Synthetic Monitoring: What is it, Challenges, and How to Get Started

Synthetic monitoring simulates real-user interactions with applications to identify performance issues before they impact users, providing a safety net for development and DevOps teams. It enables developers to ship fast and confidently by automating critical application flows, detecting mission-critical issues in high intervals, and reducing noise with meaningful alerts. Synthetic monitoring also provides clear performance benchmarks, more transparency with monitored third-party services, and cost-effectiveness. However, it comes with challenges such as complexity, shared ownership, cost, and false alerts, which can be overcome by adopting a Monitoring as Code approach that integrates testing and monitoring into a single workflow. By leveraging this approach, development teams can rely on a single tool to test and monitor their app's user experience, fostering a collaborative environment that enhances the overall health of their application.