HN Explorer

Show HN: A better way to monitor web apps

7 points by octix ↗ HN
Hey guys,

We're excited to reach Beta milestone with our web app monitoring service. By posting here, we're seeking to get some feedback from you.

So, why QABot? Why another monitoring service? We believe in Continuous Regression Testing. We are sure that continuous app validation reduces downtime and helps avoid disasters. QABot uses real browser and gets the monitoring as close as possible to real usage. At it's core, QABot is based on Selenium, an open source web browser automation tool. When we say monitoring, we mean more than checking http statuses and response times, we mean Continuous Validation of web apps, of rules defined by you using Selenium IDE.

To get started you need an account and a valid Selenium IDE test case (*.html file). Once it's uploaded we'll run it for you and notify if anything goes wrong.

URL: http://qabot.net

Thank you.

6 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 27.6 ms ] thread
wodow
Looks useful - I might use it.

The key point is: you run Selenium test cases on a schedule. It might be better to make this more prominent. It's currently below the fold and a title, slogan and two headings.

octix
Good catch, I think we had some discussions about this, but was left out for some reason...

Thanks for your input!

xauronx
Registering now, will check back with my input.

Edit 1* I'm unsure of what a selenium test is (clearly an issue of my ignorance). Do you have to have those to check the health of your web app?

Edit 2* Do I have to wait an hour before the first run? Maybe it could run a primary run the first time I add the app?

octix
Yes and Yes (or sooner).

Your experience and questions made us think a bit and we're putting together a list of changes to address some concerns:

1. By default it will add a simple Selenium test, which should be enough to get started, later though it will be possible (as it is now) to add more and more complex. 2. Prioritize or manually trigger 1st test run. Our main concern here is to avoid overloading server when new apps are added, right now the 60min interval is picked to spread the load.

Thanks for trying.

xauronx
Thank you for your reply! I saw that you sent an email out last night, which is great. I was thinking the same thing. "I added my site and it says everything is OK on the dashboard... but no tests have been run."

Anyhow, thank you for taking my advice into consideration. I will take a look at the selenium tutorial you linked in that email.