What is DNS monitoring?

DNS monitoring checks a domain's DNS records on a schedule and tells you when they change. Pulsetic checks the A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT and CAA records on each domain you monitor and its www subdomain every hour, keeps a history of every record added, removed or changed, and can alert you about each change.

Which DNS records does Pulsetic check?

Seven record types: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT and CAA. They are checked on the domain itself and on its www subdomain. Other subdomains, such as mail or api, are not checked.

How often does Pulsetic check DNS?

Once an hour, for every domain you monitor. A change is confirmed only once two checks in a row see it, so a record that flaps back or a resolver still serving an old answer does not raise an alert.

Why does a DNS change alert arrive an hour or two after the change?

Because Pulsetic checks hourly and waits for a second check to see the same change before it counts. That filters out propagation noise, so the alerts you get are about changes that stuck.

How do I turn on DNS change alerts?

Open the domain's settings and switch on Enable DNS Record Change Alerts. Alerts are off by default for each domain, and the change history is kept either way. Alerts go by email or webhook, or by SMS, phone call, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, Mattermost, Datadog or SIGNL4.

How do I know if my DNS has been hijacked?

Look for records you did not change: NS records pointing at nameservers you do not use, an A record sending visitors to an unfamiliar IP address, or an MX record routing your email somewhere new. Pulsetic's change history shows each of those with the old and new values and the date it was confirmed. It cannot tell you who made a change, so check your registrar and DNS provider accounts when one surprises you.

How can I check my DNS records right now?

Use the free DNS lookup to read the live records for any domain, or the DNS propagation checker to see whether a change has reached resolvers around the world. For email, the MX lookup shows where mail for a domain goes.

Does Pulsetic measure DNS response time or check DNSSEC?

No. Pulsetic's DNS monitoring watches what your records say, not how fast your nameservers answer, and it does not validate DNSSEC signatures. If a hostname stops resolving altogether, the website stops answering, and an uptime monitor on it alerts you.

Is DNS monitoring part of domain monitoring?

Yes. Every domain you add to domain monitoring gets its DNS checked as well, next to its expiry date, registrar and transfer lock status. There is nothing extra to set up beyond turning on the alerts.

Can I use DNS monitoring on the free plan?

Yes. The DNS checks and the change history come with every domain you monitor, and change alerts by email and webhook work on the free plan. The pricing page lists the other alert channels.

DNS monitoring that tells you when a record changes

Pulsetic checks the DNS of every domain you monitor once an hour and logs each record that is added, removed or changed, with the values before and after. Turn on alerts and your team hears about every change that sticks.

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What DNS monitoring checks

DNS monitoring reads a domain’s records on a schedule and tells you when they change. Pulsetic does it for every domain you add to domain monitoring, with nothing extra to set up.
Record types

AAAAACNAMEMXNSTXTCAA

Hosts

The domain and its www subdomain

How often

Every hour

When a change counts

Once two checks in a row see it, so alerts come 1 to 2 hours after a change

History

Every confirmed change, with its date and the values added and removed

Alerts

Off until you turn them on for a domain, then sent to the channels you pick

Every change, before and after

Each domain keeps a DNS change history. When a record changes, you see which host and record type moved, what was added and what was removed, so you can tell a planned migration from an edit nobody expected.

Old and new values

An MX swap shows the new mail host in green with the old one in red right below it.

Kept with alerts off

The history fills in whether or not alerts are on, so you can look back after the fact.

Alerts where you choose

Email or webhook, or SMS, phone call, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, Mattermost, Datadog or SIGNL4.
example.com

DNS change history

Last checked
Oct 15, 08:47

Last changed
Oct 14, 09:12
1. Oct 14, 09:12
  
  MXexample.com
  
  + 1 smtp.mailhost.example − 10 mx.oldhost.example
  
  TXTexample.com
  
  + v=spf1 include:_spf.mail.example ~all − v=spf1 include:spf.old.example ~all
2. Oct 9, 16:40
  
  Awww.example.com
  
  + 198.51.100.7 − 203.0.113.24
3. Sep 30, 11:05
  
  CAAexample.com
  
  + 0 issue "letsencrypt.org"

Why DNS changes are worth watching

A server can be healthy while its DNS sends visitors or email somewhere else. Most of these changes are planned. The ones that are not are the first visible sign of a hijacked domain, a compromised registrar account or a bad edit.

AAAAA

Where the website lives

A new address sends every visitor to a different server, which might be yours after a migration or might not be.
NS

Who answers for the domain

New nameservers hand control of every record to whoever runs them. An NS change you did not make is the classic sign of a hijacked domain.
MX

Where email goes

A changed MX record can stop inbound email or route it to someone else’s server, and nothing on the website looks wrong.
TXTCAA

Who can send and who can issue

TXT holds SPF and verification records that decide whether your email is trusted. CAA decides which authorities may issue certificates for the domain.

Records, not resolver speed

Some DNS monitoring tools time how fast nameservers answer. Pulsetic watches what your records say. Here is where its checks stop, and what covers the rest.
Lookup speed

Not measured.

A name that stops resolving

The website stops answering, so an uptime monitor on it alerts you.

DNSSEC

Signatures are not validated.

Other subdomains

Only the domain and www are checked. Add an uptime monitor for any other hostname that matters.

Who made a change

Not recorded. Your registrar and DNS provider logs have that.

"Pulsetic made monitoring something I barely think about anymore. The interface is clean and the tracking is real-time, so I can glance at my site’s performance and get back to work."

