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Checkmk vs Datadog comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
10th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
12th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (5th)
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
7.1
Number of Reviews
187
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (1st), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Checkmk is 5.6%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Datadog is 10.2%, down from 13.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Paolo Sala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Kevin Palmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful log aggregation and management with helpful metrics aggregation
Datadog provides us value in three major ways: First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance. Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit. Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Checkmk was built on a platform that was user-friendly, and I could build my charts easily."
"The most valuable features of Checkmk are its resource monitoring, infra monitoring, and log factor configuration."
"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."
"It's versatile, scalable, and easier to use compared to other solutions like Nagios and OMD."
"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."
"We can monitor multiple sites using the product."
"The solution has helped out organization gain improved visibility."
"The centralized pipeline tracking and error logging provide a comprehensive view of our development and deployment processes, making it much easier to identify and resolve issues quickly."
"The performance of Datadog is good."
"The two most valuable aspects are the Terraform provider for Datadog and the K8s Orchestrator."
"The observability on offer is the most useful aspect of the product."
"The setup cost was minimal."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution include log search to help triage specific problems that we get notified about (whether by alerts we have configured or users that have contacted us)."
"Each component complements the other, creating a cohesive system where data, logs, and metrics are seamlessly integrated."
 

Cons

"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."
"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 initial setup is a bit complex."
"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."
"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."
"In Checkmk, the documentation can probably be improved a bit more."
"Checkmk does not allow running scripts at varying intervals."
"It is easy for tech-savvy people, but newcomers might find it intimidating."
"One thing to improve would be making it easier to see common patterns across traces."
"The way data is represented can be limiting. When I first tried it out a long time ago, you could graph a metric and another metric, and they'd overlay, but you couldn't take the ratio between the two."
"Datadog could always lower the price!"
"It seems that admin cost control granularity is an afterthought."
"ECS could be improved by including more tutorials for beginners to reduce the barriers to entry."
"I found the documentation can sometimes be confusing."
"Another issue that I have is with the search syntax, it could be simpler and it feels like there are too many ways to do the same things."
"When it comes to storing the logs with Datadog, I'm not sure why it costs so much to store gigabytes or terabytes of information when it's a fraction of the cost to do so myself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Checkmk is cheaper compared to other enterprise products."
"The product is affordable."
"Checkmk is a fairly reasonably priced solution."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable for what they give you. You get the first five hosts free, which is fun to play around with. Then it's about four dollars a month per host, which is very affordable for what you get out of it. We have a lot of hosts that we put a lot of custom metrics into, and every host gives you an allowance for the number of custom metrics."
"Sometimes it's very hard to project how much it will cost for the monthly subscription for the next month when you add certain features. Having better visibility of the cost would give a better experience."
"My advice is to really keep an eye on your overage costs, as they can spiral really fast."
"It didn't scale well from the cost perspective. We had a custom package deal."
"The pricing came up a bit compared to their competitors. It is not that the price has risen, but that the competitors have gone down. They keep adding more features that I would have expected to be baked in at a more nominal price. I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the pricing, but not enough to jump ship."
"Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics."
"While it is an expensive product, I would rate the pricing level at four out of five."
"It is easy to run up a large bill, so become familiar with the cost of each piece of your bill and use the metrics they supply to estimate and monitor your bill."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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.
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...
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: May 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.