The Best REST API Monitoring Tools

API monitoring is something all companies should be doing to ensure their software, and web applications are not just functioning, but functioning efficiently.

We’ll break down each software’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as its price and compatibility, to ensure your choice has your needs covered.

Here is our list of the best REST API Monitoring Tools:

1. Loggly EDITOR’S CHOICE Best all-round option for REST API monitoring. Loggly blends an excellent user interface with enterprise-level altering and proper monitoring features at a price that is tough to beat.
2. Site24x7 Website Monitoring (FREE TRIAL) A package of services that test website performance and monitor availability while also tracking the performance of supporting applications and frameworks plus APIs. This is a cloud-based service.
3. ManageEngine Applications Manager (FREE TRIAL) Fully feature application manager that is built to encompass all of your organization’s systems, cloud applications, and services under one simple no-nonsense dashboard.
4. Sauce Labs API Testing This cloud platform offers API testing that can be integrated into a development pipeline to provide continuous testing.
5. Dotcom-Monitor A cloud-based testing platform for websites and web services that includes availability checks for REST and SOAP APIs.
6. AlertSite API monitoring and testing tool that allows you to create tests and instant alerts by clicking on elements on your site or application.
7. Postman Simple and powerful REST-based API monitor used by over 10 million developers.
8. AppDynamics Utilizes node-based network mapping to provide live API statuses and enterprise-level reporting.
9. API Science Uses a full-featured REST API and boasts a very quick onboarding time.
10. Bearer Features automatic anomaly detection, and a simple two-minute install, and is easy to use.
11. Uptrends Provides over 209 monitoring locations, an internal API testing feature called Private Checkpoint, and a step editor for easy workflow visualization.

The Best REST API Monitoring Tools

1. Loggly (FREE TRIAL)

The Loggly API monitor leverages the SolarWinds cloud network to monitor your app’s performance data and entire system activity across the entire stack. Loggly’s clean dashboard allows you to quickly recognize problems and eliminate them before they start impacting your services.

Key features:

• Proactive alerting and easy-to-filter logs
• Collaborative custom dashboards for intuitive dev meetings
• Anomaly detection
• Flexible pricing
• Easy-to-read graphical reporting

Why do we recommend it?

Loggly is an interesting monitoring tool because it mines logs for monitoring data. Live tail log message processing gives you live feedback and those log messages are still available for filing and later reference. Loggly can be used for security monitoring as well as performance monitoring, It can be used to pre-process log messages before forwarding to a SIEM. This is a cloud-based system and the price you pay depends on a range of factors that include the data retention period and what your data throughput is going to be. As well as suitable for use for monitoring APIs, Loggly provides an API that can feed alerts into your other monitoring tools, enabling you to centralize your monitoring efforts into one console.

The dashboard is fully customizable but comes with pre-built views to monitor your services KPIs and usage statistics. Loggly really begins to shine in larger, more complex environments with it’s graphing and time-series data. In just a few clicks you have a bird’s eye view of your most-used services, API errors over time, and about a dozen or so other usage statistics.

When it comes to collaboration, Loggly leads the way with its simple dashboard sharing. This feature ensures everyone is on the page during dev meetings quickly and efficiently. In the sharing options, you can set the controls to manage who can edit and manage the overlays.

As Loggly monitors your environment it begins proactively scanning through your logs. Outside of standard alerting, Loggly has built-in anomaly detection which learns what normal patterns look like over time and bring any deviations to your attention. This is especially useful for tracking down suspicious events and fixing problems that otherwise wouldn’t have triggered an alert.

Who is it recommended for?

Loggly is a good system for monitoring all of your IT assets, not just API activity. Its ability to gather network, server, and application logs gives it a central view of all activities and you can also use the monitoring tool to set up alerts for abnormal activity. So, businesses of all sizes would benefit from using this tool. System administrators that like to customize their own IT services will particularly enjoy the capabilities of Loggly. There is a Free edition of Loggly for small businesses. The top plan can be integrated into JIRA for project management feedback. However, it is difficult to imagine that this system would be used for development testing or monitoring. Loggly is definitely better suited to monitoring live systems rather than APIs under development.

