Keelnest or Checkly?

Checkly is excellent synthetic monitoring for teams that write Playwright. Keelnest is for apps that came out of a builder: journeys in plain words, and the failures that live outside the code — payments, auth settings, AI bills.

What Checkly is

Checkly runs API, browser and multistep checks written in Playwright, managed as code with its CLI, Terraform or Pulumi, from many locations and down to seconds apart. Its Vercel integration runs checks against preview and production deployments and can hold a deploy back.

Side by side

How checks are written

ChecklyPlaywright and API checks in code, managed with a CLI, Terraform or Pulumi.

KeelnestJourneys written in plain words — “sign in, open billing, see the plan” — and no test code.

Browser checks

Checkly1,000 browser runs a month on Hobby; more on paid plans.

KeelnestJourneys after every publish, and on schedule: weekly on Free, hourly on Solo and Indie, every 15 minutes on the agency plans, every 5 on Scale.

Check frequency

ChecklyFrom 2 minutes on Hobby, down to 30 seconds on Team.

KeelnestHTTP, certificate and headers every 5 minutes on every plan.

Deploys

ChecklyChecks on Vercel preview and production deployments, can block a deploy; GitHub Deployments and CI.

KeelnestEvery publish verified; previews checked on Vercel and Netlify before promotion; publishes from Lovable, Bolt and Replit found from the live site.

Payments

ChecklyNot found in its pricing or docs.

KeelnestStripe payments against the usual level for that hour of the week, plus webhook health.

Supabase auth and data

ChecklyNot found in its pricing or docs.

KeelnestRedirect URLs, which mailer sends auth email, security advisor findings including row level security, failed sign-ins.

AI spend

ChecklyNot found in its pricing or docs.

KeelnestOpenAI and Anthropic usage read hourly, spikes caught within two hours.

When something fails

ChecklyAlerts by email, Slack and webhooks, with AI root-cause analysis.

KeelnestWhat broke in plain English, the evidence, and a prompt for your builder — or a pull request on paid plans.

Free plan

Checkly10 uptime monitors, 10,000 API and 1,000 browser runs a month, one seat, 7-day retention.

KeelnestOne app: checks every 5 minutes, every publish verified, one journey walked weekly and after every publish.

Paid plans

ChecklyFrom $24 a month (Starter); $64 a month (Team).

KeelnestFrom $19 a month (Solo, one app); $29 for three apps; agency plans from $99.

Checkly’s column is from its own pricing page and documentation on 23 September 2026; a dash means we found nothing on it there. Keelnest’s is from our pricing and what Keelnest checks.

Choose Checkly if

  • Your team writes Playwright and wants monitoring as code, reviewed in the repository.
  • You need checks every 30 seconds, or from many regions.
  • You want a failing check to hold a deploy back in CI.

Choose Keelnest if

  • Nobody on the team writes test code — the app came from Lovable, Bolt, v0 or Replit.
  • What breaks is as often a setting or money as a page: a Stripe webhook, a Supabase redirect URL, an AI bill.
  • You want the fix handed to you, in words your builder understands.

Or run both

They answer different questions and sit well together: Checkly for engineered end-to-end tests your developers own in CI; Keelnest for the production failures outside the code — payments, auth settings, spend — explained for whoever is on call, technical or not.

Questions

Does Keelnest use Playwright?

Journeys run in a real browser through Cloudflare Browser Rendering, but you never write test code: a journey is written in plain words, and it is re-walked after every publish.

Can Keelnest block a bad deploy?

No. It verifies each publish within seconds of the host reporting it — or within five minutes from the live site — and tells you what broke with the fix. Holding a deploy back in CI is what Checkly is built for.

Which should an agency pick?

Keelnest has clients, response targets and white-label reports on the agency plans, and prices by app. Checkly prices by check runs and seats.

Sources

Read on 23 September 2026. Prices and plans change; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.

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