HTTP checks in Grafana Cloud Synthetic Monitoring offer a proactive approach to ensuring the reliability of applications by monitoring HTTP endpoints for availability, responsiveness, and correct status codes. By setting up HTTP checks, users can track response times, capture errors, and validate returned status codes from multiple global locations, thereby detecting and addressing issues before they affect end users. The process of creating an HTTP check involves configuring various settings such as request type, uptime criteria, probe locations, and test frequency, and setting up alerts to notify teams of performance deviations. Grafana Cloud provides a preconfigured dashboard for visualizing check results, including metrics like uptime, latency, and SSL expiry, facilitating continuous performance monitoring. This functionality allows for comprehensive, real-time monitoring, enabling teams to maintain high service reliability and user satisfaction.