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Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

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Re: Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

#22
I am a Pingdom customer and I think the thing that could make me shift is an enhanced form of custom check - like what Pingdom has today but better.

In my setup I made a public service where external tools can retrieve some realtime stats like current number of users, queue lengths, number of jobs processing etc. Pingdom uses this service in different custom checks and it kinda works, but I can't use the stats or graphs for anything. Not all checks should be described in a status code and response time - a simple number would be great. Make graphs with that and allow users to set a threshold for when alerts should be sent.

Another thing missing is support for basic authentication.

As others have noted your front page is not really getting the message through.

Re: Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

#23
post #22

I am a Pingdom customer and I think the thing that could make me shift is an enhanced form of custom check - like what Pingdom has today but better. In my setup I made a public service where external tools can retrieve some realtime stats like current number of users, queue lengths, number of jobs processing etc. Pingdom uses this service in different custom checks and it kinda works, but I can't use the stats or gra…

That is a very interesting use case. I was thinking about allowing users to create scriptable tests and then provide reporting around that, I think it could meet your requirements. I will add the basic authentication stuff.

Re: Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

#24
post #22

I am a Pingdom customer and I think the thing that could make me shift is an enhanced form of custom check - like what Pingdom has today but better. In my setup I made a public service where external tools can retrieve some realtime stats like current number of users, queue lengths, number of jobs processing etc. Pingdom uses this service in different custom checks and it kinda works, but I can't use the stats or gra…

That is a very interesting use case. I was thinking about allowing users to create scriptable tests and then provide reporting around that, I think it could meet your requirements. I will add the basic authentication stuff.

Scripting. I am not quite sure what you mean by that, but please make it simple. Pingdoms custom checks are simple because site owners just need to make an endpoint that prints out an xml snippet.

Fx. I have a service here: http://api.convert.io/realtime.svc/pingdom/queue-length which prints out: OK2

How about you offer the same, but add a few more check types. One with the status/response time and another with just a single number.

2

Re: Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

#25
"Sign up" is two words.

After three sites, I was told I needed to upgrade. Clicking said link did nothing. But can still add sites by going to http://nimbu.net/addresses/new; an error is presented, but the site is added anyway.

Calling redirects failed is problematic; for example, try monitoring http://www.google.com/ The non-US pingers will always fail due to country redirects. And http://www.google.com/ncr won't work either, because it always redirects.

Re: Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

#26

"Use of Customer’s Name and Company Name Nimbu reserves the right to use your name and/or company name as a reference for marketing or promotional purposes on the Nimbu.com website and other communication with existing or potential Nimbu customers. To decline Nimbu this right you need to email help@nimbu.net stating that you do not wish to be used as a reference." This is completely unreasonable. You want me to email…

You're absolutely correct. I 'borrowed' the t&c's from somewhere else and I would never enforce this. In fact the testimonials I have on the homepage I have written to the individuals in question to ask for their permission. Am removing!

That's good news :) Good luck.

Re: Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

#28

"Sign up" is two words. After three sites, I was told I needed to upgrade. Clicking said link did nothing. But can still add sites by going to http://nimbu.net/addresses/new ; an error is presented, but the site is added anyway. Calling redirects failed is problematic; for example, try monitoring http://www.google.com/ The non-US pingers will always fail due to country redirects. And http://www.google.com/ncr won't w…

Thanks for the comments, I will fix the bugs asap. On the redirect issue, do you think that receiving a redirect on a url you are monitoring should result in success? I hadn't thought about that before, maybe it should be an advanced option, eg. do you expect a 200 OK or (dropdown list of other responses).

Re: Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

#29

I'm a big fan of demos. If I don't see a demo, I usually won't go through an install just to see how it looks.

Thanks for the comment. There is no installation required so I'm not sure what you mean. You can try the site functionality for free so that would work as a demo. If you mean you don't want to sign up, then would a screencast work in that situation?

Re: Review my startup: http://nimbu.net/ - smart website monitoring

#30

"Sign up" is two words. After three sites, I was told I needed to upgrade. Clicking said link did nothing. But can still add sites by going to http://nimbu.net/addresses/new ; an error is presented, but the site is added anyway. Calling redirects failed is problematic; for example, try monitoring http://www.google.com/ The non-US pingers will always fail due to country redirects. And http://www.google.com/ncr won't w…

Thanks for the comments, I will fix the bugs asap. On the redirect issue, do you think that receiving a redirect on a url you are monitoring should result in success? I hadn't thought about that before, maybe it should be an advanced option, eg. do you expect a 200 OK or (dropdown list of other responses).

The advanced option idea sounds good. By default, I'd suggest follow the redirect, and add the time of both requests together (e.g., do what a browser would). Other options would be to not follow the redirect, or to accept only a certain status code (e.g., 200)
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