Pulsy vs Checkly
Uptime and TLS monitoring, where Checkly does browser-level E2E
Checkly is a developer-first synthetic monitoring platform built around Playwright: real browser flows, monitoring-as-code, CI integration. It is very good at that, and Pulsy does not compete with it. What Pulsy offers is the availability layer — HTTP checks, TLS expiry, incidents, status pages — as open-source software that is free forever to self-host.
Where Pulsy differs from Checkly
- Open source (AGPL-3.0) — self-host free forever, with the data on your own infrastructure.
- Set up in minutes with no code: a URL, an interval, a threshold. No Playwright scripts to write or maintain.
- Public status pages with custom domains, included everywhere.
- Localized dashboard in five languages with full right-to-left support.
Checkly vs Pulsy, side by side
| Feature | Pulsy (self-hosted) | Pulsy Cloud | Checkly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free forever — you run it (AGPL-3.0) | Free tier, paid plans from $12/mo | Free tier + paid plans |
| Source code | Open source, AGPL-3.0 | The same AGPL-3.0 code, managed for you | Proprietary (open-source SDKs) |
| Where your data lives | Your own infrastructure | Hosted by Pulsy, exportable any time | Hosted by Checkly |
| Browser / E2E checks | Not included | Not included | Playwright-based, core strength |
| Monitoring as code | REST API | REST API | CLI, Terraform, Pulumi |
| Setup effort | Paste a URL | Paste a URL | Write and maintain check scripts |
| Status pages | Included, custom domains | Included, custom domains | Included |
| Dashboard | Localized (5 languages, RTL) | Localized (5 languages, RTL) | English-first |
Switching from Checkly is painless
If your Checkly usage is mostly API and uptime checks, re-create them in Pulsy against the same URLs and thresholds and you will not miss much. If you have invested in browser flows, keep Checkly for those — Pulsy cannot run them, and a status page is a poor substitute for knowing your checkout works.
Frequently asked questions
- Can Pulsy replace Checkly?
- For availability monitoring, yes. For Playwright browser checks that click through a real user journey, no — Pulsy has no browser runtime and no equivalent feature.
- Is there an open-source Checkly alternative?
- Not a like-for-like one. Pulsy is open source and covers the uptime, TLS, and status-page layer under AGPL-3.0; the browser-automation layer is a different problem with different tools.
- Does Pulsy integrate with CI?
- Through the REST API you can create and query monitors programmatically, but Pulsy has no CI-native workflow the way Checkly does.
- Can I run both?
- Yes, and it is a sensible split: Checkly for critical user journeys, Pulsy for broad endpoint coverage, TLS expiry, and the public status page.
Compare Pulsy with other monitors
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