You can try Loggly and all of its features on a 14-day free trial. Loggly has a flexible four-tiered pricing plan that can fit most if not all environments. The single-user version of Loggly is a completely free tool, and the small business package starts at $79.00 (£64.70) per month for three users.

2. Site24x7 Website Monitoring (FREE TRIAL)

Site24x7 Website Monitoring has many website testing features but it has many more functions that make it a great choice for those looking for an API monitor. The system also monitors servers and applications and it doesn’t matter where those servers are or where the applications are resident.

Key features:

• Monitoring of website and services
• Availability checks on APIs
• Application stack showing dependencies
• Server resource monitoring

Why do we recommend it?

Site24x7 Website Monitoring is a part of a cloud-based package of system monitoring tools. Although the Site24x7 platform provides specialized modules, such as network performance monitoring, traffic analysis, and application performance monitoring, it sells these units together in combined bundles. So, you get full stack analysis along with the synthetic monitoring tools in the Website Monitoring unit. You can also test raw APIs with the Site24x7 system with what is effectively a test container that will feed in a series of inputs that you list. This is great for development testing before an API goes live.

This monitoring system creates an application stack mapping that identifies the dependencies between applications and services. This stretches down to the resources of the supporting servers. The hosting servers don’t need to be in the same location in order to be included in the server monitoring functions of the Website Monitoring tool.

REST APIs often provide access points to microservices that are notoriously difficult to monitor. The Website Monitoring system is able to test the availability of those microservices. If you are tracking problems with the performance of your mobile apps or websites, the fact that a microservice has stopped working could give you the reason for that problem.

The reassurance of API performance is a great support system for DevOps teams that need to know the availability of black-box functions during bug fixing and testing. The Website Monitor is able to support the development of sites and mobile apps.

Who is it recommended for?

As with the other tools on this list, you need to be running APIs to benefit from this tool. If you produce libraries for use by others or deploy the APIs supplied by others, you need to check their availability above all else. The great thing about the Site24x7 is that it simultaneously checks on every level of the delivery stack, so you immediately know which service failed if the API monitor reports a problem. This is a subscription service with no installation fees, so it is very affordable for startups and established Web businesses alike.

Site24x7 is a subscription service and it is available in four editions: Starter, Pro, Classic, and Enterprise. You can get a 30-day free trial to test whether it will work well for your business.

Site24x7 Website Monitoring Start 30-day FREE Trial

3. ManageEngine Applications Manager (FREE TRIAL)

ManageEngine Applications Manager makes REST API monitoring extremely simple. You won’t find any overly complicated options or fancy features, this proper monitoring tool is perfect for those who just need to see the data.

Key features:

• Full product suite focused on managing and performance testing all cloud-based applications for larger environments
• Intuitive phone app for both iPhone and Android that gives you powerful monitoring on the go
• Faster API testing tool and authentication with OAuth 2.0
• Advanced reporting, live status view, and SLA management

Why do we recommend it?

ManageEngine Applications Manager is a much broader package than most of the other tools on this list. Although it is named for applications, it also reaches down to server resources and has a small bit of network interface checking as well. So, while it doesn’t reach down to check on the network as much as the Site24x7 system, it does provide a great deal of service monitoring as well as API testing. The most important feature of the ManageEngine system is its application dependency mapping, which provides great root cause analysis.

In a simple chart, you can monitor and examine your service’s uptime, processing time, and name resolution speed in one dashboard. Applications Manager utilizes OAuth 2.0 for authentication across endpoints, which means fast and secure insights into your API transactions.

Although the UI isn’t the most intuitive on our list, you can still expect powerful features such as anomaly detection, root cause analysis, and SLA management. ManageEngine Application Manager does a superb job of giving you a holistic view of all of your organization’s applications and cloud environments at a top-level view. This same level of detail is even carried over in the APM phone app which is available for both iPhone and Android.

Who is it recommended for?

While there is a Free edition of ManageEngine Applications Manager, it is limited to monitoring five assets, which, unless you are only monitoring one API, is not going to be enough. So, almost no business is small enough to beneficially use the Free edition. Therefore, businesses with little money are just going to have to bite the bullet and upgrade to the Professional edition or look elsewhere for an API monitoring tool. Mid-sized and large businesses will love this tool because it will monitor all applications and services along with the API monitor.

