DEV Community

Danilo
Danilo

Posted on

API Monitoring: Checking uptime vs checking if your response actually works

#webdev #programming #api #discuss

Lately, API monitoring has been on my mind. The majority of tools (such as Pingdom and UptimeRobot) only verify that your API is returning a 200 OK.

However, what if the response structure has changed but your API is returning 200 OK? similar to:

Prior to:

{
    "user": {
        "name": "John"
    }
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Following:

{
    "user": {
        "full_name": "John"
    }
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Monitoring reports are ok and the API returns 200, but your frontend is broken.

  1. Are you on the lookout for this? How?
  2. Has "breaking changes with 200 OK" ever caused you any pain?
  3. What equipment do you use? What irritates you?

Currently, it appears that the following options are available: Postman Monitors ($49/user/month; too expensive)
Checkly (nice but complicated)
Create your own scripts.

Interested in the opinions of the community? Is this actually a problem?

Top comments (1)

Collapse
 
silentishim profile image
Ayo •

Good question, and it's a real gap. Status codes lie — your API can return 200 while the response shape silently changed and broke every consumer.
On your questions: most people find out from customer complaints, which is the worst way. Postman at $49/mo is overkill for most solo devs and small teams. Checkly's powerful but the learning curve is real.
I'm a dev building Pingoni (launching this week) around exactly this gap — simple enough to set up in 5 min, smart enough to catch things beyond status codes. Would genuinely love your feedback if you're open to it.