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.
Free forever · No credit card · 5-min setup
Quick Comparison
- Price
- Free forever
- Intervals
- 30 seconds
- Protocols
- 22 protocols
- Alerts
- 12+ channels
- Price
- Free to browse / Enterprise pricing
- Intervals
- Crowdsourced (passive)
- Protocols
- None (user reports)
- Alerts
- Basic notifications
Feature Comparison
| Feature | PingZen | Downdetector |
|---|---|---|
| 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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