14 Best Free and Paid Tools to Monitor Website Changes in 2024

The term website monitoring may seem self-explanatory: it's all about keeping an eye on your own or someone else's website. However, what exactly should you be monitoring? And what's the best approach for doing so?

This article provides an overview of website monitoring, with a specific emphasis on solutions tailored to track content changes.

Disclaimer: The analysis presented in this article relies on information current as of 2024/12/05. Before depending on any comparative data, all users are advised to confirm the most recent status of products and services.

Website monitoring: a quick overview

There are many different techniques that go under the umbrella of website monitoring, and if you've found this page, you're probably already familiar with some of them. Let's quickly overview a few types of website monitoring:

• Performance and availability monitoring

• Content monitoring

• Traffic and usage monitoring 

• Security monitoring

• Functionality monitoring

Navigating through the plethora of tools available to monitor websites can be overwhelming; that’s why we made this list. We'll specifically focus on content change monitoring. This type of monitoring primarily involves tracking visual, HTML, and availability modifications. It serves a wide range of purposes – from helping individuals with job or real estate searches to more business-oriented purposes like price monitoring, MAP monitoring, competitive intelligence, and SEO monitoring.

Let’s take a look!

1. changedetection.io

changedetection.io distinguishes itself by being both a very affordable and competitive subscription, as well as having a fully open-source codebase. Their subscription offers more targets and checks than most competitors and has excellent features such as Visual Selector and Browser Steps. It’s also one of the few content change monitoring services that lets you connect with proxies of your choice and offers a wide range of notification possibilities.

Pricing: Start from $8.99/mo or free for Open-source users

Free trial: It's not included, but you can set it up for free since it's open-source.  Otherwise, you can choose to purchase their affordable subscription.

Platforms: Cloud based/subscription, or Open-source as  Windows, Linux, Mac

Main features: Connecting to proxies of your choice, Visual Selector for element selection, Browser Steps for interactive steps before change monitoring, data exfiltration, comparing page text in history, and many others

Pros:

• Available as subscription or Open-source

• Visual Selector and Browser Steps make it very useful

• Lots of notification possibilities

• Active developer community

Cons:

• The subscription version has 1 Chrome browser attached, checking sites sequentially, but you can certainly add more

2. Visualping.io

Visualping.io is a suite of tools focused on monitoring website changes and can be considered a more advanced solution. While it shares the common capability of text comparison with many tools on this list, Visualping.io goes above and beyond by providing visual and code comparisons. What truly sets it apart is its feedback-based machine learning feature, which adapts to your website monitoring needs and makes suggestions accordingly.

Besides, Visualping.io attracts attention with advanced alerting features like AI-generated summaries of detected changes. Users can receive concise, actionable notifications – such as being informed when a new cryptocurrency becomes available for trading – directly through email. These summaries, which are not available from other players in the market, provide quick insights, making it easier than ever to stay updated on critical developments.

Pricing: Starts from $10/mo 

Free trial: Freemium subscription with 5 pages per day

Platform: Browser, Chrome extension

Main features: AI summaries, code and visual monitoring, dynamic pages, API, page health alert, keyword alerts

Pros

• A user-friendly interface

• Multiple users with an organizational sign-on

• Great third-party integrations

• Users get email alerts for changes or Slack notifications for teams

Cons

• Basic support is limited to email and live chat, but premium support and an account manager are available for Professional plans

3. Fluxguard

What sets Fluxguard apart is that it uses ChatGPT to filter and summarize website changes into clear reports. It’s an engineer-led but enterprise-focused company that provides web change detection tools to alert you of real-time digital content updates. Their intuitive dashboard with in-depth analytics empowers users to keep up with trends and respond proactively.

