Checkmk vs Kentik comparison

Checkmk and Kentik are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Checkmk is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.4, while Kentik is ranked #32 with an average rating of 9.0. Checkmk holds a 3.8% mindshare in NMS, compared to Kentik’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Checkmk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Kentik users who would recommend it.

Checkmk

Read 9 Checkmk reviews

3,637 Views
3,176 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Kentik

Read 15 Kentik reviews

1,168 Views
785 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Checkmk

Kentik

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Kentik and Checkmk compete in the network monitoring and resource management sectors. Kentik stands out with its advanced traffic analysis and NetFlow visualization, making it a strong contender for network optimization and security.

Features: Kentik provides advanced traffic analysis and NetFlow visualization tools, making it ideal for network planning and optimization. Its flexible data exploration capabilities and visualization tools like Sankey flow diagrams make it suitable for both real-time and historical analytics. Checkmk features robust resource and infrastructure monitoring with easy auto-discovery, aiding environments with frequent changes like power outages. It offers rule-based configurations and seamless integration with event management tools.

Room for Improvement: Kentik users mention the need for more granular user permissions and better alert customization. The complexity of API usage and lack of direct actionability on detected issues are also highlighted. Checkmk could benefit from a more user-friendly interface, easier alert handling, and improved onboarding processes. Expanding integration options with more third-party solutions and simplifying setup are suggested.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kentik, as a SaaS, ensures straightforward deployment with highly responsive technical support. Users find their proactive customer service remarkable. Checkmk, available for on-premises and private cloud deployment, also receives positive feedback for customer service, though improvements in support efficiency and deployment options are noted.

Pricing and ROI: Kentik's pricing, which is device and flow-based, is seen as premium but justified due to its robust features and ROI in network optimization. Checkmk offers cost-effective pricing, particularly appealing to educational institutions and smaller setups, without compromising on essential monitoring capabilities. Both solutions present strong ROI potential, catering to different budget considerations with Kentik as a high-value investment for larger operations and Checkmk offering an affordable yet reliable alternative.

To learn more, read our detailed Checkmk vs. Kentik Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. Kentik

April 2025

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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

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Monitoring (5th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (12th), Cloud Monitoring Software (12th)

Kentik

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

32nd

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 3.8%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kentik is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Paolo Sala

Application performance and System monitoring at Agos

A reasonably priced tool for system and application monitoring

The main room for improvement is in the solution's presentation and the integration area. In our company, we use the integration capabilities from ServiceNow. We also have another big monitoring solution in place in our company, which is Dynatrace. At the moment, there doesn't exist an out-of-the-box integration for Dynatrace. I think that the integration and the exporting of the data collected are areas where Checkmk lacks but should try to improve the most. The only implementation of Checkmk that allows high availability is the virtual appliance that has the option for the availability of a different box. Otherwise, you have to find a way to implement it manually with some custom solution, which could be an improvement.

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ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON

Sales Manager at IFX NEtworks

Client experience and cybersecurity have improved with an easy setup

The solution is valuable for client experience, especially in the financial sector. The most important feature is cybersecurity. The pricing is good, but the functionality is the most important aspect for clients. The solution is easy to deploy and requires only one person to set up, making it easy and quick. Overall, the ease of use and the fact that it meets client expectations are major positives.

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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."

"I really like the auto-discovery feature."

"The most valuable features of Checkmk are its resource monitoring, infra monitoring, and log factor configuration."

"The initial setup of Checkmk was easy...It is a very stable solution."

"Overall, from one to ten, I rate Checkmk a nine."

"It's versatile, scalable, and easier to use compared to other solutions like Nagios and OMD."

"Checkmk was built on a platform that was user-friendly, and I could build my charts easily."

More Checkmk pros

"It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics."

"I am able to do a lot of work on the visualization end to create different visualizations and different ways to get information out of it."

"Monitoring operational efficiency is easy."

"In terms of the solution’s real-time visibility across our network infrastructure, I have not been able to find any other monitoring or netflow visualization tool that gives me the kind of information I get from Kentik. If I need to take a deep-dive into something that I see, it's really easy for me to do that. Whereas with most other things, I have to use five or six other tools to get that kind of data, with Kentik, I have it all in one place."

