Most web application developers have been there: your monitoring system shows nothing but green lights, yet the app is down or not functioning the way it should. Traditional web monitoring services often don’t dig deep enough to detect glitches in the application code, and database or find that problems arise with bugs in Ajax, Flash or Silverlight front-end applets.
German startup iOpus is today unveiling the public beta of a product it claims offers a solution for many a developer or website owner who would like their monitoring services taken up a notch. Enter AlertFox. (free Pro accounts for 100 users, see below)
What AlertFox does is provide in-depth monitoring of rich internet applications (RIAs), offering a potential solution for many SaaS and Web 2.0 web service providers out there who are not satisfied with a simple uptime checker that only provides superficial information without detecting the root cause of problems. AlertFox runs directly from the browser (with support for both Firefox and Internet Explorer) and is capable of keeping tabs on the functioning and performance of sites built with ActiveX, AJAX, Flash, Flex, complex HTML or Silverlight technology.
Another aspect that sets AlertFox apart from most traditional monitoring services is the real-time monitoring of transactions, e.g. the entire checkout process for an e-commerce store instead of only its uptime. This should come in handy for online businesses for which a smooth buying and selling process makes all the difference in the world.
The company is following the freemium approach for its business model, which is subscription-based and as far as I can tell extremely moderately priced. Users can get started with a free account, which covers worldwide monitoring and other basic features but only supports one user and use within the Firefox browser. You’d need to sign up for a Pro account (starts at $49 per month for the time being as a promotional offer) for transaction monitoring with both Firefox and Internet Explorer, support for up to five users and 100% monitoring of Flash, Ajax and Silverlight applications.
We’d love for you to take it for a spin and tell us if it lives up to its promise, so we’ve arranged for the company to give away 100 free Pro2 accounts, valid for two years. All you need to do is quickly sign up for a free account and send an e-mail to techcrunch-at-alertfox-dot-com. The first 100 readers to do that will be upgraded without charge, and are expected to come back and share their experiences in the comments.
Just signed up
coll stuff will surely have our tech team check it out
I would like the free program
Have just signed up, one of the first things I have seen though is:
URL: http://www.aler...ortGraphicsView
Server Error in ‘/’ Application.
Hopefully it gets better
Will report back findings…
This looks pretty neat…kind of like a hosted selenium.
I was about to ask how this product compares to Selenium, or more traditional monitoring/ testing software like Nagios or JMeter. Any thoughts?
I already got an error saying that can’t reach website at http://www.rnsitian.com
hope it gets better
and well hoping to get a pro account!!!!
The best part is that it shows the response time for your websites!!!
http://www.aler...=ToolsCheckView
Just loved the app!
also got the same message. Just try 2 min later and it works, so just try again.
sounds very good, just signed up. It somehow doesn’t accept free mail domain names, so no @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc…
How is this different from Selenium (http://seleniumhq.org/)? Granted, Selenium needs a little extra know-how to set up, but it seems to do exactly the same thing. I’ll always pick open source over paid web service…
I think this is more focused on ongoing monitoring, instead of the dev testing that is selenium’s core focus. Yes, with selenium-hq, you could probably set this up yourself…with the added cost of hosting the servers in multiple locations.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they are actually using selenium on the back end, and their iMacro language gets translated into selenium scripts. First one to find evidence of that gets a cookie! (cookie to be provided by the winner)
Thanks the interesting response. But I can assure you that we eat our own dog-food and use iMacros on the backend: http://wiki.ima...lertFox#Backend
Plus, iMacros can do a few things that Selenium can not do, such as automating file up/downloads, certain AJAX features such as drag & drop or testing websites with Flash, Java or Silverlight applets.
Mathias
well it accepts free services!!! just found the bug… or may be a mistake
for all those who don’t have a pro email id just sign up with your-email-at-your-domain-dot-com if
you use google apps for your domain for free than you don’t even need a pro email id!!!
This is by design
It is ok to use a free Google apps email address to sign up, because this is based on a non-free domain name. We just figured that everyone you needs a website monitoring service will have a domain name. See also http://alertfox...lpView#freemail
Mathias
Just signed up and I’m started to check it out now. This seams like it could be a very valuable tool for our SaaS SightCMS website content management platform.
Just subscribed!
Just signed up. I tried a similar service from Website Pulse. Fine service but not exactly what I wanted. I am eager to see if AlertFox is. I already use iMacros and would LOVE to move that function to a service provider. Hopefully I am not too late to get the Pro Account upgrade.
Signed up + waiting on the upgrade, (hopefully). I’m really interested to try this one out.
This seems a pretty nice service. Must take a look at the budget
Thanks for everyone that signed up so far (there are still a few accounts left as I type this…).
Just a note that we process the PRO2 upgrades manually, so it might take a few hours for your account to be upgraded. We will email you when the upgrade is completed.
Important: You must click the “Activate” link in the automated email that you received after your sign-up. We just got notified that this link does not show up in some text only email clients. So please view the email in an email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird. Of course, that will be fixed soon. You can contact us at support AT alertfox.com if you have any question.
