Checkmk vs Zabbix comparison

Checkmk and Zabbix are both solutions in the Network Monitoring Software category. Checkmk is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.4, while Zabbix is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Checkmk holds a 3.6% mindshare in NMS, compared to Zabbix’s 13.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Checkmk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Zabbix users who would recommend it.

Checkmk

Read 9 Checkmk reviews

3,526 Views
3,137 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Zabbix

Read 105 Zabbix reviews

17,122 Views
13,019 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Checkmk

Zabbix

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 30, 2025

Zabbix and Checkmk are key players in the open-source monitoring sector. Zabbix seems to have the upper hand with its extensive feature set and strong community support.

Features: Zabbix is known for automated network and metric discovery, high scalability, and a robust API. It provides extensive alerting and integration options with tools like Grafana. Checkmk offers automatic discovery and event management integration, enhancing scalability and administration ease. Both cater to different monitoring needs effectively.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix could enhance user experience and reporting with predictive trending and better dashboard interfaces. Checkmk users want better integration options with other monitoring solutions and user interface improvements to ease configuration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix supports diverse environments including on-premises and hybrid cloud setups. It benefits from a vibrant community, though customer support experiences vary. Checkmk focuses primarily on on-premises deployment, offering straightforward setup though it could use enhanced community resources.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix is completely open-source with no licensing fees, offering high cost-effectiveness. Checkmk has a competitive pricing model, especially for enterprise solutions, delivering good ROI through reduced downtime and system costs.

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

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. Zabbix

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

11th

Ranking in Server Monitoring

5th

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

13th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zabbix

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

1st

Ranking in Server Monitoring

1st

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

1st

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

105

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 3.6%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zabbix is 13.0%, up from 11.2% 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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ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

We have not yet purchased the commercial version so have a lack of technical ability. We do not yet fully know the key points or key features of the solution. We just use what we use along with WhatsUp Gold. Based on our use only, stability is rated a seven out of ten.

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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

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

"Checkmk helps me compare data and foresee issues."

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

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

"I really like the auto-discovery feature."

"We can monitor multiple sites using the product."

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

"The alerting system in Checkmk really works properly."

More Checkmk pros

"The calculations part is the most valuable."

"The most valuable feature is the alert and alarm monitoring."

"The resource usage, CPU utilization, disk usage, network monitoring, network performance, and alerting features are invaluable."

"Zabbix is good for discovery."

"Every new asset placed in the environment can be automatically detected, predicting human failures."

"The solution's design has recently changed and it is visually pleasing with more color, for example, there is blue, black, and white."

"The features I found most valuable are the user interface and a wide range of network devices that are easy to configure."

"I use the solution to provide a perfect environment for remote connectivity with my clients."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"Checkmk does not allow running scripts at varying intervals."

"I think that the integration and the exporting of the data collected are areas where Checkmk lacks but should try to improve the most."

More Checkmk cons

"The APM monitoring has room for improvement, although I hear that the new 5.2 version has some improvements in that area, and I'd like to give that a go. I would like to see a few more templates out there for different styles of monitoring. I use the Grafana interface for reporting. I would also like it to have an out-of-the-box ability to email reports. You can create reports, but to be able to email those reports would be really helpful. I've got users who are not interested in logging in and generating a report. They want it all pre-canned and sent to an email address. It would also be really handy if we could pin certain reports up onto platforms such as Teams or SharePoint. A GUI for the proxy server would be cool to have for debugging purposes and for the support teams to have a look at, but I don't know whether that's really feasible to do. I get enough from the log files themselves."

"One of the things we don't like is that Zabbix has a license structure with a price that is high compared to the competition. It's very high, for example, compared to something like Microsoft Teams."

"The solution needs to add remote features."

"For us, the initial setup was complex"

"I think the reporting part of Zabbix can be improved in terms of more user-friendly graphics to display the collected data. Many simple users who don't know how to use Zabbix properly might get confused by the reporting, although at the same time it is very versatile for my company."

"We had some scalability issues with a large number of nodes."

"The user interface could be better."

"The GUI could be more intuitive. Also, we'd like streaming telemetry. Zabbix might have this feature, but I haven't seen it yet. It took us a long time to get started because the documentation isn't very descriptive. We had to go through various sources like YouTube and forums to get this solution working."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."

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

"The product is affordable."

"It is worth every cent to pay or even study to do your own installation."

"If you have 20,000 hosts, the support costs around €95,000 for a year."

"I was using the free, Community Edition."

"We’re using the free version, which covers all our current needs."

"Zabbix is free but if you use it in production then you have to pay for it."

"This is an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."

"For pricing, it's free. We don't pay anything for it. They open-source the code, and people pay for support."

"Its licensing is fair. It seems to be much cheaper than others."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

34%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

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.

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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...

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What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

The cost is minimal. It is literally free.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

For me, Zabbix is very straightforward. I cannot think of any improvements needed. It's a very mature product. The only issue I can note is that it's Linux-based, and Linux documentation is not the...

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Comparisons

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Compared 9% of the time

LibreNMS vs Checkmk

Compared 7% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Checkmk

Compared 4% of the time

Centreon vs Checkmk

Compared 3% of the time

Observium vs Checkmk

Compared 3% of the time

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LibreNMS vs Zabbix

Compared 10% of the time

Icinga vs Zabbix

Compared 8% of the time

NetXMS vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Centreon vs Zabbix

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios XI vs Zabbix

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Zabbix

March 2025

Download Zabbix 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

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Zabbix

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba

Buyer's Guide

Checkmk vs. Zabbix

April 2025

Free Report: Checkmk vs. Zabbix

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