"The most valuable features have been anything around traffic engineering: being able to determine the source or destination of a surge of traffic, whether it's DDoS-related, or a customer just happened to have a sudden uptick in traffic. Being able to tell where that's coming from or where it's going to enables us to do things based on that."

"Kentik excels in telemetry within data centers and works well in multi-vendor environments."

"We're pretty happy with the API functionality. It's web, and it's very simple to set up queries. It has served us well and you don't need to be an expert on the API or the product to set these things up."

"The most important feature is cybersecurity."

More Kentik pros

Cons

"It is easy for tech-savvy people, but newcomers might find it intimidating."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

More Checkmk cons

"I've checked out the V4 version of the interface and it's still a little bit clunky for me to use. I still go back to the old interface. That's definitely one that they still need to work on. It doesn't seem like everything that you get in the V3, the older interface, is there. For instance, I was trying to add a user or do the administrative tasks in V4, and I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to do that."

"We asked for a way, regarding the potential networks that exist, to hook Kentik up with external tools like peering DBs to correlate things together and see what we can do... This is all in the [next] beta now."

"I would like to see them explore the area of cost analysis."

"Sometimes, the tool has complications, so we must deal with the additional support from the tool's end."

"In recent months, I've noticed that while the industry is trending towards AI, Kentik has room for improvement in this area."

"I consider the pricing model as an area for improvement."

"There is room for improvement around the usability of the API. It's a hugely complex task to call it and you need a lot of backing to be able to do it. I should say, as someone who's not in networking, maybe it's easier for people who are in networking, but for me that one part is not very user-friendly."

"The product could strive for more improvements to become closer to perfect."

More Kentik cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Checkmk is cheaper compared to other enterprise products."

"The product is affordable."

"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."

"The tool is cheaply priced."

"We have an annual contract with Kentik that we renew each year for a set number of licenses. We also have some burstable licenses which we can spin up and spin down, and those are paid as they are used."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Checkmk?

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.

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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...

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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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Kentik?

It offers a simple yet powerful feature of classifying applications, going beyond basic statistics.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?

The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Kentik?

The product could strive for more improvements to become closer to perfect.

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk

May 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Kentik

April 2025

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Overview

Checkmk is a powerful tool for monitoring IT infrastructure, providing vital insights on servers, databases, network devices, and custom applications.

Primarily used for supervising IT infrastructure, Checkmk helps organizations ensure service availability by monitoring hosts, processes, load, storage, and network appliances. With support for both Linux and Windows environments across multiple data centers, Checkmk performs compliance checks and preserves historical data for core network devices.

What are the key features of Checkmk?

Auto-discovery: Automatically identifies new hosts and applies monitoring rules.
Custom monitoring: Enhances MySQL performance tracking.
Slack integration: Provides immediate downtime alerts.
Graphical trend analysis: Offers 400 days of trend data.
Multiple site monitoring: Ensures seamless data synchronization through task automation.
Resource and infrastructure monitoring: Configures log factors to fit budget constraints.
System metric imports: Includes servers, SQL, file systems, and application monitoring.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Time-saving: Auto-discovery and task automation streamline processes.
Proactive alerts: Immediate downtime notifications optimize response times.
Historical insights: Long-term graphical trend analysis aids strategic planning.
Cost efficiency: Resource monitoring aligned with budget constraints.

Checkmk is deployed extensively in large enterprise environments for monitoring critical infrastructure. It proves particularly useful under conditions of frequent power outages or network issues, helping maintain smooth operations. While the alert acknowledgment process and interface require improvements, and the lack of an agent-less platform complicates server management, the strengths in auto-discovery, integration, and comprehensive monitoring make Checkmk a strong contender for IT infrastructure monitoring.

Checkmk

Kentik's AIOps Network Traffic Intelligence platform unifies network operations, performance, security, and business intelligence.

With a purpose-built big data engine delivered as public or private SaaS, Kentik captures a high-resolution view of actual network traffic data and enriches it with critical application and business data, so every network event or analysis can be tied to revenue & costs, customer & user experience, performance & risk.

Kentik

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent.

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. Kentik

April 2025

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