Synthetic tests allow you to observe how your systems and applications are performing using simulated requests and actions from around the globe. Datadog tracks the performance of your webpages and APIs from the backend to the frontend, and at various network levels (HTTP, SSL, DNS, WebSocket, TCP, UDP, ICMP, and gRPC) in a controlled and stable way, alerting you about faulty behavior such as regressions, broken features, high response times, and unexpected status codes.

Computing SLOs on your key endpoints and user journeys makes it easier to stick to your application performance targets and ultimately provide a consistent customer experience.

You can create Synthetic tests in the Datadog application, with the API, or with Terraform.

Set up API tests and multistep API tests

API tests allow you to launch single or chained requests to perform verifications on your key systems at various network levels: HTTP test, SSL test, DNS test, WebSocket test, TCP test, UDP test, ICMP test, and gRPC test.

Record browser tests

Use Synthetic browser tests to monitor how your customers experience your webpages end-to-end from around the world.

Record mobile application tests

Use Synthetic mobile application tests to monitor how your customers experience your iOS and Android applications end-to-end from different device types.

Launch private locations

Use Synthetic private locations to monitor internal APIs and websites or create custom locations in areas that are mission-critical to your business.

Connect data and traces

Use the integration between Synthetic tests and APM traces to find the root cause of failures across frontend, network, and backend requests.

Access out-of-the-box dashboards

Analyze performance information about your API tests, multistep API tests, browser tests, and private locations, as well as Datadog events, with out-of-the-box Synthetic dashboards.

Use the Synthetic Monitoring & Testing Results Explorer

Create search queries and visualizations for your Synthetic test runs or batches of tests running in CI/CD pipelines.

Track testing coverage

Optimize your test suite by ensuring that your application’s most critical workflows are being tested.

Ready to start?

See Getting Started with Synthetic Monitoring for instructions on creating your first Synthetic test and monitoring your web applications. Then, explore Getting Started with Private Locations for instructions on creating your private location and running Synthetic tests with your private location.

Further Reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:

Check out the latest Datadog Synthetic Monitoring releases! (App login required)RELEASE NOTES Introduction to Datadog Synthetic MonitoringBLOG Monitor CDN performance within your Synthetic testsBLOG Best practices for monitoring static web applicationsBLOG Improve your API test coverage with Datadog Synthetic MonitoringBLOG Introduction to Synthetic TestsLEARNING CENTER Synthetic Monitoring GuidesDOCUMENTATION Join an interactive session to enhance your synthetic testing capabilitiesFOUNDATION ENABLEMENT