A like-for-like comparison of Pingdom and Datadog Synthetics — what each one monitors, what it costs at the entry tier, and where each one falls short.
Pricing and intervals
Pingdom: trial only, Starter from $15/mo, checks as often as every 1 min.
Datadog Synthetics: trial only, Per 10k API test runs from $5/mo, checks as often as every 1 min.
Pingdom — strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
Multi-region synthetic uptime with mature reporting
Real User Monitoring add-on from the same vendor
Owned by SolarWinds — enterprise procurement friendly
Weaknesses
Per-check pricing gets expensive fast for agencies
No SEO / sitemap validation
UI feels dated relative to newer competitors
Datadog Synthetics — strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
Full observability stack (APM, logs, metrics, RUM)
Deep integration with cloud infra and Kubernetes
Very large ecosystem of dashboards and integrations
Weaknesses
Bill shock is common — usage-based pricing across many SKUs
Overkill for teams that just need website monitoring
SEO/content monitoring not part of the platform
Which should you pick?
Choose Pingdom when You need a well-known enterprise brand for procurement and already use SolarWinds.
Choose Datadog Synthetics when You already run Datadog for APM and want synthetic checks in the same pane of glass.
Facts last verified 2026-06-28 (Pingdom) and 2026-06-28 (Datadog Synthetics) against each vendor's public pricing page.