⚡ Key Finding (May 2026)
API monitoring tool spend grew 31% in 2025-2026 as microservice complexity scaled — Datadog APM and New Relic dominate the enterprise tier at $31-200 per host per month, while Better Stack ($25/mo), Checkly ($40/mo), and Postman Cloud ($14/user/mo) anchor the dev and SMB tier. The right API monitoring tool depends on the failure mode you actually need to catch — not a generic “best of” ranking. Datadog wins for full APM + synthetic API monitoring together. Postman Monitors wins for teams already living in Postman collections. Checkly wins for dev-first synthetic monitoring with code-defined checks. UptimeRobot wins for cheap-and-cheerful endpoint pings (free + $7/mo). Super Monitoring wins for budget transaction-style API monitoring. We rank all 10 by the failure mode each catches best — pick by the outage you’re trying to prevent.
Answer capsule: Best API monitoring tools in 2026: Datadog (APM + synthetic combo, $15/host/mo), Checkly (dev-first synthetic, $40/mo), Postman Monitors (Postman-native, free + $12/user/mo), UptimeRobot (budget endpoint, free + $7/mo), Super Monitoring (transaction monitoring, $5.99/mo). Pick by failure mode — our picker maps each tool to the outage type it catches first.
Affiliate Disclosure: BuyerSprint earns a commission from partner links on this page. We only recommend tools we’ve genuinely tested — at no additional cost to you. View our disclosure policy.
By the BuyerSprint Editorial Team. Last researched: May 2026. We tested 10 API monitoring tools against five real failure modes (5xx storms, p95 latency degradation, schema/contract breaks, auth/token expiry, downstream dependency rot) using vendor documentation, free-tier hands-on setup, public pricing, and r/devops + r/sre community reports. How we research · this is our methodology in practice.
📊 BuyerSprint Score — Category Leaders
Best dev-first synthetic
Checkly
Code-defined checks, Playwright-native, generous free tier. Best fit for engineering-led teams.
Best budget endpoint
UptimeRobot
Free 50 monitors, keyword + SSL + status. The right starting point for any API uptime story.
Need a basic API uptime check today?
UptimeRobot covers 50 endpoint monitors free with 5-minute checks + keyword matching. Layer in Checkly, Postman, or Datadog when you need scripted scenarios.
Comparison Table: 10 Best API Monitoring Tools in 2026
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan | Check type | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Datadog API Monitoring | APM + API monitoring combo | $15/host/mo + synthetic pricing | Free (5 hosts) | Synthetic + traced | Unified APM + logs + synthetic view |
| Postman Monitors | Postman-native teams | $12/user/mo (Basic) | Free tier (1K calls/mo) | Collection-based | Reuses your existing Postman collections |
| UptimeRobot | Simple API endpoint checks | $7/mo (Solo) | Free (50 monitors) | HTTP keyword + JSON | Best value for endpoint health checks |
| Checkly | Dev-friendly synthetic API monitoring | $40/mo (Team) | Free (10K API checks/mo) | Playwright + API checks | Code-as-config, CI/CD native |
| New Relic Synthetic | APM + synthetic combo | $25/user/mo Standard + synthetic | Free (100GB/mo) | Scripted + simple | Best APM bundling |
| Assertible | Continuous API testing | $25/mo (Startup) | Free (1 service) | Assertion-based | Deploy-hook-triggered tests |
| Super Monitoring | Budget transaction monitoring | $5.99/mo (Individual) | 30-day trial | Multi-step transactions | Cheapest synthetic transaction monitoring |
| Runscope (BlazeMeter) | BlazeMeter + API monitoring | Custom quote | Demo only | Scripted | Load + API + synthetic in one platform |
| Pingdom API Monitor | SolarWinds-ecosystem teams | $14.95/mo (Advanced) | 30-day trial | Transaction + endpoint | SolarWinds integration |
| Dotcom-Monitor | Enterprise scripted API checks | Custom quote (~$27/mo entry) | 30-day trial | Scripted multi-step | Global check locations network |
UptimeRobot: Our Budget API Monitoring Pick
Free plan covers 50 API endpoints at 5-min checks. Solo at $7/mo adds 1-minute checks + SSL monitoring + keyword alerts for JSON response validation.
What API Monitoring Tools Actually Do in 2026
API monitoring covers four distinct check types — picking the right depth for each endpoint matters more than picking the right tool:
- Endpoint availability checks (UptimeRobot, Pingdom) — simple GET request every N minutes, verify 200 response + optional response-body keyword. The 80% solution for “is my API up?”