You can download and trial the software completely free for 30 days. Pricing for ManageEngine Applications Manager starts at $945.00 per year, per user.

ManageEngine Applications Manager Download 30-day FREE Trial

4. Sauce Labs API Testing

Sauce Labs produces a range of application testing services from its cloud platform. The API Testing system is one of its services. This package is useful for development teams that are developing APIs and also those that are developing applications that integrate APIs.

Key features:

• Cloud-based
• Checks underlying microservices
• Integrates into workflows
• Suitable for DevOps

Why do we recommend it?

Sauce Labs is a synthetic monitoring system that is offered in three formats: manual testing, automated testing, and device-based automated testing. Basically, though, this is an availability testing service for Web applications, which includes API monitoring services. Manual testing is probably only a feasible strategy during API development because you wouldn’t want to sit and launch an uptime test over and over again around the clock manually once an API s in production.

The testing system tracks underlying microservices and includes them in testing for the applications that rely on them. The system is fast and it is designed to be useful for agile development scenarios where partial changes occur with each release.

This tool can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines to create automated testing as part of a workflow and channel back issues through bug trackers, updating project management software as the units passes onto the next step or cycles back for rework. The testing service carries on through the API’s release and continues to watch over live performance.

The Sauce Labs package includes a Test Composer in which new test scenarios can be created. It is also possible to bring in test cases built in other systems, such as Swagger, OpenAPI, and Postman Collections. The Sauce Labs service is resident in the cloud and it is able to operate in conjunction with other development lifecycle support tools either on your site or on other cloud platforms.

Who is it recommended for?

Developers would need the manual testing tool when they are still writing code either for an API or a system that includes an API call. In all other circumstances, you would need the automated monitoring package. The system can be integrated into a CI/CD pipeline, and device-based testing would be very useful for that scenario. Acceptance testing by a Web application buyer or by the IT Operations team before a system goes live would benefit from the device-based tests to identify whether the new system will work properly when viewed on many different types of devices.

Sauce Labs functions run in the cloud and you integrate them into your workflows with an API. So, this is an API to test APIs. You can assess the Sauce Labs system on a 28-day free trial.

5. Dotcom-Monitor

Dotcom-Monitor is a SaaS platform that tests availability and response times of websites and Web services. Among the packages offered by Dotcom-Monitor that one that is directly capable of examining API performance is the Web Services Monitoring plan.

Key features:

• Constant availability tests
• 30 test locations
• Additional web tests available
• Alerts forwarded by voice message, SMS, or email

Why do we recommend it?

Dotcom-Monitor is a very similar tool to the Sauce Labs service. It is a cloud-based package that can test a Web application from a lot of different locations – that includes API testing. The service provides an on-demand testing system and also automated tests. You can get tests launched from real browsers and mobile devices or choose to run programmatic tests.

The Web Service Monitoring package issues availability tests from 30 locations around the world – you check which sites are used for your testing plan. The tests can be issued through an Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox browser. The APIs that this service can reach can be written in REST, SOAP, with JSON, or XML.

Tests can be run periodically from one minute to three-hour intervals. The results of each test are stored on the Dotcom-Monitor server for analysis and are also displayed in the system dashboard. The Dotcom-Monitoring service will store performance metrics for three years, so you can get a long-term perspective on your API performance assessments.

If any test fails, the Dotcom-Monitor service rechecks before raising an alarm. You can specify in the settings of the Dotcom-Monitor system that alerts should be forwarded as voice messages, SMSs, or emails. This means that you can be made aware of system outages even when you are off the clock.

Who is it recommended for?

The annoying aspect of Dotcom-Monitor is that it doesn’t publish its price list. It can be used in exactly the same circumstances as Sauce Labs, so a business’s choice over which of these two services to use for manual and automated API testing would probably come down to price. This system can also be set up as a continuous tester in a CI/CD pipeline and it can run test scripts. Again, these functions are matched by the Sauce Labs platform.

Another service from Dotcom-Monitor that would be of interest to eCommerce enterprises is its Web Pages plan, which checks on response times of website pages and their elements. The Web Applications service would also be of use. That allows you to create your own tests and step through code as it launches. The Internet Infrastructure module tests server and network availability and the Load/Stress Testing service challenges the capacity of your Web servers. You can get a 30-day free trial of all of the Dotcom-Monitor services.

