Top 4 Best SSL Monitoring Tools [Top Picks]

When it comes to website security, utilising an SSL monitoring tool is a vital decision to make when it comes to ensuring your customers are browsing securely on your website, and to present yourself as a trustworthy website.

Years ago it used to be the case that having a SSL on your website was expensive, complicated and was often seen as being “not needed”. I know, because it's the position I was in too.

In today's century, most websites have SSLs, and yours is likely to be one too! But how do you monitor your SSL?

In this blog post, I'm going to tell you about some of the best SSL monitoring tools that you can use, today.

What is an SSL certificate and why is it important?

An SSL certificate is used to secure data that is transferred between you (the browser) and the server. For instance, several examples of data that needs to be securely transferred include:

• Credit card transactions
• Login detail and personal information
• Data transfers

Without a valid SSL certificate, you are potentially exposing these details and making them more easy to trace to a potential hacker.

Could you image the damage that would occur if a hacker was able to find out transactional data linked to your credit card?

Okay, but what exactly is an SSL certificate?

They're small data files which cryptographically establish an encrypted link between your browser and a web server.

The Best SSL Monitoring Tools To Try!

1. Oh Dear - with the ability to monitor SSL certificates, broken links and scheduled tasks, Oh Dear is one of the most popular SSL monitoring tools out there!
2. Rapidspike - if you need security insights into your website, Rapidspike has got this covered.
3. Updown - a super simple SSL monitoring service that's super affordable too.
4. Let's Monitor - a free alternative to the competition

Oh Dear

If you've never heard of Oh Dear before, now's the chance to become a little more educated about their product.

They've been around for quite some time and offer some of the best SSL monitoring features and loads more.

Key features:

• Global uptime checking to check whether your website is up or down
• A continuous SSL monitoring tool
• Broken link detection

Being able to monitor your SSL is such an important part of being a website owner. Without a valid SSL these days on the internet people will likely leave your website and find another one.

You see, with Oh Dear, their branding and identity has made it easier than ever to be able to monitor an SSL and I really like that they do this continuously as some SSL monitors will only check every so often.

What's more, they're more than just a monitoring tool.

How many times have you added internal links to some of your pages only to find out weeks later that those links don't work?

I'm always anxious about publishing a new blog post or new page just in case I've missed that crucial internal link - Oh Dear will happily crawl your website and check for broken links.

These are some of the reasons that Oh Dear have made our best SSL monitoring tools list!

Rapidspike

Rapidspike's tag line here is that they're able to monitor, protect and improve websites. Your website should be one of them.

Do you plan to have customers purchasing from your website? Or maybe you already do?

When was the last time you saw on TV or in an online article about data breaches within an organisation?

Rapidspike is able to detect client side breaches and improve your website!

Key features:

• Detect client side data breaches
• Protects your website by monitoring things like SSL certificates
• Track user experience

One of the biggest issues that you'll come across as your website and business grows is the amount of data that you're holding on to.

All of this data that's collected needs to be stored somewhere, and access in the browser on the customer's machine somehow.

Rapidspike is able to detect client side data breaches so that you don't have to. Their pricing structure is unique as well, with the ability to customise the features you want by purchasing credits and fine-tuning EXACTLY what you need.

Most SSL monitoring tools and uptime monitors have a few subscription plans, and this is perfect for most people, but sometimes you're paying for features that you'll never use.

So being able to fine tune the features in your plan on Rapidspike certainly should get a point for this alone.

Updown

If you're looking for an affordable SSL monitoring tool then Updown is certainly worth a look. What I really like about Updown is their simplicity and ease of use with their product.

They've got some excellent features including fast checks that'll check your site every 15 seconds and will check from different locations.

Key features:

• 15s check frequency
• SSL checks from multiple locations
• They accept Bitcoin and Altcoins alongside credit cards and Paypal as payment methods

Updown has been serving SSL monitoring and website monitoring since 2012, for this, they've had the chance to build up and fine tune their service and are an excellent choice if you're just looking for simplicity.

Some of Updown's features include SSL testing, double checks and various integrations which include Slack, SMS and a Statuspage.

When I was looking and trying out the best SSL monitors on the internet and trying them out, I often find that the visual UI of the area where you find all of your monitors tends to be quite cluttered in my opinion.

But not with Updown

You'll also like that unlike some of the other monitoring services, they'll accept cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin as a payment method, which is new and refreshing.

The name and branding is also quite interesting isn't it…

What they offer is in the name.

Let's Monitor

Whoever said to you that spending money is absolutely required to monitor your website's SSL certificate is telling lies.

With Let's Monitor, their service is incredibly simple to use and will alert you when your certificates aren't working or need renewal.

Key features:

• FREE to get started
• Easy to use platform
• A free SSL checker on their homepage

The reason that Let's Monitor has made it into our list for the best SSL monitoring tools is because of their free service.

This isn't to say that they don't have other features, in fact, Let's Monitor has recently added the ability for you to monitor your website with HTTPs uptime monitors.

Here at the Domain Monitor, we also provide you with the ability to monitor your website uptime, however, Let's Monitor is an excellent choice of a super simple, efficient and a fix to your website issues is needed.

Conclusion

When trying to find a tool to monitor your website certificates, it's best to try them all - that's the advice I give, also, try several types of tools as well.

If you're looking for the best website monitoring tools, then we've got an article covering this topic as well.

These tools differ slightly from the ones that check your SSL because they tend to offer other kinds of features like IP monitoring and Ping monitoring.

So if you want slightly more, then that is probably the direction you want to go down.