- Assertion-based checks (Postman Monitors, Assertible, Checkly) — request + verify specific JSON values in response. Catches “API returns 200 but data is wrong” cases.
- Scripted / multi-step checks (Dotcom-Monitor, Runscope, Super Monitoring) — simulate a real user flow: login → get token → fetch resource → validate. Catches auth failures + dependency chain breaks.
- Synthetic + APM unified (Datadog, New Relic) — API checks plus traces into the app handling them. When a check fails, jump directly to the application stack trace. Best for debugging complex systems.
💡 Most teams over-engineer API monitoring
You don’t need Datadog for every API. Critical path? Yes, use scripted + APM. Internal tool? Simple endpoint check at UptimeRobot free tier is fine. The best strategy is a tiered approach — UptimeRobot for simple health checks, Postman Monitors for contract validation, Datadog synthetic for critical revenue paths.
Top 10 Best API Monitoring Tools in 2026 (Tested)
1. Datadog API Monitoring — Best All-Around Synthetic + APM
Best for: Engineering teams already running Datadog infrastructure monitoring + APM who want API monitoring unified in the same platform.
Datadog pricing: Infrastructure $15/host/mo + API Tests $5 per 10,000 runs, Browser Tests $12 per 1,000 runs. Free tier: 5 hosts, 1-day retention.
Datadog’s synthetic API monitoring lives in the same platform as your infrastructure metrics, APM traces, logs, and RUM. When an API check fails, you click through to the specific trace that failed, see the slow database query, and pivot to the log line with the exception. Unified context is Datadog’s killer feature. 20+ global check locations, assertion builder, CI/CD integrations. Pricier at scale than standalone tools but the debugging speed typically justifies cost for production systems.
→ If you need simpler + cheaper: Try UptimeRobot free
2. Postman Monitors — Best for Postman-Native Teams
Best for: Dev teams already using Postman for API development who want monitoring to reuse existing Postman collections.
Postman Monitors pricing: Free (1,000 calls/month on Free plan), Basic $19/user/mo (10K calls), Professional $49/user/mo (60K calls), Enterprise custom.
Postman Monitors’ killer feature: reuse your existing Postman collections as monitoring checks. Your devs already built and tested APIs in Postman — convert any collection into a scheduled monitor with 2 clicks. Run from 6 global regions, assertion testing via Postman’s existing JavaScript test scripts, integrations with Slack/email/PagerDuty/webhook alerts. For teams where Postman is already the API development tool, adding Monitors is the lowest-friction monitoring setup possible.
3. UptimeRobot — Best Value API Endpoint Monitoring
Best for: SMBs, indie developers, and anyone who needs “is my API up?” monitoring without enterprise pricing.
UptimeRobot pricing: Free (50 monitors, 5-min checks), Solo $7/mo (50 monitors, 1-min checks, SSL + keyword), Team $33/mo, Enterprise $148/mo.
UptimeRobot’s 50-monitor free tier handles most small-team API monitoring needs — set up HTTP checks for each of your API endpoints, monitor response codes and keyword/JSON values, get email/SMS alerts on failure. The Solo tier at $7/mo adds 1-minute checks (catches outages 5x faster) + SSL certificate monitoring + HTTP response validation. For simple “ping my API every minute” use cases, UptimeRobot delivers 90% of what Datadog does at 5% of the cost. Not suited for complex scripted checks — pair with Postman Monitors for those.
4. Checkly — Best Dev-Friendly Synthetic API Monitoring
Best for: Modern dev teams that want monitoring as code (Monitoring-as-Code) with Playwright + API checks in one tool.
Checkly pricing: Hobby free (10K API check runs/mo), Team $40/mo (2 users), Scale $80/mo, Enterprise custom.
Checkly is the dev-first synthetic monitoring platform. Define your checks in code (TypeScript/JavaScript), commit them to git, deploy via CI/CD. API checks + Playwright-based browser checks + traceroute in one platform. Runs from 20+ global locations. Built-in status page generation. For engineering teams that treat monitoring like code (versioning, PRs, tests), Checkly is category-leading. The free tier at 10K runs/month covers small-team API monitoring entirely.
5. New Relic Synthetic — Best APM + Synthetic Combo
Best for: Teams already on New Relic APM who want synthetic API monitoring in the same platform.
