Checkmk vs ControlUp comparison

Checkmk and ControlUp are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Checkmk is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.4, while ControlUp is ranked #37 with an average rating of 7.7. Checkmk holds a 3.9% mindshare in IM, compared to ControlUp’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Checkmk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ControlUp users who would recommend it.

Checkmk

Read 9 Checkmk reviews

3,360 Views
2,982 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ControlUp

Read 11 ControlUp reviews

1,347 Views
907 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Checkmk

ControlUp

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

ControlUp and Checkmk are competitors in the IT management and monitoring software category. ControlUp has the upper hand in features with robust endpoint monitoring and real-time insights, while Checkmk shines in resource monitoring and affordability.

Features: ControlUp is known for its endpoint monitoring, real-time performance insights, and seamless integration with tools like Netscaler and Scoutbees. These features provide a comprehensive analysis of user experience, aiding in problem-solving through automation capabilities. Checkmk excels in resource monitoring and auto-discovery features, offering ease in service detection and integration with existing infrastructure. Its alerting system and adaptability to different operational environments are major highlights.

Room for Improvement: ControlUp requires enhancements in integration and network monitoring capabilities. Reporting and alerting features need to be more comprehensive. Users suggest a more intuitive setup process. Checkmk faces issues in alert management and requires smoother integration with tools like Dynatrace. Although functional, the interface could be more user-friendly to facilitate broader adoption.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: ControlUp supports multiple deployment environments including hybrid cloud and on-premises, with customer service recognized for its responsiveness despite initial delays and feature request backlogs. Checkmk focuses on on-premises setups with a straightforward deployment process. Its customer service, though responsive, could benefit from more efficient support interactions.

Pricing and ROI: ControlUp is competitive in pricing, offering a solid ROI due to its feature set, especially when integrated with VMware. Some users express confusion about additional charges. Checkmk is notable for affordability, providing a cost-effective pricing structure appealing to budget-sensitive organizations while delivering robust solutions at a lower cost.

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

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. ControlUp

March 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 IT Infrastructure Monitoring

13th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (11th), Server Monitoring (5th), Cloud Monitoring Software (12th)

ControlUp

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

37th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 3.9%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ControlUp is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

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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Richasvi Tripathi

Solutions Developer at HCL Technologies

Used to monitor several devices, but most reports do not give information of all the devices

We have approximately 10 to 20 feature requests pending on the vendor side. Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices. In our case, we are monitoring 200000 devices. So, we need details for all those devices, but that is limited to 100, which they have improved to an extent in some reports. I'm thinking of one feature request for ISPs because the dashboard does not provide a detailed list of ISPs, and it provides the wrong list. I feel some firewall issues are blocking that, and the team cannot send that detail. That may be the case. One feature request pending on the vendor side is the data format change. Once you see a detail in the report, it is mentioned in some other format, which is hard to analyze sometimes.

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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

"I really like the auto-discovery feature."

"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."

"The alerting system in Checkmk really works properly."

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

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

"We can monitor multiple sites using the product."

"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."

More Checkmk pros

"The most valuable feature is the granularity of visibility into the resources that are in use by our applications."

"The most valuable features in ControlUp are endpoint monitoring and the many features that are available."

"It has a great career time monitoring tool."

"The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities."

"When using ControlUp, the core feature that we have found valuable is its UI. It is a valuable tool to view the analysis reactions of a base core Level 2 or Level 1 team so that they can complete the necessary troubleshooting."

"ControlUp has some good functionalities, such as remotely pushing scripts in the device through the tool."

"Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service."

"It shows you so many details of what's going on in that log-on that, if there's a problem, you can identify it in five minutes."

More ControlUp pros

Cons

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

"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."

"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."

"In Checkmk, the documentation can probably be improved a bit more."

"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."

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

"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."

More Checkmk cons

"Solve is a quick and intuitive tool for quickly mapping data together, however, once you have the view of the data that you like, it is difficult to share this with colleagues."

"The most common complaint that I have heard, at least within our organization, is about reporting. They have their own reporting. It's just that it doesn't yet include everything that you can look at within the application. You can only report on specific metrics or collections."