6. AlertSite

AlertSite provides some of the most comprehensive REST API monitoring on the market. AlertSite has a unique and flexible approach to monitoring. Instead of being bogged down by a sea of alerts, AlertSite utilizes technology that monitors both the API layer as well as the UI for functionality, application performance statistics, and availability.

Key features:

• Codeless monitor creation in just a few clicks
• Monitors on both the API and UI level
• Tracks a breadth of relevant data with immersive charts and graphs
• Manage both reporting and SLA compliance

Why do we recommend it?

AlertSite is one of three products from SmartBear Software that can be used for API testing. The other two are Bit Bar and ReadyAPI. If the description of AlertSite doesn’t quite sound like the type of API testing that you are looking for, check out those two other products before passing the SmartBear website by. The AlertSite system gives you API testing in the context of a live website that contains an API. If you are an API user, you would probably be particularly concerned with automated tests to ensure that the API doesn’t malfunction unexpectedly in the middle of the night. That’s what you get from AlertSite. You can set up scripts with a macro on a walkthrough with a system called DejaClick.

With clear application performance metrics at your disposal, you won’t have to play detective to determine if you’re getting another false alert again. AlertSite API monitoring solution lets you create alert monitors straight from a GUI interface without any coding needed.

DejaClick, one of my favorite features in the product, allows you to select the elements on the site you want to monitor in just a few clicks. DejaClick pulls the API data collection from the backend and begins the monitoring process seamlessly. You can even use clicks from user traffic to create specific scripts on the fly, all without having to crack open a command line.

Who is it recommended for?

Website owners that are running pages that have API components will need this tool. It can check on site uptime but you can also get it to run scripts to provoke interactive elements that are probably based on APIs. Confusingly, AlertSite is also available as an API. So, you can monitor your APIs through an API. This configuration lets you add website and API availability testing into your main system operations monitoring tool. If you are developing APIs or systems that call APIs, you should check out SmartBear ReadyAPI instead.

AlertSite is compatible with all modern versions of Windows. Pricing for AlertSite starts at $199.00 (£162.97) per month and scales with your monitoring needs. You can try a free one-month trial of AlertSite to see if it’s a good fit for your REST API monitoring needs.

7. Postman

It should come to no surprise that Postman made it on the list. With more than 10 million developers using Postman, it’s one of the most popular REST monitoring and performance testing applications available and is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux systems. A large reason why Postman is so popular is due to its simple UI and ease of use. In addition to functional API testing, Postman can be a simple yet powerful way for application monitoring and services.

Key features:

• Free tool to use, flexible pricing for additional features
• Simple user interface
• Wide variety of alerting options and integrations
• Multi-regional monitoring

Why do we recommend it?

Postman is a little different from the other API monitoring tools on this list because it is a full API management platform. You use the Postman framework to build APIs or to create other applications that call in APIs. It is better at supporting the usage of APIs by the teams that create them. The tool maintains libraries/repositories of APIs and tracks their usage in other systems. The service provides a testing package for APIs under development and when they are integrated into other packages. It will also manage unit testing, integration testing, and acceptance testing. The tool continues to monitor APIS when they are live.

In just a few clicks you can create a monitor that will trigger an alert based on a number of preset or customized variables. Postman also features multi-region monitoring gives you additional flexibility and insight when it comes to monitoring your services on a global scale.

When you set up a monitor it essentially runs as a test script. When that script fails you have a number ways you can be altered outside of just your dashboard and email. Postman has a wide variety of integrations and can alert you through Slack, HipChat, or PagerDuty.

Postman makes API monitoring solutions available to anyone and is fully accessible under the free plan. The free plan does have its limits and starts requiring an upgrade when you hit 200 parallel runs on a single monitor.

Who is it recommended for?

Postman is a hybrid system. It is delivered through a console that installs on Windows, Linux, and macOS, but it has a cloud coordinator, which enables team collaboration and management functions and also the execution of tests from different locations on an automated cycle. This tool is almost overwhelmingly intended for the developers of APIs. There is so much development support in the package that, although it could be used just in operations, most of the functionality of the tool would be wasted under that scenario. The testing system is very similar to SmartBear AlertSite because it has a macro recording service that will assemble test scenarios for you by tracking your walk through. There are other interesting options, such as cycling through all possible input values and testing from multiple locations.

