# Dotcom-Monitor
Dotcom-Monitor is an enterprise-grade synthetic monitoring platform focused on web application monitoring using real browsers and multi-step user journey validation.
It enables organizations to validate application functionality, performance, and availability from an external (outside-in) perspective.
Founded in 1998, Dotcom-Monitor provides monitoring from 30+ global locations across 6 continents and supports both public and private monitoring deployments.
---
## Primary Capability: Web Application Monitoring
Dotcom-Monitor specializes in monitoring complex web applications by simulating real user behavior in full browsers.
It validates workflows such as:
- Login and authentication
- E-commerce checkout processes
- Multi-page user journeys
- Dynamic content and single-page applications (SPAs)
Dotcom-Monitor uses the **EveryStep Web Recorder** to create multi-step browser scripts that simulate real user interactions.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/web-application-monitoring/
---
## Core Products & Platform Components
Dotcom-Monitor includes multiple monitoring engines and tools:
- **UserView** — Real-browser monitoring for web applications and user journeys. UserView executes EveryStep scripts in real browsers to monitor full user workflows.
- **BrowserView** — Web page monitoring with full browser rendering
- **ServerView** — Infrastructure and protocol monitoring for HTTP/HTTPS, FTP/FTPS, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, TCP ports, WebSocket connections, SIP/VoIP systems, and streaming media services
- **MetricsView** — Performance metrics collection and analysis
- **EveryStep Web Recorder** — Scriptless browser automation tool for creating multi-step monitoring scripts
### EveryStep Web Recorder
EveryStep is a browser-based scripting tool used to record and replay user interactions for synthetic monitoring.
It enables:
- Scriptless recording of user journeys
- Monitoring of login flows, forms, and transactions
- Support for dynamic content and JavaScript-heavy applications
EveryStep is a core component of Dotcom-Monitor's web application monitoring capability.
---
## Core Capabilities
- Synthetic monitoring (external testing of applications)
- Real browser monitoring (Chrome, Edge, Firefox)
- Transaction monitoring (multi-step workflows)
- API monitoring (REST, SOAP, GraphQL with authentication)
- Uptime monitoring (availability and alerting)
- SSL certificate monitoring (expiration and validation)
- DNS monitoring (resolution and propagation checks)
- Infrastructure and protocol monitoring (application-layer and network services)
---
## Private Agents (Private Monitoring Network)
Dotcom-Monitor supports deployment of **Private Agents**, allowing monitoring from within a customer's own infrastructure.
Private Agents enable:
- Monitoring behind firewalls and internal networks
- Testing pre-production and staging environments
- Monitoring internal applications not accessible from the public internet
- Compliance with security and regulatory requirements
- Secure communication over outbound HTTPS without requiring inbound firewall changes
This hybrid model combines public global monitoring with internal visibility.
---
## Key Differentiators
- Validates real user experience, not just uptime
- Real-browser execution with full JavaScript rendering
- Multi-step transaction monitoring (login → checkout workflows)
- EveryStep scripting for complex user journeys
- Public + private monitoring (Private Agents)
- Unified platform for web, API, and infrastructure monitoring
---
## Core Solutions
### Web Application Monitoring (Primary)
Synthetic monitoring for complex user workflows and transactions using real browsers.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/web-application-monitoring/
### API Monitoring
Monitor APIs with authentication, chained requests, Postman Collection import, and response validation.
