Checkly

What Is Checkly?

Production monitoring has a frustrating disconnect. Development teams write tests in code, version them in Git, and deploy through CI/CD pipelines. Then they switch to a monitoring dashboard, click through a GUI, and manually configure the same checks they already wrote — in a completely separate system. When monitors drift from reality, nobody notices until customers do.

Checkly exists to close that gap. Founded in Berlin in 2018 by Hannes Lenke and Tim Nolet, the platform introduced "Monitoring as Code" — the idea that production checks should live alongside application code, versioned in Git, and deployed through the same pipelines. Browser checks run on Playwright, the same framework developers already use for end-to-end testing. API checks use standard JavaScript assertions. Everything deploys via a TypeScript-native CLI.

The company has raised $32.3 million, including a $20 million Series B led by Balderton Capital, and serves over 1,000 customers from its Berlin headquarters. All monitoring data is stored in the EU (AWS Ireland), and the platform holds SOC 2 Type II certification. With approximately 60 employees across four continents, Checkly competes against synthetic monitoring features from Datadog, New Relic, and Grafana — at a fraction of their cost.

Key Features

Playwright-Native Browser Monitoring

Checkly's headline capability is running standard Playwright Test files as production monitors. Write a .spec.ts file that navigates a checkout flow, fills a form, or validates page content — then deploy it to Checkly's infrastructure to execute on real Chromium browsers across 22 global locations. The practical advantage is significant: teams reuse existing test suites rather than maintaining parallel monitoring scripts. Changes to tests automatically update production monitors through the same CI/CD pipeline.

Monitoring as Code CLI

The Checkly CLI brings infrastructure-as-code principles to monitoring. Checks are defined in TypeScript, stored in Git, and deployed with npx checkly deploy. This eliminates configuration drift between what developers intend to monitor and what actually runs in production. The CLI integrates with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and Jenkins, enabling pre-deployment validation where checks run against staging environments before code reaches production. Failed checks block the deployment.

API Monitoring with Multi-Step Chains

Beyond browser checks, Checkly monitors REST and GraphQL API endpoints with assertion-based validation. Multi-step API checks chain requests together — authenticate, fetch a resource, validate the response, then pass tokens between steps. Setup and teardown scripts handle test data creation and cleanup. For microservice architectures, this covers the critical API paths that browser checks cannot reach.

Rocky AI Failure Triage

Introduced in early 2026, Rocky is an AI agent that automatically triages monitoring failures. When a check fails, Rocky analyses packet captures, traceroutes, and error patterns to surface the probable root cause — distinguishing between application bugs, DNS issues, CDN problems, and third-party service outages. The goal is reducing mean-time-to-diagnosis without manual investigation.

Alerting and Status Pages

Checkly routes alerts through Slack, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, email, SMS, and webhooks. Degradation detection catches performance regressions before full outages. Public and private status pages display real-time availability, and dashboards aggregate check results across teams. Phone call alerts are available on the Team plan (200 calls per month).

Pricing

Checkly's pricing rewards development teams who need focused synthetic monitoring rather than full-stack observability suites. The Hobby plan is genuinely usable at no cost: 10 uptime monitors, 1,000 browser runs, and 10,000 API runs per month with email, Slack, and webhook alerting.

The Starter plan at $24/month (billed annually) scales to 50 monitors and 3,000 browser runs — enough for a small product team monitoring critical user flows. The Team plan at $64/month opens all 22 locations, private locations for internal infrastructure, phone alerts, and 12,000 browser runs. Overage pricing is transparent: $4.00 per 1,000 additional browser runs on Starter and Team.

Enterprise pricing is custom and includes SSO/SAML, advanced RBAC, and dedicated support. For context, equivalent synthetic monitoring from Datadog starts at significantly higher price points and requires buying into the broader Datadog platform.

EU Compliance & Privacy

Checkly's EU credentials are straightforward. The company is a German GmbH headquartered in Berlin, fully subject to EU jurisdiction. All monitoring data is stored in AWS eu-west-1 (Ireland). The platform holds SOC 2 Type II certification covering security, availability, confidentiality, privacy, and processing integrity.

Data encryption uses AES-256 at rest and HTTPS for all network traffic. Backups are AES-256 encrypted in S3. Multi-factor authentication is enforced for all production infrastructure access. Checkly employees have no physical access to data centres — AWS manages the physical layer.

For organisations requiring data to remain in specific jurisdictions, Checkly's private locations feature lets teams run checks from their own infrastructure while routing results to EU-hosted storage.

Who It's Best For

DevOps and platform engineering teams who already use Playwright for testing and want to extend those tests into production monitoring without maintaining a separate toolchain.

CI/CD-heavy organisations that want deployment pipelines to validate production readiness before releasing. Checkly's CLI integration makes checks a first-class deployment gate.

Teams replacing Datadog synthetic monitoring who find the cost of a full observability suite disproportionate to their synthetic monitoring needs. Checkly covers this niche at materially lower cost.

EU-regulated companies needing synthetic monitoring with EU data residency, SOC 2 certification, and a provider under EU jurisdiction.

The Verdict

Checkly does one thing exceptionally well: developer-first synthetic monitoring with genuine code-level integration. The Playwright-native approach, Git-based workflow, and CI/CD pipeline integration set it apart from legacy monitoring dashboards. The trade-off is clear — there is no APM, no log management, no infrastructure monitoring. Teams that need full-stack observability will still need a complementary tool. But for synthetic monitoring specifically, Checkly delivers better developer experience at lower cost than the broad platforms it competes against.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Checkly GDPR compliant?

Yes. Checkly GmbH is headquartered in Berlin, Germany, under full EU jurisdiction. All data is stored in the EU (AWS Ireland), and the platform is SOC 2 Type II certified with AES-256 encryption at rest.

Can Checkly replace Datadog?

Checkly replaces Datadog's synthetic monitoring at a fraction of the cost. It does not cover APM, log management, or infrastructure monitoring. Many teams run Checkly for synthetic checks alongside a lighter-weight APM tool.

Does Checkly work with Playwright?

Yes. Checkly natively executes Playwright Test files on real Chromium browsers across 22 global locations. Existing .spec.ts test suites can be deployed as production monitors through the Checkly CLI.

What is Monitoring as Code?

Monitoring as Code means defining production checks in TypeScript, versioning them in Git, and deploying through CI/CD pipelines. Checks update automatically with code changes, eliminating manual dashboard configuration and configuration drift.

How much does Checkly cost?

The Hobby plan is free with 10 monitors and 1,000 browser runs per month. Starter is $24/month (annual) with 50 monitors. Team is $64/month (annual) with all locations and private locations. Enterprise pricing is custom.