DebugBear vs Request Metrics (2026): which should you pick?

Pick DebugBear if

• Fits if you need lab, real-user and CrUX speed data for a site in one account
• Works for developers who want slow-page fixes as prompts for Claude Code or Cursor

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you have one small site, at $99 a month on yearly billing with no free plan
• Tight if you run several sites, as Startup covers 1 project and Team at $249 has 5
• Watch out: extra real-user page views, tests and projects are added for an extra monthly fee
• Not for you if you need SSO or invoice payment, which are Enterprise only at a custom price

Pick Request Metrics if

• Fits if you want real-user Core Web Vitals and weekly Lighthouse tests on one bill
• Works for teams of any size, as every paid plan includes unlimited users

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you're staying free: 1 site, 1,000 page views a month and 24 hours of data
• Watch out: page views are capped per minute, so traffic above the limit during a spike is left out of the data
• Not for you if you want a refund, as payments aren't refunded and cancelling deletes the account's data at once
• Pricey if you need performance budgets or error monitoring, which start at Professional, $88 a month billed yearly
• Skip it if you want to host it yourself, which is offered only on Enterprise plans

DebugBear

• There is no free plan; after the 14-day trial, plans start at $99 a month on yearly billing.
• Startup covers 1 project and 10 users; more projects need Team (5) or Corporate / Agency (100).
• Extra RUM page views, synthetic tests and projects can be added to a plan for an extra monthly fee.
• Single sign-on, invoice payment and custom data retention come only with the custom-priced Enterprise plan.

Request Metrics

• Monitored page views are capped per minute, so traffic above the limit during a spike is left out of the data rather than billed.
• The free plan keeps 24 hours of data for one site; RUM and Lighthouse tests start at Essentials, $34 a month billed annually.
• Its billing page says payments are not refunded, and cancelling closes the account at once and deletes its data.
• Self-hosting is offered only on Enterprise plans.

DebugBear

Synthetic monitoring

Scheduled and on-demand Lighthouse lab tests from test locations around the world, including pages behind a login and multi-step user flows.

Real user monitoring

Measures Core Web Vitals for real visitors and shows which page elements and scripts cause slow interactions that hurt INP.

Google CrUX data

Tracks Chrome User Experience Report data over time and compares your site's real-visitor speed with competitors.

Waterfalls and recommendations

Request waterfalls tied to CPU and rendering activity, automatic fix suggestions, and ready-made prompts for coding agents such as Claude Code or Cursor.

Page speed experiments

Try an optimization on a test run to see its effect before deploying the change to the live site.

Alerts, comparisons and exports

Automatic alerts on regressions, before-and-after comparisons, chart annotations, video exports and PDF or CSV reports. Data is kept for 24 months.

Request Metrics

Lighthouse performance testing

Lighthouse tests on desktop and mobile check your top pages every week, and on-demand runs confirm whether a change made a page faster.

Real-user monitoring

Records how actual visitors load your pages, with load times, device types and network speeds, shown in real time.

Core Web Vitals attribution

Points to the elements that are slow to paint or that shift during load, and to the slow resources and third-party vendors behind them.

Competitor benchmarks

Uses Chrome UX Report data to track the real-user scores of competing sites alongside your own.

Privacy and ad-block handling

The vendor says it uses no cookies, stores no IP addresses and keeps data in Canada; a custom hostname keeps browser extensions from blocking the script.

CSV export

Any dashboard or filtered report can be exported as CSV for analysis elsewhere.

DebugBear

• Startup$99

  per month, billed yearly ($1,188 a year)

  4,000 synthetic tests (about 125 pages tested daily), 100,000 RUM page views, 10 uptime monitors, 1 project and 10 users.

• Team$249

  per month, billed yearly ($2,988 a year)

  10,000 synthetic tests (about 320 pages daily), 500,000 RUM page views, 50 uptime monitors, 5 projects and 50 users.

• Corporate / Agency$699

  per month, billed yearly ($8,388 a year)

  50,000 synthetic tests (about 1,600 pages daily), 2 million RUM page views, 100 monitors, 100 projects and unlimited users.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom quotes with invoice payment, single sign-on, security forms, custom contracts and data retention, training and Slack support.

Request Metrics

• Free$0

  1 user, 1 website and 1,000 page views a month, with Core Web Vitals, email alerts and 24 hours of data.

• Essentials$34

  per month for 75,000 page views, billed annually ($37 billed monthly)

  Unlimited users, RUM, Lighthouse tests, SEO tracking and 30 days of data. Each extra 25,000 page views adds $10 a month billed monthly.

• Professional$88

  per month for 500,000 page views, billed annually ($96 billed monthly)

  Adds budgets, traffic analytics, error monitoring, user activity, SSO and 90 days of data. Extra 50,000 page views add $4 a month.

• CustomCustom

  Professional features plus dedicated support, staff training, and invoicing with payment terms.

DebugBear

• Annual discount

  Save 20% with yearly billing

  DebugBear's pricing page marks yearly billing as a 20% saving over paying month to month.

Request Metrics

• Annual discount

  Lower monthly rate with annual billing

  The pricing page lists Essentials at $34 a month billed annually against $37 billed monthly, and Professional at $88 against $96.