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PingZen vs Downdetector: Active Monitoring vs Crowdsourced Outage Detection

Downdetector is a crowdsourced outage detection platform owned by Ookla (Speedtest). Users report when popular services like Facebook, AWS, or Netflix are down, creating real-time outage maps and heatmaps. It tracks major public services only — you cannot monitor your own website or API.

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Quick Comparison

Best Value
PingZen
Price
Free forever
Intervals
30 seconds
Protocols
22 protocols
Alerts
12+ channels
Downdetector
Price
Free to browse / Enterprise pricing
Intervals
Crowdsourced (passive)
Protocols
None (user reports)
Alerts
Basic notifications

Feature Comparison

Feature Comparison
FeaturePingZenDowndetector
Monitor YOUR website Downdetector tracks only major public services
Active probing Crowdsourced reports only
HTTP/HTTPS monitoring
TCP/UDP monitoring
DNS monitoring
SSL certificate monitoring
WebSocket monitoring
gRPC monitoring
Outage heatmaps
Crowdsourced reports Real user reports from millions
Major service tracking Facebook, AWS, Netflix, etc.
Social media analysis Scrapes Twitter for outage mentions
Telegram alerts
Slack integration
Public status pages
Incident management
Response time tracking

Why Choose PingZen

  • Monitor YOUR websites and APIs — not limited to major services
  • Active monitoring with 22 protocols every 30 seconds
  • Detects outages before users notice — proactive, not reactive
  • Instant alerts via Telegram, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, and 8+ channels
  • Public status pages and incident management for your team
  • Response time tracking, SLA monitoring, and uptime history

When Downdetector is Better

  • Tracks thousands of major public services (AWS, Netflix, Facebook)
  • Crowdsourced outage heatmaps showing geographic impact
  • Social media sentiment analysis for outage detection
  • No setup required — just browse the website
  • Useful for checking if a third-party service is down
  • Community-driven with millions of user reports

Not sure about PingZen vs Downdetector?

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Migration Tip

Downdetector and PingZen serve completely different needs. Use Downdetector to check if someone else's service (AWS, Google, Cloudflare) is down. Use PingZen to monitor YOUR sites and APIs 24/7 and get instant alerts before your customers notice.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Free forever · No credit card · 5-min setup

PingZen

Website monitoring made simple. Know when your site goes down before your users do.

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