When it comes to website performance, a lot of web administrators and website hosters are caught unaware of the performance measurement aspect of their website. Being one of the most essential elements of a good website, good website speed is a prerequisite for good customer engagement and response. Website speed and overall performance not only change the holistic functioning of the website but also add a dramatic success effect to it in terms of user experience and SEO. We have compiled for you the best free online tools to monitor website performance & speed.
With hundreds of free website performance monitoring tools available online, it can become very tedious and cumbersome for web administrators to choose the most optimum tools for their website. Thus, we present to you a comprehensive list of website performance monitoring tools that you can suit as per the requirement of your website/ business. These can be used to identify major site performance issues and fix them to create an excellent user experience.
1. GTMetrix
GTMetrix is one of the best free online tools to monitor website performance & speed that offers an insight into site performance without even an account registration. By copy pasting the page URL, a basic website analysis can be conducted, while detailed monitoring requires a free account or a subscription.
- Application: By displaying results related to performance scores (from A-F), this website performance monitoring tool for professionals provides results like page load time, number of requests, key performance indicators and browser compatibility.
- Ease of Use: The application allows you to playback web page loads videos while monitoring performance using graphs. Users can also check their website performance on various simulated devices. With its great UX design, the page is very easy to navigate and use.
- Key Feature: The application gives you a pagespeed number of each page for your website which is relative in terms of the speed that other internet pages have and the time they take to load. For people who do not understand the details of web development, each score is broken down in a detailed manner for better interpretation.
- Pricing: The application offers a free version and a paid version that starts at $14.95 per month.
To know about how to do URL optimisation for higher search engine rankings, read our blog: HOW TO DO URL OPTIMIZATION FOR HIGHER SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS.
2. Pingdom
Pingdom is one of the best free online tools to monitor website performance & speed used by businesses that offer uptime alerts by the minute. The application also offers an insight into site performance through SMS and email alerts too. These can be chosen by the user as per their convenience.
- Application: From examining all parts of a webpage to tracing performance history, the software allows you to get a performance overview and test your website from multiple locations.
- Ease of Use: By breaking down the website into specific performance based issues, the application makes it fairly easy to decipher and interpret every problem. The application is essentially useful for users who are just starting out and have a fairly low budget.
- Key Feature: Being a deep web page speed tester, this website performance monitoring tool for professionals has a speed tester that is simple, easy to use and well organized. It helps to build excellent client facing reports by using its Real User Monitoring (RUM) feature.
- Pricing: The application offers a free 14 day trial and paid plans including Standard, Advanced, Professional and Enterprise level that are priced accordingly.
Read about SMS and Email marketing strategy, in our blog: BULK SMS AND EMAIL MARKETING: A COST EFFECTIVE STRATEGY.
3. Google PageSpeed InsightS
Google PageSpeed Insights being one of the best free online tools to monitor website performance & speed is a free page speed testing tool that gives a complete insight into the overall score for page performance and rates it as fast, slow or average. Using the received score users can then optimize their website accordingly.
- Application: Being an open source page testing tool developed by Google, the application aims at minimizing load time by providing suggestions for better performance. This not only makes page retrieval faster but also helps the server in rewriting and optimizing web resources.
- Ease of Use: By providing 2 scores for page performance for both mobile and desktop applications, the software creates search rankings for the user. By using this handy web tool, you can gain lots of information about optimum front end performance of the website.
- Key Feature: This website performance monitoring tool for professionals has a colour coded result page that makes it very easy to decode the results on the basis of the colour. Not only is it simple to use but also fits into all sorts of web projects like web pages, e-commerce and blogs. The tool is also great for the quality assurance stage.
- Pricing: It is a free tool.
4. Dareboost
As an online website performance monitoring tool for professionals, DareBoost that analyzes and optimizes website performance, comes with a lot of optimization tips. Dareboost aims at working towards the quality of the website by reducing web page loading time and creating an excellent user experience.
- Application: The application helps in conducting a competitor analysis and keeps a check on user activity and behaviour on the website. The application also works on resolving loading related issues by allowing you to test your website mobile speed.
- Ease of Use: If a user uses a service once, then they have to create a free account to be able to keep utilizing it. It breaks down the data into proper visual representations and provide easy to understand explanations about your website progress.
- Key Feature: A unique feature of the application is its video breakdown of the loading feature. This means that the page shows you exactly what your users are seeing while your webpage uploads. As per your requirement, you can slow down the video to monitor the load order.
- Pricing: The pricing is available on request on the website.
Read about how to boost mobile SEO with AMO, in our blog: BOOST MOBILE SEO WITH AMP (ACCELERATED MOBILE PAGES).
5. Site 24*7
Being one of the most commonly used website performance monitoring tools, Site 24*7 comes in handy for network, server, website and application monitoring. This also includes feedback for real user monitoring. With built in integration with other administrators, this application is very user friendly.
- Application: The app can be used with Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and OS X. The application helps to evaluate server environment performance and helps to integrate it with other system administrator tools.
- Ease of Use: Site 24*7 helps in conducting external and internal monitoring. From analysing internal connectivity with other networks to sending alerts to unreachable websites after conducting multiple location tests, this application helps to fix site performance problems.
- Key Feature: The application has an excellent alert system which can be automated through texts, emails or even direct automated phone calls. It helps to monitor in-depth and cloud based platforms in the best possible manner.
- Pricing: The application offers a free trial as well as paid plan hourly, monthly and yearly pricing. Prices start at $9.
Making an excellent first impression is extremely essential in case of a website. From having an appealing visual appearance to a quick loading time, it is important for all website hosters to make sure that their website is in good health. Thus, utilize the above website performance monitoring tools in the best possible manner to ensure that your website gets a good customer response and excellent customer engagement.