Pricing: Available on demand

Free trial: Monitor 50 pages for free

Platforms: Browser-based

Main features: Webhooks and API, ChatGPT filtering, data exfiltration detection and Javascript threat monitoring, visual regression testing

Pros

• Comparisons between HTML code, text, screenshots

• Actively updates their features

Cons

• Interface could be improved

4. Sitechecker

Sitechecker stands out from its competitors by placing a strong emphasis on monitoring website changes through an SEO lens. Their services include on-site SEO analysis, covering visual changes to text, headings, and keywords, providing invaluable insights for competitor benchmarking. Moreover, Sitechecker delves deep into technical SEO, offering a holistic view of how your website is performing. 

Pricing: Starts at $41/mo

Free trial: Available for 2 months when you get an annual subscription 

Platforms: Browser, Chrome extension

Main features: Technical SEO, on-site SEO, rank tracker, keyword monitoring, bulk monitoring

Pros

• Includes many other SEO-related tools

• Excellent supporting content on their blog and YouTube

• Technical analysis of websites

Cons

• Steep learning curve for someone with limited SEO knowledge

5. Wachete

Wachete, another efficient website change monitoring tool, is an excellent choice for individuals and small to medium-sized businesses. With an accessible starting price of $5.40/mo and scaling up to $329/mo for more extensive needs, Wachete offers a wide array of features. From HTML monitoring to useful visualization tools, including color coding and informative graphs, you can kickstart your website monitoring projects with confidence.

Pricing: Starts from $5.40/mo

Free trial: Forever free with 5 pages every 24 hours

Platform: Web extensions, browser, mobile app

Main features: Password-protected page monitoring, RSS feeds, API, availability monitoring, text updates in PDF, MS Word, DOCX, XLSX files or JSON

Pros

• Affordable

• Can monitor pages that require clicks for value submission

• Monitors text in a wide variety of document types

Cons

• Free version has limited capabilities

6. Sken.io

Sken.io presents a solid offering at an incredibly budget-friendly price point. Among its features are adaptive element tracking or removal, a convenient Chrome extension, chart previews, and more. Although it doesn't provide a freemium option, with a starting price of just $3 per month, it’s definitely worth exploring.

Pricing: Starts from $3/mo

Free trial: 14-day free trial with 140 free checks

Platforms: Browser, Chrome extension, mobile app

Main features: Chart visualization for numbers, element selection and removal and fully customizable schedule

Pros

• Very affordable entry-level pricing

• Offers mobile notifications

Cons

• Not a lot of supporting content, such as blog and video tutorials

7. ChangeTower

ChangeTower has many excellent features that cater to a wide variety of use cases, such as SEO monitoring, brand mentions, news alerts, website archiving, and more. They also have a blog full of industry insights and an easy-to-follow knowledge base. Indeed, you can rest assured that you’ll get the help you need as their client. 

Pricing: Starts from $9/mo

Free trial: Forever free with 3 URLs and 6 checks per day

Platforms: Cloud-based, mobile app

Main features: Element selection, cloud-based, sensitivity adjustment, page element availability monitoring, HTML snapshots

Pros

• Multi-condition monitoring as well as multi-user alerts

• Dedicated support with premium plans

• Doesn’t charge extra if it’s a dynamic web page

Cons

• Free plan is has very limited features

8. Trackly

Trackly is an efficient website change monitoring software with a sensible value proposition: “We track web pages and tell you when they change.” While their feature arsenal isn't as elaborate as other options on this list, they have good pricing options. So, if you’re looking for a simple tool to track text changes, this might be the option for you.

Pricing: Starts from $9/mo

Free trial: Free version with 3 web pages daily or weekly

Platforms: Browser

Main features: Allows ignoring insignificant changes, importing bulk URLs, tracking entire page or a part of it 

Pros 

• Good option for individuals and freelancers

• Allows collaboration through read-only link sharing.

Cons

• Lacks such functionality as image or text deletion tracking

9. Pagescreen

Launched in 2017, Pagescreen specializes not only in website change monitoring but also in web archiving. It’s important to note that they don’t focus on such areas as HTML monitoring or website performance monitoring. However, if your primary focus is on tasks like price tracking or keeping an eye on competitors, Pagescreen could be just the choice for you.