"Something I would love to see from a partner perspective would be maybe a way to do this in a surface hosting provider."

"Most reports give information about the top 100 devices, but not all of the devices."

"This solution be improved by including load throttling tools. For example, I can identify a service where we spend a lot of CPU but I cannot restrict the service from ControlUp. I have to use another tool like AppSense."

"It can be improved by including script-based scheduling."

"We'd like to see the mobile app working again so that we can get alerts 24/7. This is especially useful for the person on call."

"Integration is always a problem, and we feel that we are doing our best and the service provider thinks they are doing their best. I guess if ControlUp's system could be more capable or if people could understand the integration part, that would be better."

More ControlUp cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."

"The product is affordable."

"Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive."

"We are satisfied with the price compared to other solutions."

"Personally, I would say that the only thing I could compare it to is another monitoring tool that we use, Nagios."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Healthcare Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ControlUp Real-time?

Based on my experience, ControlUp is not that expensive. It is a cheap tool because it is deployed to many devices where I work.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ControlUp Real-time?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ControlUp Real-time?

We use the tool to monitor approximately 2,00,000 devices for a client. We check how the devices are doing in terms of hardware and software. We also check their health and alerts every day. If som...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk

April 2025

Download Checkmk product report

Buyer's Guide

ControlUp

April 2025

Download ControlUp product report

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

ControlUp is a digital experience monitoring management platform that makes it possible for IT teams to deliver a work-from-anywhere experience for employees. The solution makes fixing and preventing issues easy, enabling IT teams to make smarter decisions. It also provides monitoring performance, availability, and useful productivity metrics.

The ControlUp platform supports:

Any digital workstyle
Physical endpoints
Virtual desktops
Apps
SaaS
Web apps
Unified communications tools

ControlUp Features

ControlUp has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Out-of-the-box device and performance metrics
Custom metric and device data collection
Non-intrusive, secure agents with offline mode
Custom reporting
Easy-to-use dashboards
Scalable SaaS infrastructure
Built-in troubleshooting & remediation actions
Remote assist
Custom script actions
Multiple scripting languages
Automation and alerting

ControlUp Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing ControlUp. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Wide range of platform options: ControlUp offers multiple platform options including Windows, macOS, Linux, and IGE, independent of device location.

Powerful analytics: With ControlUp, you can analyze across your entire infrastructure or you can collect detailed individual device performance.

Optimizes performance: The solution enables you to remediate issues and optimize performance with its support of both manual and automated actions.

Minimize user downtime: ControlUp helps you catch common issues that lead to workflow interruptions. Self-correcting capabilities and comprehensive early-warning systems address issues before they impact employee productivity.

Resolve issues faster: The solution enables you to spend less time on support calls and more time driving value via its real-time troubleshooting and remediation solutions.

Increased visibility of remote environments: Gain real-time visibility across your entire network and find new ways to deliver the best end-user experience possible.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the ControlUp solution.

A Chair, IEEE Consumer Technology Society - Dallas,Texas, USA at a non-profit says, “In terms of the public cloud, ControlUp's features make us feel very secure. Security, uptime, and reduced capital expenditures are the main reasons we use ControlUp. So basically, the money that we consume is based on the amount of time we are using a service. ControlUp offers a return-on-investment type of approach that helps us.”

A VP Virtualisation and Citrix Engineer at BlackRock mentions, “Solve is quickly becoming one of the most-used features. Its interface allows us to connect to all 54,000 monitored endpoints in real-time. The script-based actions have allowed us to extend the core reporting capabilities. Combined with the triggers, we have been growing their usage to fix things before they become an issue. Lastly, the controller view allows us to compare the configurations of settings side-by-side which is extremely helpful when tracking down the RCA of an issue.”

A Senior Citrix Remote Access Engineer at Rabobank comments, “The high-level view of the estate coupled with powerful administration tools has been great. We can see real-time performance and trends and can create triggers for common issues with associated scripts that can automate a lot of the previous manual remediation steps.”

ControlUp

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

B/E Aerospace, North Carolina SECU, Vancouver Island Health Authority, University of Florida

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. ControlUp

March 2025

Free Report: Checkmk vs. ControlUp

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