The website of a business is like its brand ambassador in the digital space and therefore, it has to look, say and behave properly. While every company does its best to keep the website up and running, downtime, hacking threat, defacement, and vandalism can never be ruled out. The best way to steer clear of these hurdles is to monitor the website for changes.

In fact, monitoring changes is beneficial in many other ways and the best part is that it is very easy. There are many tools that do the monitoring masterfully and here is a roundup of five such tools that are the hot favorite in 2019.


1. Fluxguard

Based in Portland, Oregon, Fluxguard was developed in 2017 after the founder recognized the need for application integrity monitoring. The idea was to create an efficient process where businesses can access an application from the customer's perspective and to monitor website changes based on user interface and user experience. Today, Fluxguard stands tall among the established tools used widely to monitor website changes.

Simple in essence but solid in execution, Fluxguard changes-monitoring tool is very easy to use, which is why anyone (with or without technical knowledge) can employ it to monitor website changes and do so much more.

When using Fluxguard, you will have the ability to set up multi-step monitoring where changes are tracked in a step by step manner as defined by the user. The multi-page monitoring helps to keep an eye on the public web pages and one is able to catch defects, vandalism, and other types of changes and threats on the front-end. One can also spot the changes and threats on password-protected pages and web apps, which come across as the most complex aspect when looking to monitor website changes.

In fact, detecting changes to dashboards, admin areas, and other interactive content behind a login is the USP of Fluxguard.

  • It comes with state-of-the-art tools like Headless Chrome and Puppeteer which allow one to submit login forms pretty easily and interact with any portion of a page in a jiffy.
  • It offers four distinct types of features to monitor website changes on every page of the website.
  • There is HTML change comparison- a way to spot the text difference between HTML pages and find out even minute breaking changes.
  • It also offers pixel by pixel screenshot comparison, text comparison, and Google Lighthouse audit metrics comparison.

The last is an advanced method to monitor website changes, which utilize the efficiency of Fluxguard coupled with Google Lighthouse, a powerful open source performance audit tool, which offers actionable insights to counter threats in time and thwart the malicious actions of external sources visible in the form of changes on the website. The combo can be used to audit the whole site or just a webpage as the user wishes while also being able to utilize the audit results in the future.

Each audit is preserved in the form of a complete archive, allowing one to track metric changes over time. With Fluxguard, one receives alert instantly when there is any change in web page pixel, DOM (Document Object Model) and content. This way, one can immediately inform the IT staff about the changes that require remediation or one can send detailed summaries every week in the form of a single and easily readable report.

Its powerful filters and network block track full network activity and remove false positives fully. They also block resources of targeted sites from loading on the site, acting very much like AdBlock that blocks the specific ads it is commanded to keep away.

In current times, consumer consent is a sensitive topic that cannot be ignored at any cost as it invites penalties and Fluxguard handles it with great care making sure cookie, email opt-ins, Terms of Service, and other important agreements are monitored effectively with respect to change and defects. Its elaborate, on-page visual comparisons make the visual comparison a treat and one can monitor website changes easily by just looking at the pages.

Fluxguard is a true guard for modern-day websites that keep an eye on the changes, spots defects, and ensures compliance with the security standards. It helps to increase transparency and strengths of websites, enabling it to fight all types of dangers and attacks posed by hackers, competitors, and the volatile web world itself. Try the free version and monitor 75 pages at zero cost to see how well it can monitor website changes.

2. Wachete

Founded in 2014 and based in Prague, Czech Republic, Wachete is a robust and user-friendly website detection tool that comes with a smart set of features to assess the changes on the website. It can monitor single pages as well as whole portal and is also a pro at scanning the password-protected pages behind a login form.

One can set up notifications about the changes and receive alerts over mail or the Wachete mobile app. It offers more than the regular mentoring features as in it has a REST API, using which one can access information programmatically. It also converts scanned pages to RSS feed which one can subscribe to and get insights about the changes, helping one take measures accordingly.

One can gather history, changes, and web content up to six months. It integrates with third-party tools and works on mobile and desktop with browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. Wachete lets one keep a check on the health of the website and ensures compliance with security regulations.

It improves the engagement with visitors and enhances the ranking and views as well. Wachete is the ultimate watchdog for websites. Try the free trial and get to monitor five web pages every 24 hours.

3. ChangeTower

Founded in 2016 and based in Illinois, Chicago, ChangeTower is a powerful website monitoring tool based on cloud technology that offers best support to scan changes in the website. It can track visual changes, code updates, and keyword changes on a webpage while also having the ability to scan the entire website. Its automotive tracking eases scanning tasks of repetitive nature and one can deploy custom alerts and get notified about changes as and when they are made.

One can check the changed data of three months for free and also export it to excel or spreadsheet for further study. Nevertheless, it sends the user detailed report regarding the content, snapshot, and HTML changes which makes for more lucid understanding as it looks like the changelog from a powerful word processor such as Word or Google Docs. This helps to ensure compliance with regulations and track legal and corporate information. One can monitor content on other websites as well and this comes in handy while assessing the competitors.

Trusted by big brands such as IBM, Huawei, PWC, Salesforce, and more, ChangeTower is a reliable and efficient tool that begins to yield results instantly and also proves its worth in the long run. Check out the free trial for a preview.

4. Versionista

Founded in 2008 and based in Portland, Oregon, Versonista is a well-known cloud-based website monitoring tool that enjoys more than 80,000 customer base with satisfied users spread across the globe, operating in different niches. It offers a comprehensive website change detection framework where one can spot changes instantly and also get alerts in real time. One can monitor changes to HTML, PDFs, and dynamic content and view every edit through the simple dashboard.

The notification service of Versionista, in fact, stands out because of its speed and efficiency. Being customizable, it lets one tweak the functions according to one's personal monitoring requirements. One can also apply default filters such as "ignore comments," and "ignore changes in date and time" for monitoring the website.

It generates reports for comparison and analysis as well and one can download tracker data into excel and CSV files. This helps to get actionable insights about the monitoring and one can improve the performance by applying more relevant filters.

A powerful yet simple solution, it is the best tool for scanning modern websites which helps to optimize business and keeps one ahead of the game, no matter what the challenge. Just try the free trial and monitor five URLs every day free of cost.

5. OnWebChange

Founded in 2009 and based in Madrid, Spain, OnWebChange is a fast and formidable website monitoring tool that ensures A to Z tracking of the website. It was developed with the motive to simplify scanning and therefore, gives only relevant notifications to the user.

It tracks changes to public web pages, specific parts of web page, online files and notifies one within minutes of the change. One gets notifications on mobile as well as email and can also share the notification with the team for better monitoring.

The intelligent warning system informs one immediately when page structure changes or is no longer available. Being 100 percent online, one can access it from anywhere, anytime, and from any device. With tens and thousands of users world-wide, OnWebChange can be trusted by any business, from any background, to keep an eye on the website. It brings about better tracking which results in a well-maintained healthy website, improved website performance, compliance with regulations, and enhanced customer engagement.

All of this fosters growth in company and thus, OnWebChange is worth the investment. Available in three pricing options — Free, Solo, and Premium — one can opt for the free trial to get a look at the performance.

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