Pricing: Starts from €14.90/mo (approx. $16/mo)

Free trial: 14-day free trial with 5 hourly monitorings

Platforms: Browser-based 

Features: Web archiving, API, webhooks, team collaboration, high-quality screenshots

Pros

• Easy to set up and use

• Collects quality archives that can be downloaded

Cons 

• Doesn't monitor code changes

10. PageCrawl

A lesser-known tool, PageCrawl provides a variety of useful features. For example, you can set up a page template that allows you to automatically start following new web pages. Conveniently, you can also monitor password-protected pages. Most importantly, their flexible pricing model is designed to accommodate a range of clients.

Pricing: Starts at $8/mo

Free trial: Forever free with 6 pages checked daily

Platforms: Browser

Main features: Page templates, file tracking, password-protected pages, API and webhooks, multiple element tracking

Pros

• Can discover a new web page as soon as it’s published

• Offers their own pool of residential and datacenter proxies

• Lots of advanced configuration settings

Cons

• May charge extra for bypassing reCAPTCHA/hCaptcha

11. Versionista

Versionista is a website monitoring tool belonging to Fox and Geese software company. They leverage AI and machine learning to uncover business insights from websites. It’s an engineer and PhD-led company that strives to deliver accurate, timely, and comprehensive website monitoring.

Pricing: Available on demand

Free trial: Free forever with 465 monthly crawls and 7-day trials for other plans

Platforms: Browser-based

Main features: Supports non-Latin text, customizable auto-crawl, dynamic and JavaScript pages, color-coded comparison

Pros

• Automated crawling and monitoring of entire websites

• Microservices architecture is loosely coupled for easier integration

• Ability to choose country and device type

Cons

• Interface could be more intuitive

12. Distill

Among the more affordable options in the list, Distill is a good option for individuals or small businesses looking to try out website change monitoring. Distill offers 25 monitors (URLs) with its free plan – an impressive number considering competitor freemium offers. What’s more, you can either choose to run operations on a cloud or local machine, depending on your resources.

Pricing: Starts at $15/mo 

Free trial: Free forever with 25 monitors at 6-hour intervals

Platforms: Browser, web extensions, mobile apps

Main features: Visual selection of tracked elements, API access for further customization, version history, change tracking in PDFs and private web pages.

Pros

• Offers a wide variety of supporting content – from blog to webinars

• Advanced conditioning 

• Free plan offers excellent functionality

Cons

• Customer support limited to forum and email

13. Linko

Linko is designed to empower SEO professionals in maintaining website health, with its key feature being monitoring of mixed and unsecure content. This makes it an invaluable asset for SEO auditing tasks. However, if you're looking for a simple content change tracking software, Linko may not be the most suitable choice.

Pricing: Starts from €5/mo

Free trial: 14-day free trial

Platforms: Browser-based

Features: SSL certificate health check, redirect status, uptime monitoring

Pros

• Tailored to different CMS platforms

• Offers flexible pay-as-you-go options

Cons

• Not very applicable to use cases beyond SEO monitoring

14. ContentKing

As their story goes, Content King was born from a team within a digital marketing agency. They needed a solution that would empower them to keep up with any alterations made to their website by developers or clients. Struggling to find one, they created ContentKing, an SEO monitoring and auditing platform. Moreover, apart from monitoring text changes, they offer more specialized features, such as broken link detection, page redirection, SEO auditing, and more.

Pricing: Available on demand 

Free trial: Yes

Platforms: Browser, Chrome extension

Main features: Tracking robots.txt, SEO auditing, log file analysis, 24/7 monitoring, API and integrations

Pros

• Loads of APIs and integrations

• Comprehensive customer support, including FAQs, chat, telephone, and email

• An excellent choice for SEO-related projects

Cons

• Not the best option for monitoring competitor sites