# Datadog Synthetic Monitoring vs Prometheus Blackbox Exporter

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Prometheus Blackbox Exporter

| Attribute | Datadog Synthetic Monitoring | Prometheus Blackbox Exporter |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 11 (19% (low)) | 47.2 (55% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 13 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 17 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 5,841 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A cloud-based testing platform that lets engineering teams create code-free tests simulating user interactions and API calls across endpoints, enabling rapid issue detection and performance optimization. | An open-source exporter for Prometheus that monitors the health and responsiveness of network services by sending test requests over HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, ICMP, and gRPC protocols. Results are exposed as metrics for collection by Prometheus. |
| integrations.count | 14 | 1 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"GitHub"},{"name":"GitLab"},{"name":"Jenkins"},{"name":"CircleCI"},{"name":"Azure DevOps"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"Jira"},{"name":"Google Vertex AI"},{"name":"Google Cloud SQL"},{"name":"Google Cloud Run"},{"name":"Google Cloud"},{"name":"Real User Monitoring"},{"name":"Error Tracking"},{"name":"Session Replay"}]` | `[{"name":"Prometheus"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Go |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"summary":"14-day free trial available (pricing details not disclosed in provided materials)","sourceUrl":"https://www.datadoghq.com/product/synthetic-monitoring/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-17T21:31:18.719Z","freeTrialDays":14}` | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open-source (no licensing cost)","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://github.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-17T21:36:10.400Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | - | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | unknown | free |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| release.cadence_days | - | 122 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.28.0","date":"2025-12-06T13:32:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.28.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.27.0","date":"2025-06-30T13:45:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.27.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.26.0","date":"2025-02-26T13:51:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.26.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.25.0","date":"2024-04-09T13:30:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.25.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.24.0","date":"2023-05-16T11:23:32Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.24.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.23.0","date":"2022-12-02T20:59:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.23.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.22.0","date":"2022-08-02T14:26:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.22.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.21.1","date":"2022-06-23T16:09:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.21.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.21.0","date":"2022-05-30T15:06:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.21.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.21.0-rc.0","date":"2022-05-11T11:14:26Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.21.0-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.20.0","date":"2022-03-16T23:52:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.20.0-rc.0","date":"2022-02-17T20:34:32Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.20.0-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.19.0","date":"2021-05-10T13:18:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.19.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.18.0","date":"2020-10-12T10:13:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.18.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.17.0","date":"2020-06-19T12:14:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.17.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.16.0","date":"2019-11-11T18:16:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.16.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.15.1","date":"2019-09-17T12:52:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.15.0","date":"2019-09-11T13:09:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.14.0","date":"2019-03-15T13:49:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.14.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/prometheus/blackbox_exporter/releases/tag/v0.13.0","date":"2018-12-04T15:20:50Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.13.0"}]` |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 7 |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":1,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fprometheus%2Fblackbox_exporter&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"HIGH"}` |

## Capabilities (API Monitoring)

| Capability | Datadog Synthetic Monitoring | Prometheus Blackbox Exporter |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Multi region probes | - | - |
| Private location agent | - | - |
| Status page hosting | - | - |
| Json schema assertions | - | - |
| Monitoring as code | - | - |
| Multistep API flows | - | - |
| Heartbeat deadmans switch | - | - |
| Self hostable | - | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:50:29.621Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*