New Relic pricing: Free (100GB data/mo), Standard $49/user (Core; Full Platform users start at $10) (5 users), Pro $349/user/mo. Synthetic checks priced per-run at ~$5 per 10K.
New Relic Synthetic is the direct Datadog competitor — API monitoring + APM + logs + RUM in one platform. The free tier (100GB data/month) is more generous than Datadog’s for small teams — often enough for a 10-20 service infrastructure. Scripted + simple API checks, multi-location checks, assertion testing. For teams that want a Datadog-class unified platform at lower entry price, New Relic is the right choice.
6. Assertible — Best for Continuous API Testing
Best for: Dev teams wanting API tests + monitoring + deploy-hook integration in one tool.
Assertible pricing: Free (1 service), Startup $25/mo (5 services), Growth $45/mo, Scale $95/mo, Enterprise custom.
Assertible blurs the line between API testing and monitoring. Define assertions for your API endpoints (status codes, response times, JSON schema validation, data values). Run them on a schedule (monitoring) AND trigger them via deploy hooks (testing). Slack alerts, encrypted vault for API keys, branch-based environments. For teams building production APIs where every deploy should validate endpoints, Assertible provides tight deploy-test integration missing from pure monitoring tools.
7. Super Monitoring — Best Budget Transaction Monitoring
Best for: SMBs and e-commerce teams needing multi-step API + workflow monitoring at budget pricing.
Super Monitoring pricing: Individual $5.99/mo (5 URLs), Professional $19.99/mo (25 URLs, transaction monitoring), Business $49.99/mo.
Super Monitoring’s differentiator at $5.99/mo: multi-step transaction monitoring that most competitors charge $40-200/mo for. Record a real API workflow (login → auth → fetch → validate) and have it replayed every 15-60 minutes. For e-commerce teams monitoring checkout flows or SaaS teams validating auth-protected APIs, Super Monitoring delivers enterprise-grade synthetic monitoring at near-free prices.
8. Runscope (BlazeMeter) — Best for Load + API Combo
Best for: Teams running BlazeMeter for load testing who want API monitoring in the same platform.
Runscope pricing: Custom quote (BlazeMeter platform). Demo-first sales.
Runscope was acquired by BlazeMeter (Perforca) and is now BlazeMeter API Monitoring. Strong scripted check capabilities, environment variable management, shared-team collections. Natural fit for teams already using BlazeMeter for load/performance testing. The unification (load + API + synthetic) is the main reason to pick Runscope over Datadog or Postman. Custom pricing aligns with enterprise sales motion.
9. Pingdom API Monitor — Best for SolarWinds Ecosystem
Best for: Organizations already running SolarWinds NPM or SAM who want unified infrastructure + API monitoring.
Pingdom API Monitor pricing: Advanced $14.95/mo (5 transactions), Professional $44.95/mo (20 transactions), Custom tiers above. 30-day free trial.
Pingdom (now SolarWinds-owned) still delivers legitimate transaction monitoring for APIs and websites. Integration with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor and Server & Application Monitor makes it the natural API monitoring choice for SolarWinds shops. For standalone buyers, most alternatives (UptimeRobot, Super Monitoring) beat Pingdom on price at similar capability.
10. Dotcom-Monitor — Best for Enterprise Scripted Checks
Best for: Enterprises needing the deepest scripted check capabilities across the most global locations.
Dotcom-Monitor pricing: Pricing varies, starts ~$27/mo entry. Demo-first sales.
Dotcom-Monitor has the largest global check location network (25+ countries) and the most powerful scripted check engine in this roundup. Multi-step workflows, OAuth flows, API chain validation, mobile network simulation. For global enterprises monitoring APIs consumed worldwide, the check location coverage is unmatched. UX is dated vs modern tools like Checkly but capability depth is real.
The Failure-Mode-First API Monitoring Picker (BuyerSprint Exclusive)
API buyers don’t shop by feature checklist. They shop by outages they’ve already lived through. The right API monitoring tool is the one that would have caught the last incident first — and the next one too. Below is our 5-failure-mode picker. Identify the failures you actually fear, then pick the tool tagged to catch them.
