Simon is the essential site monitoring tool for Mac OS X. It checks web pages, FTP and DNS servers, local or remote ports, and other services for changes or failures, and notifies you via e-mail, sound, speech, Twitter, HTML reports, and other means.
Add tests to Simon to track updated sites, to alert you when an important server goes down or recovers, check on Samba SMB, take periodic screenshots of the system, track posts and new comments on your or friends' blogs, check for web mail, make sure a key application is running, get notifications of updates to favorite news and
What's New
Version 3.4b1:
New tests now use the Change filter by default, to avoid confusion over new tests not detecting changes. (You can of course alter that to a more specific filter, or disable it.)
Fixed issue where an offline test wouldn't check again until checked manually.
I started using Simon about two weeks ago. Since then, it has done exactly what I hoped it would - let me know when my website servers are down without disrupting my workflow or hindering system memory. I'm quite impressed and look forward to seeing just how reliable my web hosts are. :)
I've used Simon for several years. Quietly monitoring my own sites for uptime and speed. I've always been impressed with the stability of the product. Over the years, new features have been added and I've really taken for granted just how powerful Simon is. With v3.0 I'm very pleased to be able to fine-tune filters and monitor my sites with more granularity.
I really like Simon - its probably not replacing a permanent monitoring solution but it discovered problems with some off my webservers so often that i really don't want to miss it :)
I cannot speak highly enough of this product and company.
Simon allows monitoring of websites to be performed in the background and records of up/down time to be kept. It also allows sophisticated filtering/conditions to be set up on the sites checking for changes etc. The interface is nice and clean and I had this application downloaded, installed and starting to do its job within 15 minutes of purchasing. IMHO - Simon is the best in its class on the Mac.
A word about the company...by far the best customer experience I have had with a software company in a very long time. Quick and honest replies...a real pleasure to deal with.
Product, price and customer service are all winners for me!
Simon is a wonderful monitoring tool, but I was hoping for more robust reporting options in v3. It would be nice to analyze trends, compare data, or simply see a graph of say, ping times over a period of time. Robust reporting really is the 2nd half of any good monitoring service/app.
Thanks for your feedback. Simon 3.0 is a really big upgrade, but there's only so much that can be put in one release (if we ever want to release it!). Improved reporting features are definitely on the wishlist for a future version, along with lots of other great suggestions.
Lets face it monitoring your website is much the same as backing up your computer, you just don't think about it until you have a problem. If you don't use a program such as Simon then the first time you may know you have a problem will be when you accidentally find the problem or even worse, like me, when you are officially given a take down notice because your website had been hijacked for a week.
Simon is a fantastic way of ensuring your personal or business websites are running smoothly and can even let you monitor other (competitors) sites for changes. I've always found Simon to be easy to use and configure and once set up there really is nothing you need to do other than start it and let it alert you to any changes or downtime.
I've been using Simon 2 for a few years and after using the beta version of Simon 3 for a little while I can say without reservation that this is the best version of Simon yet. It has managed to remain a simple to use program but has packed far more features into what was already a pretty feature packed program.
I would have to say Simon 3 really is a necessary upgrade for existing users, there are just simply too many new features and refinements to not consider an upgrade and if you have any type of web presence or website that you care about and don't have this program then you owe it to yourself or your business to buy this program.
This is one of those programs that "runs in the background" and therefore is seldom noticed. It just works! But it's saved my bacon on more than one occasion when a site or blog went down. It pretty much just works out of the box - not hard to figure out at all.
Also, I've never had an issue with it. But the developer has a good rep so I suspect I'd have no problem getting help if I needed it.
I never even knew this software existed! I have been looking for something like this for a while - the thing I like best is the interface and plug in method - rock on!
I really like this app. Like others, I've tried many different monitoring solutions. I don't remember how I stumbled onto Simon (probably here), but very glad I did.
I wasn't expecting too much when I started using Simon; I had used various open source monitoring packages and figured Simon was just going to be a nice GUI to do basically the same thing. I WAS WRONG. Simon is full of nice touches and is a very polished package. The flexibility in setting up a variety of tests and customising the different notifications is simply amazing. And it is so easy to configure. The developer is also very helpful and responsive. This is by far the best software I have purchased this year (& maybe will be all year).
But more to the point, it has already saved me money by giving me a notification about a misbehaving server before the problem became a serious issue.
[Version 2.2.1]
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Simon is the essential site monitoring tool for Mac OS X. It checks web pages, FTP and DNS servers, local or remote ports, and other services for changes or failures, and notifies you via e-mail, sound, speech, Twitter, HTML reports, and other means.
Add tests to Simon to track updated sites, to alert you when an important server goes down or recovers, check on Samba SMB, take periodic screenshots of the system, track posts and new comments on your or friends' blogs, check for web mail, make sure a key application is running, get notifications of updates to favorite news and entertainment websites, keep an eye on auctions, and many other uses.
Services include Web (HTTP) to check web pages (including secure ones, and supporting POST and cookies), FTP files and directory listings, DNS, Ping servers, see Twitter updates, watch a local Application, capture periodic Screenshots, watch for System Log Errors, and more. Plus, you can easily add your own services via custom port connections, AppleScripts, shell scripts, or Perl, PHP, Python, etc.
Receive notification of changes, failures, and/or recoveries via various Actions, auto-generated E-mail messages (including to your pager or cellphone), Growl notifications, Twitter updates or direct messages, iCal or Google Calendar events, an audible Sound, or customizable Speech.
HTML reports allow remote viewing of a summary and/or details of Simon monitoring. Reports can be saved to a local web server, or uploaded remotely. Customizable templates (with several examples provided) allow embedding in a web page, using a compact format suitable for viewing on PDAs and cellphones, creating a RSS feed, and more.
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+12
Skipnjen reviewed on 16 Mar 2011
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+5
Tonycecala reviewed on 17 Nov 2010
+2
+2
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Mdoher1 reviewed on 04 Nov 2010
Simon allows monitoring of websites to be performed in the background and records of up/down time to be kept. It also allows sophisticated filtering/conditions to be set up on the sites checking for changes etc. The interface is nice and clean and I had this application downloaded, installed and starting to do its job within 15 minutes of purchasing. IMHO - Simon is the best in its class on the Mac.
A word about the company...by far the best customer experience I have had with a software company in a very long time. Quick and honest replies...a real pleasure to deal with.
Product, price and customer service are all winners for me!
+1
+135
+1
+2
+14
Kswaterman reviewed on 31 Oct 2010
Simon is a fantastic way of ensuring your personal or business websites are running smoothly and can even let you monitor other (competitors) sites for changes. I've always found Simon to be easy to use and configure and once set up there really is nothing you need to do other than start it and let it alert you to any changes or downtime.
I've been using Simon 2 for a few years and after using the beta version of Simon 3 for a little while I can say without reservation that this is the best version of Simon yet. It has managed to remain a simple to use program but has packed far more features into what was already a pretty feature packed program.
I would have to say Simon 3 really is a necessary upgrade for existing users, there are just simply too many new features and refinements to not consider an upgrade and if you have any type of web presence or website that you care about and don't have this program then you owe it to yourself or your business to buy this program.
+1
+65
MrChips reviewed on 16 Jun 2009
Also, I've never had an issue with it. But the developer has a good rep so I suspect I'd have no problem getting help if I needed it.
+1
+2
WranglerTx reviewed on 27 Aug 2007
+1
+4
garrison reviewed on 20 Feb 2007
But more to the point, it has already saved me money by giving me a notification about a misbehaving server before the problem became a serious issue.
zebrazebra rated on 24 Aug 2011