What Is a Synthetic Transaction?
A synthetic transaction is a pre-recorded sequence of steps, such as log in, search, and check out, replayed automatically against a live system at regular intervals. It measures whether the whole flow completes and how long it takes, independent of real user traffic. Failures or slowdowns in the script alert before customers report them.
Why it matters
A homepage that loads tells you little about whether checkout works. Synthetic transactions exercise full critical paths continuously, catching multi-step breakages real-user metrics might miss during quiet periods.
Related guides
What Is Black-Box Monitoring?Black-box monitoring tests a system from the outside as a user would, checking observable behavior like respo…
What Is an Uptime SLA?An uptime SLA is a contractual commitment to a minimum availability percentage over a period, often with cred…
What Is a Heartbeat Monitor?A heartbeat monitor expects a periodic check-in signal and raises an alert when that signal stops arriving, c…