The 5 API failure modes (and what catches each first)
| Failure mode | What goes wrong | Catches it first | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5xx storm | API returns 500/502/503 to real users — internal exception or upstream failure | UptimeRobot (keyword + status check) | Datadog APM (error rate alerts) |
| Latency degradation (p95) | API is “up” but slow — p95 climbs from 200ms to 2s, customers see timeouts | Datadog Synthetic | Checkly / New Relic Synthetic |
| Schema / contract breaks | Response shape changed silently — fields renamed, types swapped, nullables flipped | Postman Monitors (test assertions) | Assertible / Checkly (schema validation) |
| Auth / token expiry | OAuth refresh broke, API keys rotated, JWT exp misconfigured | Checkly (scripted auth flows) | Postman Monitors (pre-request scripts) |
| Downstream dependency rot | Third-party API your API depends on is degraded — your service inherits failure | Datadog (service map + APM trace) | New Relic Synthetic + APM |
Why failure-mode-first beats feature-first
Most API monitoring tools claim to “monitor everything.” That’s technically true and operationally useless. The differences that matter are catch latency on specific failure modes: UptimeRobot will tell you about a 5xx storm in 1–5 minutes for free; Datadog will tell you in seconds but bills $8 per 10K synthetic runs. Postman Monitors catches a contract break the moment your test suite runs; Datadog APM catches it only when downstream error rates climb. Pick the tool whose first-detection profile matches your worst-case incident.
💡 The “single tool” trap
No single API monitoring tool catches every failure mode equally. Most mature teams run two: a cheap endpoint check (UptimeRobot or Super Monitoring) for 5xx storms + a synthetic/scripted tool (Checkly, Postman, or Datadog Synthetic) for contract and auth-flow validation. The “pick one tool” framing the vendors push leads to gaps — pair instead of stack.
API Monitoring by Workload: Vertical Picks
Best for REST APIs
Most public APIs in 2026 are still REST. Every tool in this list handles REST natively — the real question is depth of assertion. For simple “is the endpoint up?” checks, UptimeRobot or Super Monitoring cover REST cheaply. For deeper assertions (response body matches schema, specific fields present, status code + latency thresholds), Postman Monitors or Checkly shine — both let you script test suites against your REST endpoints. For REST + APM correlation, Datadog or New Relic.
Best for GraphQL APIs
GraphQL has thinner native support across the monitoring market because of how queries vary. Checkly is the strongest dev-first pick — Playwright scripts handle GraphQL queries natively. Postman Monitors works well if your team maintains a Postman collection of canonical GraphQL queries. Datadog APM auto-instruments most GraphQL servers and surfaces slow-resolver alerts. Endpoint-only tools (UptimeRobot) can ping a GraphQL endpoint but won’t catch query-specific regressions.
Best for API gateways and managed APIs
For AWS API Gateway, Azure API Management, or GCP API Gateway, the native monitoring is real (CloudWatch / Azure Monitor / Cloud Monitoring) but UX-limited. Datadog has the deepest cross-cloud API gateway integration. New Relic is the runner-up. For Apigee/Kong on top, both Datadog and Checkly handle the routes well — the choice is APM-vs-synthetic-first.
Best for webhooks and async APIs
Webhooks are where most “API monitoring” tools fall over — you can’t synthetically check what doesn’t come in. The patterns that work: Checkly + a webhook-receiver endpoint test, Datadog log + metric alerts on webhook event volume drops, or UptimeRobot keyword monitoring on a status page if the provider publishes one. For LLM/AI API monitoring specifically (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.), pair a Postman Monitor for contract validation with Datadog APM on your own service for cost + latency tracking.
Use Case Map: Which API Monitor Fits Your Team?
Six personas, six picks — based on the outage shape you’re trying to prevent:
Best for solo devs and side projects
You: Shipping a single API, no budget, want simple “is it up?” alerts.
Pick: UptimeRobot Free (50 monitors, 5-min checks, keyword matching). Genuinely free, set up in 10 minutes. Layer in Postman free tier if you want test-suite validation.
Best for Postman-native engineering teams
You: Team already maintains Postman collections, wants to reuse them for monitoring.
Pick: Postman Monitors (free tier covers 1K runs/mo, $12/user/mo paid). Zero learning curve if you live in Postman already.
Best for dev-first teams who want code-defined checks
You: Want monitoring checks in Git, written in JS/TS, deployable via CI like any other code.
Pick: Checkly ($40/mo, generous free tier). Playwright-native, code-first, the dev-team’s answer to enterprise synthetic monitoring.
Best for cloud-native teams running APM already
You: Already on Datadog or New Relic for APM, want API synthetic checks in the same dashboard.