The good news is, Postman Team pricing starts at just $12.00 (£9.83) a month and scales with your monitoring needs. Their pricing model also contains a unique “pay-as-you-go” system which allows you to purchase 1000 API calls for $0.75 (£0.61), or 50,000 pre-purchased API calls for $20.00 (£16.38) a month. You can download the free app to get going.

8. AppDynamics

AppDynamics is a powerful API monitor that’s part of the Cisco product suite. You’ll all of the powerful features and insights you’d expect for a Cisco product inside of AppDynamics. Real-time data visualization is some of the best and most concise in the market. Is one dashboard AppDynamics has everything you need, and nothing you don’t.

Key features:

• Enterprise-level API and cloud monitoring
• Monitor services through node-based network maps
• Detailed business performance data insights and reporting
• AI-powered API troubleshooting and diagnostics

Why do we recommend it?

AppDynamics is an application performance monitor. That remit also extends to Web application monitoring and API monitoring. This system is good at monitoring applications together through an application dependency map. Examining dependencies is particularly important for Web applications because of the involvement of APIs. AppDynamics can examine on-premises and cloud-based application performance and then thread through to code to identify third-party provided APIs that are running on servers that are not under the using company’s control.

With its node and tier-based visualizations, you can easily see where a problem is, and exactly what web services it will impact down the line. In a few clicks, you can select any node or call in progress to drill deeper down and get further information on its current status, past performance monitoring, and availability.

AppDynamics is backed with AI root cause analysis that works in the background to not only detect problems but diagnose them proactively. Appdynamics is powerful, and in my opinion best suited for larger cloud-based environments.

Who is it recommended for?

AppDynamics is aimed at businesses that use Web systems that include APIs. The operations team that runs AppDynamics for system monitoring might not know what APIs are involved in their live systems. However, the constant updates to the application dependency map provided by AppDynamics soon let them know what’s going on. There isn’t much that an operations team can do when a third-party application goes wrong, other than log a ticket with that system’s provider. With AppDynamics in place, that ticket can detail precisely which component of the provided system has a problem.

You can start a free 15-day trial of AppDynamics with no credit card required. Pricing for AppDynamics API monitoring starts at $3300.00 (£2702.58) a year.

9. API Science

API Science was built specifically to serve and monitor REST-based API services. Like many of the list API monitors, you can expect a stunning interface and easy to access analytics from the reporting dashboard. API Science boasts quick and efficient onboarding, meaning less time setting up your account, and more time digging into the data that keeps your customers happy.

Key features:

• Simple and flexible pricing
• Easy to navigate analytics and reporting
• Fully featured REST API
• Fast onboarding procedure

Why do we recommend it?

API Science is a package for API developers. This package includes development management and API testing. The testing features in the system can be equated to monitoring because it persists during the development lifecycle. Testing/monitoring requirements will simplify once an API goes live and reduce to availability testing once the API has been in production for a while. This isn’t a tool for ongoing monitoring by operations teams looking after third-party applications.

From the monitoring dashboard, you can quickly monitor your own APIs, as well as any third-party APIs your entire systems rely on. In addition to creating your own custom monitors, there are a number of pre-configured sample monitors to get up and running right away.

Since API Science is REST-based, you can monitor your REST API with their API giving you the flexibility and freedom to build your own custom dashboards, and integrate them into custom applications and consoles.

Who is it recommended for?

This is an API development support system. It can provide on-demand testing during code development and continuous testing for CI/CD pipelines. It isn’t so good for third-party API testing, so if you are developing an application and you want to profile an API for possible inclusion, API Science isn’t the best choice.

API Science has straightforward pricing that starts at $29.00 (£23.75) per month for three users and can support up to 100,000 API calls. You can test out API Science for 30 days to see if it’s right for your API monitoring needs.

10. Bearer

Bearer is an API monitor that has some diverse functionality to help provide automated alerts across different applications. One of my favorite features of Bearer is its simple install. With just one line of code, Bearer can be unpackaged and ready to go without any changes to the code or environment.