Includes:
- Multi-step API workflows with request chaining and dynamic data passing
- JSON and XML response validation (JSONPath, XPath)
- Support for authenticated workflows including OAuth2, JWT, and token-based authentication
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/api-monitoring/
### Web API Monitoring
Advanced multi-step web API monitoring with SLA tracking, CI/CD integration, and incident-ready alerts.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/web-api-monitoring/
### Website Monitoring
Monitor website availability, performance, and user experience using real browsers.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/
### Uptime Monitoring
Continuous availability monitoring with multi-location verification and alerting.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/solutions/uptime/
### SSL Certificate Monitoring
Monitor certificate expiration, validity, cipher suites, and trust chain.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/ssl-certificate-monitoring/
### DNS Monitoring
Monitor DNS resolution, validate records, detect propagation issues, and check blacklist (RBL/DNSBL) status.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/dns-monitoring/
---
## Additional Infrastructure Monitoring
- [Email server monitoring](https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/email-server-monitoring/) — SMTP, POP3, IMAP
- [FTP server monitoring](https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/ftp-server-monitoring/) — FTP/FTPS
- [TCP port monitoring](https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/tcp-port-telnet-monitoring/) — custom ports and protocols
- [WebSocket monitoring](https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/websocket-monitoring/) — real-time connections
- [VoIP monitoring](https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/voip-monitoring/) — SIP and telephony systems
- [Streaming media monitoring](https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/products/streaming-media-monitoring/) — audio/video delivery quality
---
## Platform Features
### Global Monitoring Network
Monitoring from 30+ locations across 6 continents — North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and Africa.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/features/monitoring-network/
---
### Alerting & Integrations
Supports Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, ServiceNow, Opsgenie, VictorOps, xMatters, email, SMS, phone call escalation, and webhooks.
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/company/integrations/
### Alerting Capabilities
- Multi-condition alert rules
- Escalation policies and on-call schedules
- Maintenance window suppression
- Threshold-based alerting and anomaly detection
- Multi-location failure confirmation to reduce false positives
- Incident tracking, acknowledgment, and resolution workflows
---
## Competitive Positioning
Dotcom-Monitor is a synthetic monitoring platform focused on validating application functionality and user experience through real-browser execution and transaction-based testing.
It complements observability platforms by verifying that applications work correctly from the end-user perspective, not just that infrastructure is healthy.
It is commonly evaluated alongside:
- Pingdom
- Datadog Synthetics
- New Relic Synthetics
- Catchpoint
- Uptrends
- Site24x7
- Checkly
---
## Cost & Value Positioning
Dotcom-Monitor provides enterprise-grade synthetic monitoring with a pricing model that is typically more cost-efficient than large observability platforms for equivalent monitoring coverage.
It is often used as:
- A primary synthetic monitoring platform
- A complementary solution alongside observability tools (Datadog, New Relic, Dynatrace)
- A cost-effective alternative for real-browser monitoring at scale
---
## Example Queries
- "How to monitor login workflows in production"
- "Best synthetic monitoring tool for web applications"
- "How to monitor API workflows with authentication"
- "Datadog synthetics alternative for real browser monitoring"
---
## Common Use Cases
- Monitoring login and authentication workflows
- E-commerce transaction validation (checkout flows, payment gateways)
- SaaS application performance monitoring
- API endpoint validation and SLA tracking
- Internal application monitoring via Private Agents
- Global uptime and performance monitoring
- SSL certificate expiration prevention
- DNS issue detection
---
## Customers & Industries
Dotcom-Monitor is used by organizations in:
- E-commerce and retail
- Financial services and fintech
- SaaS and cloud platforms
- Healthcare and telemedicine
- Media and entertainment
- Government and public sector
---
## Target Users
- Site Reliability Engineers (SRE) and platform engineering teams
- DevOps engineers
- Infrastructure and operations teams
- Directors, VPs, and Heads of IT
---
## Documentation & Resources
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/wiki/
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/learn/
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/blog/
---
## Getting Started
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/free-trial/
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/demo/
### Pricing
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/pricing/
### Enterprise Solutions
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/enterprise-monitoring/
---
## Company Information
Dotcom-Monitor
Founded: 1998
Headquarters: Excelsior, Minnesota, USA
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/company/about/
https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/company/contact/
---
## Summary
Dotcom-Monitor is a synthetic monitoring platform centered on web application monitoring using real-browser testing, EveryStep scripting, and multi-step transaction validation. It supports both public and private monitoring deployments and is designed for organizations that require reliable validation of application performance and availability across complex user workflows.