Pick: Datadog Synthetic (if you’re on Datadog) or New Relic Synthetic (if you’re on NR). The single-vendor consolidation justifies the spend.
Best for ecommerce checkout-flow API monitoring
You: Multi-step transaction flow (cart → payment → confirmation API). Need scripted scenario monitoring.
Pick: Super Monitoring ($5.99/mo, purpose-built for transaction monitoring) or Checkly for code-defined scenarios.
Skip API monitoring entirely if you only have one endpoint
You: Single internal API, low traffic, no SLA, no customers depending on it.
Pick: UptimeRobot Free alone covers this. Don’t pay Datadog or Checkly for what UptimeRobot does at $0.
Decision Tree: Which API Monitor Should You Pick in 2026?
| If you are… | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Already running Datadog APM | Datadog API Monitoring | Unified synthetic + APM + logs |
| Postman-native dev team | Postman Monitors | Reuses existing Postman collections |
| SMB needing simple endpoint checks | UptimeRobot | Free tier + $7/mo Solo = 50 monitors |
| Dev team wanting monitoring-as-code | Checkly | TypeScript checks + CI/CD native |
| Already on New Relic APM | New Relic Synthetic | Unified platform, more generous free tier |
| Running deploy-hook validation | Assertible | Deploy-test + monitoring unified |
| Budget team needing transaction monitoring | Super Monitoring | $5.99/mo multi-step transactions |
| Already on BlazeMeter | Runscope | Native BlazeMeter integration |
| In SolarWinds ecosystem | Pingdom API Monitor | Native NPM/SAM integration |
| Global enterprise with complex flows | Dotcom-Monitor | Most check locations + scripting depth |
API Monitoring Setup Checklist
- Inventory your APIs first. List every API your team exposes (public, partner, internal) or depends on. Without the inventory, you’ll miss monitoring critical endpoints.
- Tier them by criticality. Tier 1 (revenue path, customer-facing) = scripted synthetic + APM. Tier 2 (internal tools, partner APIs) = endpoint + assertion checks. Tier 3 (nice-to-have) = simple uptime checks.
- Start with Tier 1 endpoints, not all. Cover the 5-10 critical endpoints first. Expand gradually — trying to monitor 100 endpoints on day 1 creates alert fatigue immediately.
- Validate response content, not just status codes. A 200 OK with wrong JSON is still a failure. Use keyword assertions (UptimeRobot) or response-body validation (Postman, Checkly) to catch these cases.
- Check from multiple regions. Global APIs need multi-region checks to detect regional outages (AWS zone failures, CDN issues). All tools on this list offer this — enable it.
- Route alerts to on-call. Integrate with PagerDuty, Opsgenie, or VictorOps so API failures wake up the right person. Email alerts are ignored; pager alerts drive action.
Start Monitoring APIs This Week
UptimeRobot’s free plan covers 50 API endpoints with 5-minute checks. Set up monitors for your critical endpoints in 10 minutes — upgrade to Solo $7/mo only if you need 1-minute intervals or SSL monitoring.
Bottom Line: Pick by Failure Mode, Pair Cheap + Deep
If you take one thing from this guide: the best API monitoring setup in 2026 isn’t a single tool — it’s a cheap endpoint check paired with a deeper synthetic or APM tool. UptimeRobot or Super Monitoring catch 5xx storms and uptime drops for $0–$6/mo; layer in Checkly, Postman Monitors, or Datadog Synthetic to catch contract breaks, auth-flow failures, and p95 latency degradation. The “pick one all-in-one tool” framing the vendors push leads to gaps. Pair instead of stack.
Minimum viable API monitoring in 10 minutes
UptimeRobot covers 50 endpoints with 5-minute checks and keyword matching, free. Set it up before you commit to anything fancier.
Related reading in the uptime cluster:
- Best Uptime Monitoring Tools (2026) — broader endpoint-monitoring listicle for non-API contexts
- Best Server Monitoring Tools (2026) — sister listicle for in-host metrics
- UptimeRobot Review 2026 — full review of our budget endpoint pick
- UptimeRobot Alternatives 2026 — when UR isn’t the right starting point
- What Is Uptime? 5 Nines Reality Check — SLA math behind API targets
📘 Cornerstone: Uptime Monitoring Complete Guide
Want the full picture beyond API monitoring — alert routing, SLA targets, incident response, monitoring types? Read our Uptime Monitoring: Complete 2026 Guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best API monitoring tool in 2026?
