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Checkmk vs Datadog comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Checkmk
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
20th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
31st
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
24th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (13th)
Datadog
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
9th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
3rd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (3rd), Log Management (4th), Container Monitoring (3rd), AIOps (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), AI Observability (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 2.0%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Datadog is 5.3%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Datadog5.3%
Checkmk2.0%
Other92.7%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1704309 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Administrator at a construction company with 201-500 employees
Utilizing data monitoring capabilities and scripting potential to optimize system management
I frequently program functions with PowerShell, and although Bash could be used, my specialization is in PowerShell. Two of us focus on programming in PowerShell for infrastructure optimization. I set up a dedicated server to run scripts every hour, generating files for Checkmk output. However, Checkmk does not allow running scripts at varying intervals. I am working on this in the raw version of Checkmk.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Unified monitoring has improved incident response and now reduces root cause analysis time
One area where Datadog can be improved is around alert quality. In the beginning, it tends to generate many alerts, and without proper tuning, many of them are not actionable. It would help if there were more built-in guidance or smarter defaults to reduce noise. Another improvement area is cost visibility and control. As log and metric ingestion increases, it has not always been straightforward to track which data is driving the cost. More granular and real-time cost insights would make it easier to manage. Additionally, while the dashboards are flexible, navigating and organizing them at scale can become slightly difficult. Better structuring or management options would help in larger environments.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We can monitor multiple sites using the product."
"Checkmk helps me compare data and foresee issues."
"It's versatile, scalable, and easier to use compared to other solutions like Nagios and OMD."
"Overall, from one to ten, I rate Checkmk a nine."
"The initial setup of Checkmk was easy...It is a very stable solution."
"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."
"Checkmk was built on a platform that was user-friendly, and I could build my charts easily."
"The most valuable features of Checkmk are its resource monitoring, infra monitoring, and log factor configuration."
"If we have a large load for users using our basic Datadog, it will immediately fire off an alert notifying us either something's wrong or not."
"Each component complements the other, creating a cohesive system where data, logs, and metrics are seamlessly integrated."
"The ease of correcting these dashboards and widgets when needed is amazing."
"It provides more cloud data. They tend to just get the way a service would be designed on the cloud."
"The server monitoring, service monitoring, and user session monitoring are extremely helpful, as they allow us to be alerted ahead of time of issues that users might experience."
"We have been impressed with the uptime and clean and light resource usage of the agents."
"Customer Service: Never seen better."
"The ease of graph building is nice, and MUCH easier than Prometheus."
 

Cons

"Checkmk does not work too easily with the PowerStore. I use a PowerShell script as Checkmk runs on Linux and a Windows system, connecting with the Checkmk agent."
"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."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"In Checkmk, the documentation can probably be improved a bit more."
"I think that the integration and the exporting of the data collected are areas where Checkmk lacks but should try to improve the most."
"Checkmk does not allow running scripts at varying intervals."
"The main challenge for us is that we're moving from Nagios to Checkmk, and we're still getting used to the new way of working."
"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."
"A tool as powerful as Datadog is, understandably, going to have a bit of a learning curve, especially for new team members who are unfamiliar with the bevy of features it offers."
"As a new customer, the Datadog user interface is a bit daunting."
"Datadog could always lower the price!"
"I'm not sure what kind of features are in the roadmap right now, but I encourage the development of features for defining your organization, and allowing the visibility of what kind of metrics you can get. Those features would be really useful for us."
"The setup was a bit complex."
"As Datadog is a bit on the expensive side, I would recommend it for simple, uncomplicated, solutions."
"The support in Latin America is a point that I would mark as a point to improve."
"Auto instrumentation on tracing has not been very easy to find in the documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."
"The product is affordable."
"The price of Checkmk is cheaper compared to other enterprise products."
"It has a module-based pricing model."
"It didn't scale well from the cost perspective. We had a custom package deal."
"The pricing came up a bit compared to their competitors. It is not that the price has risen, but that the competitors have gone down. They keep adding more features that I would have expected to be baked in at a more nominal price. I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the pricing, but not enough to jump ship."
"They prefer monthly subscriptions."
"Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
"It has always scaled for us. Cost scales up too, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's reasonable for what they're providing."
"Datadog does not provide any free plans to use the solution. When I start with a proof of concept it would be sensible to have a free plan to test the tool and check whether it fits the requirements of the project. Before the production stage, it is always good to have a free plan with some limited features, number of requests, or logs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise100
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Checkmk?
I will get more information about Checkmk when the proof of concept is done. It's going to be before the summer. There will be a report about the tool and a recommendation to use it. So far, it loo...
What is your primary use case for Checkmk?
Checkmk ( /products/checkmk-reviews ) is a monitoring tool, so that's what I will use it for. Right now, it's not in production, but it's in a proof of concept phase. It looks good, so probably, du...
What advice do you have for others considering Checkmk?
I would rate Checkmk an eight out of ten, not knowing the final report.
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmk vs. Datadog and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.