries, idempotency, and unit/integration tests for runners and alerting paths.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 4 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- Evidence score63
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 4
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productCheckly — Home
- official pricingCheckly Pricing
- official docsCheckly Documentation
- open sourceopenstatusHQ/openstatus
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