Mathias
All 100 (+ 25 extra) PRO2 accounts are taken meanwhile.
But the FREE1 and FREE2 account types are also quite powerful and include free transaction monitoring. They are available without any time or number limitation.
Ann
i had applied for the alertfox membership for the 100 free pro2 offer but i didn’t get the offer can u rply???
This seems like what we need for our CRM site, will look into it.
I signed up and setup a few sites. I might be overlooking something but nowhere so I see any kind of realtime ALERTing. Just monitoring.
I fail to see what the big deal is. A down state that is monitored but which doesnt trigger an escalating alert ladder is pretty crippled in terms of functionality.
Change your name to MonitorFox, that’s where your focus appears to be.
Looks like I was too slow for a free upgrade so it’s time to go write a review……
Tested it for one day so far: You receive an alert email immediately when a sensor detects a problem, and another notification when the site is up again. So it seems to work well.
Oh… on your faq you make it sound incredulous for a high level routing problem to occur, yet this very condition can and DOES happen. A more appropriate answer would be that your prices reflect your small scale (3 monitoring sites). That is fine, and no one would take you to task over that. Just the same the reason other providers use 100s of monitoring sites is so that they can traverse a much wider array of possible routes looking for trouble.
If this works is solves a huge problem for me. Will sign up and report results. Thnx.
just signed up .. waiting to see the results ..
I just signup!
Just signed-up too.
Just signed up.
Gr8 been looking for a new tool to do some deeper monitoring. Look forward to testing it out. Free upgrade to pro would be nice if any left.
Thx.
just signed up
alertfox.com may be worth $1 billion dollars…look at all the growth and eyeballs…Market keeps surging http://iamned.com/blog/ no recession.
Hmm, very interesting. However, I’m fairly happy with Selenium for web testing. If you guys haven’t heard about it, look it up in the firefox extensions. Also, I believe the guys who created selenium are also providing a similar service to alertfox in their own startup called SauceLabs. Check them, saucelabs.com
Arcane; Thoughtworks created Selenium (they make other cool stuff too)
We use Selenium for testing — but we use subscription services for monitoring our 75+ web servers and load balanced web apps.
Yes, there are subscription services that just do “ping” monitors but a few of them (alertra.com and websitepulse.com) do a very nice job of custom scripts, advanced HTTP monitoring (including checksums and content, breakdowns in timing from dns queries, first byte, last byte, etc.)
But they aren’t cheap
AlertFox looks like a nice alternative – with the support for AJAX being especially important.
I’ll be trying it (even if I don’t get a free Pro2) and posting back.
Interesting method. While they are going a completely different direction than what we are doing (end user setup and management vs. technician setup and management among other things), I think that it looks like it will be a good service.
One concern that jumps to mind are the issues that will come with versioning of different apps like Silverlight and Flash.
I wish them the best of luck.
Just signed up and got upgraded…very nice feature set, and I appreciate the global testing. Gives me a better idea of response times for international customers and viewers. Have yet to really dig into the macros features, but I’ve been looking for something like this for a while! The daily/weekly reports are nice too.
First look – a nice product for a SMALL site or application (especially for the $$).
Anything bigger (or with larger 24 hour support needs) should probably look elsewhere. 3 monitoring nodes isn’t enough for a high volume application. (And – Yes, I have seen issues where a user in Germany couldn’t access the site – but a New York user could! we use a minimum of 6 node presently)
As far as I can tell, the alerting doesn’t have SMS or Jabber options (a deal killer for me)
I like the concept of the AJAX and Flash support and will continue to test the service and report back…
Looks pretty cool. These services are only too necessary today. I have tried a few different services, but one website monitoring company that I have found success with is http://www.Techout.com. Their service is robust and I use them with a lot of my eCommerce clients. Will checkout AlertFox.
They are SPAMMERS and their system doesn’t work. I have tried to delete my account/remove alerts/email their support but no response. I still receive junk email from their website which annoys the shit out of me. Beware of buying anything from them.
Does anyone know how big this company is – employees or customers, etc? really like the product, trying prepare a diligence sheet for a client and need something on the company.. . thanks in advance.
Its already August, but here is some basic information for the benefit of other TC readers and potential AlertFox users who might have the same question:
We started with 0 users on April 24, 2009 and have reached a nice 4-digit user number meanwhile. We are privately held and profitable. If you need more details about our company, please email me at mr{AT}alertfox.com so can give you the most up-to-date information.
Mathias – http://www.link.../in/mathiasroth
Sorry to hear that you had problems with AlertFox. But I searched all our support emails and we never received any support request from you? And – of course – we do not send junk email. In fact, we do not send out any mass emails at all, not even a newsletter.
I did not see your post earlier as we do not monitor this blog post. If you still read my response, please email us to discuss.
We use AlertFox, and it’s a good concept. The transaction monitoring works great and the support is responsive.
Just signed out.