We compared Zabbix and Checkmk based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Zabbix stands out for its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, customization options, and excellent customer service, while Checkmk is praised for its monitoring capabilities, reporting options, and ease of use. Zabbix users commend its performance and flexibility, while Checkmk users appreciate its ease of navigation and detailed reporting. Both products offer reasonable pricing and positive ROI, but Zabbix users suggest improvements in the user interface and integration capabilities, while Checkmk users seek enhancements in user-friendliness, documentation, alerts, and scalability.
Features: Zabbix stands out for its extensive customization options, while Checkmk impresses with its comprehensive reporting capabilities. In addition, Zabbix offers robust performance and intuitive dashboards, while Checkmk provides real-time insights and customizable reports.
Pricing and ROI: Zabbix offers a reasonably priced solution with a flexible licensing model, while Checkmk has found to be reasonable and affordable. Zabbix emphasizes a straightforward setup process, whereas Checkmk offers an easy setup process without any associated costs. Both products have received positive feedback from users regarding their setup cost., Zabbix users praise its performance and customization options, helping improve efficiency and prevent costly incidents. Checkmk users report significant improvements in monitoring efficiency and effectiveness, resulting in time and cost savings.
Room for Improvement: Zabbix users request improvements in user interface, documentation, customization options, and integration capabilities. Checkmk users express concerns about interface design, documentation, alerting system, scalability, and performance in larger networks.
Deployment and customer support: The reviews for Zabbix and Checkmk indicate that the time required to establish a new tech solution varies among users. Some users of Zabbix spent three months on deployment and a week on setup, while others required a week for both deployment and setup. Checkmk also had users reporting varying durations, with some taking three months for deployment and an additional week for setup, and others taking only one week for both. The context in which users use the terms "deployment" and "setup" should be considered when evaluating these timeframes., Zabbix's customer service is highly praised for their promptness, helpfulness, and strong commitment to resolving issues efficiently. Checkmk's customer service is appreciated for their prompt response, helpful assistance, and reliable solutions.
The summary above is based on 28 interviews we conducted recently with Zabbix and Checkmk users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"We can manage the entire system across the network and troubleshoot the pain points."
"The most valuable features of Checkmk are its resource monitoring, infra monitoring, and log factor configuration."
"We can monitor multiple sites using the product."
"The initial setup of Checkmk was easy...It is a very stable solution."
"I really like the auto-discovery feature."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it has a lot of different pieces, and they all work together...It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It's versatile, scalable, and easier to use compared to other solutions like Nagios and OMD."
"Setup was straightforward. Initial deployment took two or three months."
"The solution is open-source, easy to manage, and user-friendly making it easy for anyone to use."
"The most valuable features of Zabbix are flexibility and a single interface for different types of monitoring."
"Zabbix can use old data to current data to set the threshold. We can use previous data to set the threshold."
"I like being able to use proxy servers for different locations. The agents are pretty cool. They're easy to roll out. The standard out-of-the-box templates are also pretty easy to use. The integration with other learning products is also good. I have, in the past, used Slack, but we've integrated it with Microsoft Teams. We also use it for SMS with a service called Redcoat. It is very flexible. It does what I need it to do, and my manager is very happy because it doesn't cost anything. We are nearing 4,000 hosts inside Zabbix, and we've got another 6,000 access points to add to it. We've thrown everything at it, and it has managed to keep going. I am very impressed with the tool, and I'd shake their hand very hard if I got to say the compliments to the Zabbix team. They keep improving it and doing refreshes, which is one good thing about it. There is also online information as well as books that you can purchase if you're willing to read enough. There is a lot to pick up, but it is a pretty complete solution."
"Zabbix is a cost-effective solution. We're a small organization with a few dozen devices to monitor, and it was available for free. We can see what we need. We haven't done an in-depth analysis on it, but we're currently okay with the product."
"Like other common Linux distributions, some of the most valuable features of this solution are the ease of use and deployment. It's simple and has a lot of packages and a lot of software."
"I have found that the reporting feature in Zabbix is most valuable. Additionally, the solution has given us bandwidth options, we are able to see where problems are. For example, we noticed a problem that occurred because of a bad interface going in the wireless VLAN."
"The Wi-Fi side needs improvement."
"If an alert is generated for a specific pattern in the log, and if Checkmk catches that log, it will stay there even after the alert is resolved."
"It is easy for tech-savvy people, but newcomers might find it intimidating."
"I think that the integration and the exporting of the data collected are areas where Checkmk lacks but should try to improve the most."
"Sometimes we receive alerts, and it can become annoying when you acknowledge an alert. It is very clunky when you acknowledge the alert. The process is not very intuitive, and there are instances where it feels a bit cumbersome to acknowledge an alert."
"In Checkmk, the documentation can probably be improved a bit more."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"Its UI needs to be improved a little bit more so that an end-user is also able to handle it. I can handle it, but others should also be able to handle it in a better way. It becomes complex when we are growing and need to add proxies. We need more scalability features and documentation for different use cases. A lot of articles are available, but they need to be in proper documentation. For example, when you have thousands of servers that have to be monitored in different regions of the world, there should be some kind of documentation to describe how you can create proxies and add them. Sometimes, when you are using the database, it can get overloaded. When the network is growing, the number of transactions becomes very high, and the database gets overloaded. There should be information about how to reduce the load on the MySQL database, which is what Zabbix is using. The market is growing a lot, and it should be enhanced for a lot more things. We are currently bringing enhancements at our end for different use cases. For example, when dockerization is going on, how can we check the logs inside the Dockers. We should also be able to monitor and check the number of logins and add features such as SSO login and two-factor authentication as a protocol. These are the security features and concerns that we have to deal with. Currently, we are developing modules to add features to Zabbix, but they should also work on these features."
"It would be helpful if they translated the documentation to Cyrillic languages."
"There are a lot of areas for improvement, specifically in the dashboards and reports functionalities."
"Documentation terminology could be improved."
"The documentation could be improved."
"It could be more stable."
"When we have a problem, we have to do a lot of research to solve it."
"Zabbix isn't very good at automation just yet."
Checkmk is ranked 21st in Network Monitoring Software with 6 reviews while Zabbix is ranked 1st in Network Monitoring Software with 101 reviews. Checkmk is rated 8.6, while Zabbix is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Checkmk writes "A reasonably priced tool for system and application monitoring". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zabbix writes "Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes". Checkmk is most compared with Icinga, Netdata, Centreon, Observium and Nagios XI, whereas Zabbix is most compared with Centreon, SolarWinds NPM, Nagios Core, Nagios XI and Amazon CloudWatch. See our Checkmk vs. Zabbix report.
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