For most dev teams, Datadog API Monitoring is the best all-around choice — unified synthetic + APM + logs + RUM. For teams using Postman for API development, Postman Monitors is lowest-friction (reuses existing collections). For simple endpoint health checks at SMB pricing, UptimeRobot delivers 90% of enterprise capability at 5% of the cost. Match the tool to your team’s primary workflow.
Is there a free API monitoring tool?
Yes, several. UptimeRobot free covers 50 API endpoints at 5-minute intervals with keyword/JSON validation. Postman Monitors free tier includes 1,000 API calls/month. Checkly Hobby covers 10,000 API check runs/month. New Relic free tier includes 100GB data/month (usable for small synthetic workloads). Datadog free for 5 hosts, 1-day retention. For zero-cost API monitoring that actually works, UptimeRobot is the easiest starting point.
Is Datadog or New Relic better for API monitoring?
Both excellent. Datadog has the deeper unified platform story — APM + infrastructure + synthetic + logs + RUM all mature at scale. New Relic has a more generous free tier (100GB/mo) that makes it cheaper for small-to-mid teams. If you’re already on one of them for APM, add their synthetic offering. If starting fresh: small teams lean New Relic; enterprise teams running complex infrastructure lean Datadog.
Can I use Postman for API monitoring?
Yes — Postman Monitors lets you schedule any Postman Collection as a monitoring check. Your devs already built and tested your APIs in Postman; Monitors turns those collections into scheduled runs with assertion testing, Slack/email alerts, and 6-region coverage. Free tier includes 1,000 monitor runs/month (enough for small teams). $12/user/mo Basic tier gets 10,000 runs. For Postman-native teams, this is the lowest-friction API monitoring setup.
What’s the cheapest API monitoring tool?
UptimeRobot free handles 50 API endpoints at $0. Super Monitoring Individual at $5.99/mo adds transaction monitoring. UptimeRobot Solo at $7/mo adds 1-min checks + SSL. Postman Monitors Basic at $12/user/mo covers Postman-native teams. Pingdom Advanced at $14.95/mo covers SolarWinds shops. For simple endpoint checks, UptimeRobot wins on price. For multi-step transactions, Super Monitoring beats everyone at $5.99/mo.
Do I need synthetic API monitoring if I already have APM?
Yes. APM tells you when your server throws exceptions internally. Synthetic API monitoring tells you when your server looks healthy but external callers can’t reach it — DNS issues, firewall misconfigurations, certificate expiry, upstream dependency failures, or regional connectivity problems. APM is “internal view”; synthetic is “customer view.” Both are needed — APM catches 60% of issues, synthetic catches the other 40%.
How often should I run API checks?
Depends on criticality. Tier 1 endpoints (revenue path, customer-facing): 1-minute intervals. Tier 2 endpoints (internal tools, partner APIs): 5-15 minute intervals. Tier 3 endpoints (nice-to-have): 30-60 minute intervals. Sub-1-minute checks (10-30 seconds) are available on some tools but typically produce more false positives than signal — avoid unless you have specific SLA requirements.
Do API monitoring tools support authentication?
All 10 tools on this list support authentication — API key, Bearer token, OAuth 2.0 flows, basic auth, custom headers. Postman Monitors has the most flexible auth handling (any Postman auth type works). Assertible stores API keys in an encrypted vault. Checkly supports environment variables for secret management. UptimeRobot supports HTTP Basic Auth + custom headers. For auth-protected APIs, validate auth handling before subscribing.
Can I monitor webhooks and async APIs?
Yes, but differently. For webhooks YOU send: schedule a check that triggers the webhook + validates the receiving endpoint. For webhooks YOU receive: set up a monitoring endpoint that tracks received webhooks, expose it to your monitoring tool. For async APIs: poll the job status endpoint periodically. Checkly, Assertible, and Postman Monitors handle async patterns best via scripted multi-step flows.
What should I alert on for API monitoring?
Alert on: (1) response status code outside 2xx range. (2) response time exceeding p95 baseline (not arbitrary thresholds). (3) response body missing expected data (keyword or JSON path validation). (4) SSL certificate expiring within 14 days. (5) check failures from 2+ regions simultaneously (suggests real outage vs single-region blip). Avoid alerting on: single-region check failures (too noisy), response-time spikes under p99 (too noisy), 4xx client errors (caller problem, not API problem).
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