Checkmk

Checkmk is an open-source and self-hosted web app and server that monitors IT infrastructure and applications. It tracks physical, virtual, containerized, and cloud environments through a centralized web-based interface. The software is deployed as a server on Linux systems or as Docker containers, allowing administrators to maintain full control over their monitoring data and configuration.

Users can monitor systems using both agent-based and agentless methods to gather telemetry from a wide array of sources. The system is designed for low resource consumption and scales from small environments with basic requirements to large enterprise infrastructures. It provides visibility into hardware health, network performance, and application metrics across various operating systems and cloud providers.

Key features

• Support for agent-based and agentless monitoring
• Integration with hundreds of official and community plugins
• Monitoring for Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, and GCP environments
• Application metrics collection via OpenTelemetry
• Automated host registration and push agents
• Distributed monitoring for large scale deployments
• Support for LDAP and REST API integrations
• Multi-tenancy for managed service providers

The software is available in several editions, starting with the Community edition licensed under GNU GPL v2. This version includes the core monitoring engine and a web UI for smaller environments. Higher tiers provide additional automation, built-in dashboards, and specialized tools for ephemeral cloud environments. It is compatible with RedHat, Ubuntu, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, providing official DEB and RPM packages for these distributions. For those who prefer not to manage the underlying server, a SaaS version is also available.

Checkmk serves as a comprehensive monitoring solution for system administrators and DevOps teams. It positions itself as a scalable tool capable of handling everything from a few servers to complex, multi-tenant managed service provider environments.