Bionic Uptime and Pingdom: what is actually different
Pingdom is one of the oldest names in website monitoring, and it does far more than we do. This page says plainly where Bionic Uptime is different, and where Pingdom is the better choice.
| Feature | Pingdom | Bionic Uptime |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | None: a free trial, then a paid plan | 3 websites, checked every 60 seconds, forever, no card |
| Cheapest paid plan | $18 a month ($16.50 billed yearly): 10 uptime checks, 50 SMS | Portfolio: $12 a month, 20 websites, every 60 seconds |
| 20 websites | $40 a month ($36.33 billed yearly), on the 25-check plan | $12 a month |
| Before an outage alert | A second test from another location, chosen to be as far away as possible | Two locations on two different companies' networks, plus a retry, must agree within 45 seconds, on every plan including free |
| SMS | Yes, included on every plan | No |
| Beyond uptime | Multi-step transaction checks on every plan; real-user monitoring sold alongside | No: uptime, certificates and domain expiry only |
Pingdom prices as shown on pingdom.com/pricing on 1 October 2026, and how they confirm an outage as described in their documentation. Check there for today's.
Choose Pingdom if
- you need SMS alerts, or checks of a whole journey such as sign-in or checkout,
- you want real-user or page speed monitoring in the same tool,
- you need checks from many countries, not two US locations.
Choose Bionic Uptime if
- you look after client websites and mostly need to know, reliably, when one goes down,
- you would rather pay $12 than $40 a month for 20 of them,
- you want one plain email per real outage, saying what was seen and from where (see the exact email),
- you want to be told when we could not check, instead of a green tick.
See it before you sign up
Watch a real website being monitored right now, no sign-up. 3 websites are free, forever, with no card.