Synthetic monitoring · Uptime monitoring vs synthetic monitoring for online stores
Uptime monitoring vs synthetic monitoring for online stores
Uptime monitoring checks that your store answers: it requests a page at a fixed interval and alerts when the request fails. Synthetic monitoring checks that your store works: it acts like a visitor, carries out a task such as buying a product, and alerts when a step fails. An online store needs the first to know it can be reached and the second to know it can still sell.
What an uptime check sees
A request, a status code, a response time, and sometimes a phrase it expects to find on the page. It is cheap, so it can run often, and it is the right tool for a store that is down.
It sees nothing behind the page it requests. A product page that loads with no price, a basket that empties itself and a checkout that refuses visitors without a mouse each answer with a page and a success code.
What a scripted synthetic check sees
Synthetic transaction monitoring replays a task on a schedule: a script clicks through a fixed path and checks what it expects at each step. It catches the failures it was written for.
It is brittle in both directions. Rename a button and the script fails while shoppers carry on. Take the price off a page and the script passes, unless one of its steps was written to look for the price.
What Ottom adds
Ottom is synthetic monitoring built around the visitor that is new to most stores: an AI agent shopping for somebody. It reads your store the way such an agent does, from the data your pages and feeds publish, and then tries to buy.
The purchase is walked by a browser on your live store. By default a script walks every step first, because most of what ends a purchase is mechanical. Where the script stops, an AI agent takes over that one step and tries to get past it. Before a stall is reported, an AI agent walks the store again on its own, and the further of the two walks is the result. So a renamed button is a step an AI agent tries to get past rather than the end of the walk, and a stall in the report is a point an AI agent could not get past either.
Every walk stops at the payment step. No card details are entered, no order is placed, and the agent never signs in or creates an account.
Side by side
| Compared | Uptime check | Scripted synthetic check | Ottom |
|---|---|---|---|
| The question it asks | Does the page answer? | Does this fixed path still work? | Can an agent find, judge, compare and buy a product? |
| What it catches | A store that is down, erroring or very slow. | A failure on the path it was written for. | The stage and the step where an agent stalled, with the evidence. |
| What it misses | Anything that breaks behind a page that still loads. | Changes it was not written for, in either direction. | Payment itself, because it never pays, and outages between two scheduled runs. |
| How often it runs | A short, fixed interval. | Whatever interval you set. | Data checks every day, journeys every month on Coverage, every week on Monitor, every day on Defend, twice a day on Patrol. |
Which one you need
Both, because they answer different questions. Keep the uptime monitor you have: it tells you within minutes when the store is down, which Ottom does not try to do. Add synthetic monitoring for the part an uptime check cannot see, which for a store is the purchase.
One free scan per store, per email address, every 30 days. One scan shows whether an agent can buy from your store today. Coverage, Monitor, Defend, Patrol and Enterprise repeat it on a schedule. What each plan includes.
Frequently asked questions
Is uptime monitoring enough for an online store?
It is enough to know the store is reachable. It is not enough to know the store can sell, because a purchase can stop on a page that loads normally.
What is synthetic transaction monitoring?
Synthetic transaction monitoring runs a complete task on a schedule, such as a purchase, with an automated visitor, so that a failure at any step is found by you rather than by a customer. For a store, the transaction that matters is the purchase.
Does Ottom replace my uptime monitor?
No. Ottom runs on a schedule measured in hours and days rather than minutes, and it does not try to tell you that your store is down. Keep an uptime monitor for that.
Can synthetic monitoring slow my store down?
A scan is a handful of visits, not a flood. A store accepts at most 12 retrieval checks and 3 full agent journeys a day from Ottom, counted across everyone who asks rather than per customer.
Run the check on your own store
An agent tries to find, judge, compare and buy a product on your store, and the report says where it stalled. One free scan per store, per email address, every 30 days.