Key features:

• Separate dashboards for each application
• Simple two-minute install
• Easy-to-understand pricing model
• Automated anomaly detection

Why do we recommend it?

Bearer is a SAST package. SAST stands for static application security testing. This is a package for API developers and it focuses specifically on scanning through code for known security weaknesses. It can be best described as a vulnerability scanner for APIs that have not yet been released. You can use this package to test existing APIs for risk before accepting them for use in your new system, use it for development testing, or put it in continuous mode for CI/CD pipeline acceptance testing.

Quickly set up rate limits and trigger incidents defined by whatever SLA or internal requirements you adhere to. Separate dedicated dashboards keep your application monitoring easy to manage and read. You can break down your data collection into separate application metrics, or pull all of the relevant data together into a single report.

Bearer’s fast installation and ease of use make it an easy choice for anyone looking to quickly test out REST API monitoring applications.

Who is it recommended for?

This is specifically a tool for use by development teams. You wouldn’t use it for ongoing monitoring of live APIs and you certainly wouldn’t use it for bought-in apps that were developed elsewhere. As it is a code analyzer, the tool specializes in scripting languages, such as Java.

All of Bearer’s pricing plans include error tracking, anomaly detection, and performance metrics. You can try Bearer API monitoring for free, or purchase their Pro plan starting at $49.00 per month. Pro plan includes increased log retention, 20 million API calls per month, and up to three user licenses.

11. Uptrends

Uptrends is an API monitoring and testing tool with a simple yet powerful step editor that lets you customize your alerts to reflect the user’s exact journey. This gives you full control of the alerts you receive and ensures that your monitoring isn’t just running a simple ping check but actually testing the steps needed to fulfill your service.

Key features:

• API monitoring from over 209 locations
• Simple and competitive pricing
• Internal API monitoring with Private Checkpoint
• Intuitive step editor for creating customized alerts

Why do we recommend it?

Uptrends is a synthetic monitoring service that will periodically launch availability tests against a given website or Web asset, such as an API. The main purpose of this system is to make sure that an API or site is running and can be accessed by users. Uptrends offers its services on a subscription basis and there are five plans. Only the top two of those editions include API monitoring. In both of those plans (Business and Enterprise), API monitoring is a paid optional extra.

While some API monitors use virtual browsers to test websites in, Uptrends only uses real unsimulated browsers to test your web services and applications. Currently, you can test from Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox. You can easily compare your speeds and performance data side by side with each browser to quickly find bottlenecks and opportunities to improve.

Test your APIs from over 209 different locations across the world. Uptrends also has a unique feature called Private Checkpoints, which allows you to test your APIs from behind your firewall via on-premise virtual machines. This can help identify problems internally such as DNS resolution, or LAN congestion that would otherwise not be visible from the outside.

Under the API monitoring section, you can define assertions that check for each response and ensure you’re getting the correct status codes and responses.

You also have the capability to add authentication to access and test your protected APIs in just a few steps. This mix of attention to detail combined with a drag and drop interface make Uptrends a serious contender and a great choice when looking for REST-capable API monitoring.

Who is it recommended for?

Uptrends is a classic Web application monitoring package. It includes synthetic monitoring, which is what you need for API monitoring, and real-user monitoring. You can choose to set up alerts for different attributes, such as availability or response times. The system can also be used to run test scripts rather than just running an API – these are called multi-step monitoring services. Tests can be run for any of 231 different locations. This is a tool for operations teams and not for developers.

You can get started for free with a 30-day trial, or jump right into the Starter package for just $12.02 (£9.84) a month.

Choosing a REST API Monitoring Tool

Having a solid API monitoring system is pretty much mandatory for any organization’s environment that runs its own web services. The loss of API functionality could result in thousands of dollars of lost revenue.

While there’s clearly plenty of choices when it comes to filling your REST API monitoring needs, some tools shine brighter than others. I find Loggly to strike the best balance between usability, flexibility, functionality, and price.

AlertSite is a great runner-up, with a clean user interface, multiple alerting configurations, and codeless element based testing. Not all monitors may suit your needs so be sure to take full advantage of any free trials that may be available.

REST API Monitoring FAQs