Checkmk Reviews

We can monitor host down alarms when any server goes down. And along with this we can monitor server's service alarms like memory, filesystem usage and power supply status and interface status etc.

Need to install agent on servers. It is somewhat time taking process.

With this CheckMK , we are able to monitor ser host down alarms and the server's service alarms

We have been using checkmk for around 6-9 months and it has already caught issues that our previous monitoring would have missed and saved us from large downtime events. The vast number of prebuilt plugins has been impressive, I never dreamed I could get the level of information from devices like Azure, storage, backups, etc, typically items that the vendor restricts what you can gather. They have done a good job of giving you the ability to take the monitoring at default levels, or if you want to spend more time, you can get in and tweak your settings and what information is important to you at what time. I'm a tinker so I love the ability to tune checkmk and dig into the logs and plugins to understand how it works and make the monitoring a perfect fit for our organization. I have opened a few support cases and received good responses and quick resolution. We also utilized their professional services, Anastasios and the team were very helpful and I was impressed with their depth of knowledge. Really, I cannot say enough, I'm glad we discovered checkmk and that it lives up to the monitoring needs that we require.

I dislike that I don't have more time during my workday to spend time with checkmk :) In all seriousness, the only items I dislike are this way by design. There aren't any deployment options to distribute the checkmk client, so migrating to this software can take a bit of time upfront to get it deployed, but this can also be a good thing as it limits what abilities checkmk has for accessing your endpoints so there is less privileged access. Outside of that, I have enjoyed our experience and look forward to continuing to integrate checkmk in our environment.

Our previous monitoring solution was unstable and could only do the basics of up/down and resource levels. There were still a bunch of applications and software that I needed to monitor manually which is very time-consuming (certificate/password expiration for Azure registered applications, SSL/TLS certificate expiration on servers, Citrix licensing, Microsoft 365 licensing, load balancing virtual servers as a few examples). Checkmk is making our small systems support team more efficient, it is like having another member on our team that is keeping an eye on our environment.

- Out of the box setup is simple and provides a great base monitoring platform

- Simple rule based setup and huge amount of customisation potential

- Integration with other platforms is great

- UI is super slick and very professional and intuitive

- Value for money is outstanding

- Can monitor literally anything you can think of

- Customisation potential is incredible

- Support for Ent editions is very responsive

- Amazingly supportive community and CMK Exchange containing community built extensions

- Ability to build own custom scripts and plugins is actually quite simple

- When stuck trying to get something bespoke or custom to work (such as a custom notification or integration) support tend to push towards purchasing additional consultancy - not a big deal to be honest give the cost of the product

- Exchange is lacking a larger selection of extensions

- Replacing 3 different monitoring systems (Nagios, Cacti and syslog)

- Integrates with our ITSM for dynamic automated ticket logging

- Monitors our entire infrastructure

Massive support of hardware devices and software.

Highly customizable to fit our infrastructure.

Influxdb export of metrics.

Rock solid no stability issues.

Large community and frequently updated software stack.

Can be complex to configure.

Some non-intuitive gui elements.

Upgrade complex and time consuming.

Some compatiblity issues on Aix platform (agents)

Flap detection could be more intelligent

Overview of our Business infrastructure components

Checkmk is the only monitoring solution you need. It is setup really fast and can monitor a huge number of things natively and with a little customization there is nothing you cannot do. And if you nonetheless are stuck at some point they have a great support team. They have a great knowledge and help you fast and straightforward.

One great advantage of Checkmk sometimes becomes a disadvantage. It is highly customizable and this might be confusing when you start with it, but with some practice you will become familiar with your needed options pretty soon.

We use the Managed Service Provider version of Checkmk, which makes it very easy to start monitor your customers systems.

Quick setup, detailed status information of hosts/servives. Easy customisable checks for own requirements like license checks etc. Good and active community

Still missing acheck for switch ports that keeps the status across a switch reboot.

Get infomration about outages/trends before the user calls

Easy to work with and manage. The tool is flexible

I think it can be more capable of making things faster to monitor

so far we have an issue with monitoring being stopped without notice on servers

reliable and very good infrastructure monitoring

poor or reduced ability to monitor Kubernetes

Discovering problems in advance thanks to alarms

very many possibilities to check and monitor all kinds of IT systems

the abundance of possibilities may seem complex at first glance

provides an overview of the state of IT systems

A lot of plugins OOB

Possibilitry to extend plugins

Bakery

REST API

The configuration of notifications is sometimes unclear but now with the "fake" which will trigger after one click it will be easier.

The nice thing are availability reports where you can find if any "pattern" occurs and exact times.