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Checkmk vs Datadog comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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
15th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
25th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
19th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (11th)
Datadog
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (1st), Log Management (4th), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (5th), AI Observability (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 3.8%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Datadog is 6.3%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Datadog6.3%
Checkmk3.8%
Other89.9%
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1704309 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Administrator at a construction company with 201-500 employees
Utilizing data monitoring capabilities and scripting potential to optimize system management
I frequently program functions with PowerShell, and although Bash could be used, my specialization is in PowerShell. Two of us focus on programming in PowerShell for infrastructure optimization. I set up a dedicated server to run scripts every hour, generating files for Checkmk output. However, Checkmk does not allow running scripts at varying intervals. I am working on this in the raw version of Checkmk.
Dhroov Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Site Reliability Engineer at Grainger
Has improved incident response with better root cause visibility and supports flexible on-call scheduling
Datadog needs to introduce more hard limits to cost. If we see a huge log spike, administrators should have more control over what happens to save costs. If a service starts logging extensively, I want the ability to automatically direct that log into the cheapest log bucket. This should be the case with many offerings. If we're seeing too much APM, we need to be aware of it and able to stop it rather than having administrators reach out to specific teams. Datadog has become significantly slower over the last year. They could improve performance at the risk of slowing down feature work. More resources need to go into Fleet Automation because we face many problems with things such as the Ansible role to install Datadog in non-containerized hosts. We mainly want to see performance improvements, less time spent looking at costs, the ability to trust that costs will stay reasonable, and an easier way to manage our agents. It is such a powerful tool with much potential on the horizon, but cost control, performance, and agent management need improvement. The main issues are with the administrative side rather than the actual application.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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."
"Checkmk was built on a platform that was user-friendly, and I could build my charts easily."
"Overall, from one to ten, I rate Checkmk a nine."
"The alerting system in Checkmk really works properly."
"I really like the auto-discovery feature."
"The initial setup of Checkmk was easy...It is a very stable solution."
"The most valuable features of Checkmk are its resource monitoring, infra monitoring, and log factor configuration."
"It's versatile, scalable, and easier to use compared to other solutions like Nagios and OMD."
"The many dozens of integrations that the solution brings out of the box are excellent."
"The most valuable features are logging, the extensive set of integrations, and easy jumpstart."
"Across CCM and the rest of Datadog, I like how sharable everything is."
"It has enhanced the performance of my team."
"The real-time data helps us make informed decisions and optimize our operations, ultimately enhancing our overall efficiency and performance."
"Profiling has been made easier."
"We also use APM and metrics to view the status of our Pub/Sub topics and queues, especially when dealing with undelivered messages."
"The logging in general is one of my favorite features."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"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."
"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 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."
"In Checkmk, the documentation can probably be improved a bit more."
"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."
"Checkmk does not allow running scripts at varying intervals."
"The largest pain point we've had with Datadog to this point was onboarding."
"I would love to see more metrics or analytics in IoT devices."
"I like the idea of monitoring on the go yet it seems the options are still a bit limited out of the box."
"One area where the product could be improved is Application Performance Monitoring (APM)."
"We have contact with many customers that cover many areas, so we have cases where the infrastructure administration could be improved."
"Datadog isn't as mature as some of the established players like Dynatrace or Splunk. It's a new product, so they are constantly releasing new features, and I don't have much to complain about."
"Graph filters for logs need to be set manually which works well for JSON but not for unstructured logs."
"The pricing model could be simplified as it feels a bit outdated, especially when you look at the billing model of compute instances vs the containers instances."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is affordable."
"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."
"The price of Checkmk is cheaper compared to other enterprise products."
"It has always scaled for us. Cost scales up too, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's reasonable for what they're providing."
"Pricing seemed easy until the bill came in and some things were not accounted for."
"It has a module-based pricing model."
"They prefer monthly subscriptions."
"Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics."
"My advice is to really keep an eye on your overage costs, as they can spiral really fast."
"Our licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise99
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering Checkmk?
I would rate Checkmk an eight out of ten, not knowing the final report.
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmk vs. Datadog and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.