Koen Kanters

Senior Software Engineer at ASML

"Pulsetic is easy-to-use and simple to get started. As an agency, I like that it includes unlimited status pages, because I can create one for each of my clients. Pulsetic includes every alert channel that I want, and advanced settings that give me greater confidence in the uptime. I can require that a response include certain text and respond within a certain timeframe in order for a site to be considered online. This gives me assurance that we would be notified if there were major performance issues or a bad deployment that made the site unusable. These features come with every paid plan, so our monthly bill is predictable. The API is a huge bonus on the teams plan. We have used it to add maintenance windows for certain monitors automatically based on events that happen in other software we use."

Christopher Morbitzer

CEO at NorthBuilt

"Pulsetic’s monitoring is easy to set up via their super clean, user-friendly UI. I was up and running within only a few minutes. A helpful knowledge base is available for webmasters to refer to if needed. Pulsetic’s pricing is also some of the most competitive in the industry. I highly recommend them for emerging and established agencies alike."

Scott Werley

Owner at Sporulate Design

"Pulsetic is easy to set up and integrate. You don’t need much time to get it running. The interface is clear and simple. It’s easy to see what’s going on at a glance. The design looks great, too. I had no trouble finding what I needed and monitoring my sites is straightforward. If you want a simple tool that works well, Pulsetic is a good choice."

Aryo Sayogha

CEO at MBDC Media

"The monitoring tool we’ve been waiting for. Super easy to set up monitoring, customizable status page design, and access to notifications across Slack, email and SMS. Pulsetic is awesome."

Andrei Negrau

CEO at Siena AI

"Tens of thousands of business owners from around the world rely on our service, and Pulsetic is the best platform there is to ensure we communicate any downtimes clearly and swiftly to our customers to avoid panic and disappointment. Getting setup on Pulsetic not only been smooth and easy but super joyful too, the design is stunning and customisable unlike any other monitoring platform we’ve used."

Leo Bassam

Founder, CEO at Plutio

"Pulsetic cut down our uptime monitoring work a lot. We automated uptime tracking and SLA reporting, which took a chunk of manual effort out of our monthly and annual reports. The Slack and email alerts let the team jump on problems quickly, and the API is what really sold us, since we point a dedicated health-check endpoint at it and pull uptime data straight into our internal workflows."

Mariana Kodama

Treasurer, Fundacion Jorge Luis Borges

"There’s an easy way for you to monitor your online project. After all the hard work you have put into going live, you want to make sure that things keep running smoothly while you focus on the next project."

Chris Kalmar

Founder at nineLemon

"Pulsetic is fast and genuinely easy to use. The UI is clean and has the features we actually needed, the status pages look good, and being able to route alerts to several channels was a real plus for us."

Akis Laopodis

Founder at Qurioos

"Pulsetic helps us monitor all of our websites and webapps over at Pairing.dev. Before we used it, we had no idea how often services (e.g. heroku) were offline. Now we have complete control over it."

Till Carlos

Founder at Pairing.dev

"Using Pulsetic is a big win for us! Our dev team can now deliver faster, with zero time spent monitoring our website uptime. Plus the interface is great and analytics proper."

Razvan Popescu

Head of Marketing at AbstractAPI

4.8/5 on G2 (225 reviews)

Set up DNS monitoring in three steps

1

Add a domain

Add it as a domain monitor. Pulsetic reads its registry record and starts checking its DNS every hour.
2

Turn on alerts

In the domain’s settings, switch on Enable DNS Record Change Alerts and pick where they go.
3

Read the history

Each confirmed change lands in the domain’s DNS change history, with the values before and after.

FAQ: DNS Monitoring

What is DNS monitoring?

DNS monitoring checks a domain's DNS records on a schedule and tells you when they change. Pulsetic checks the A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT and CAA records on each domain you monitor and its www subdomain every hour, keeps a history of every record added, removed or changed, and can alert you about each change.
Which DNS records does Pulsetic check?

Seven record types: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT and CAA. They are checked on the domain itself and on its www subdomain. Other subdomains, such as mail or api, are not checked.
How often does Pulsetic check DNS?

Once an hour, for every domain you monitor. A change is confirmed only once two checks in a row see it, so a record that flaps back or a resolver still serving an old answer does not raise an alert.
Why does a DNS change alert arrive an hour or two after the change?

Because Pulsetic checks hourly and waits for a second check to see the same change before it counts. That filters out propagation noise, so the alerts you get are about changes that stuck.
How do I turn on DNS change alerts?

Open the domain's settings and switch on Enable DNS Record Change Alerts. Alerts are off by default for each domain, and the change history is kept either way. Alerts go by email or webhook, or by SMS, phone call, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, Mattermost, Datadog or SIGNL4.
How do I know if my DNS has been hijacked?

Look for records you did not change: NS records pointing at nameservers you do not use, an A record sending visitors to an unfamiliar IP address, or an MX record routing your email somewhere new. Pulsetic's change history shows each of those with the old and new values and the date it was confirmed. It cannot tell you who made a change, so check your registrar and DNS provider accounts when one surprises you.
How can I check my DNS records right now?

Use the free DNS lookup to read the live records for any domain, or the DNS propagation checker to see whether a change has reached resolvers around the world. For email, the MX lookup shows where mail for a domain goes.
Does Pulsetic measure DNS response time or check DNSSEC?

No. Pulsetic's DNS monitoring watches what your records say, not how fast your nameservers answer, and it does not validate DNSSEC signatures. If a hostname stops resolving altogether, the website stops answering, and an uptime monitor on it alerts you.
Is DNS monitoring part of domain monitoring?

Yes. Every domain you add to domain monitoring gets its DNS checked as well, next to its expiry date, registrar and transfer lock status. There is nothing extra to set up beyond turning on the alerts.
Can I use DNS monitoring on the free plan?

Yes. The DNS checks and the change history come with every domain you monitor, and change alerts by email and webhook work on the free plan. The pricing page lists the other alert channels.