Choosing an IT monitoring platform is a strategic decision – the tool you choose will be with you for years. Checkmk offers several editions to suit different needs and budgets, and the question about the difference between the Raw Edition and commercial versions is one of the most common ones asked by those considering implementing this platform.
Key findings
- Checkmk Raw Edition is a fully functional free version based on Nagios
- Commercial editions (Standard, Managed Services) offer CMC agent, scalability and support
- The key difference is monitoring performance with a large number of hosts
- Raw Edition is a good choice for small and medium-sized environments without SLA requirements
- Commercial editions are advisable with hundreds and thousands of hosts and enterprise requirements
Table of contents
- What is Checkmk and where does it come from?
- Checkmk Raw Edition – what does the free version offer?
- Checkmk Standard Edition – what do the commercial versions add?
- Checkmk Managed Services Edition – for whom?
- Key technical differences: Nagios Core vs CMC
- Scalability and performance in practice
- Support and community
- How to choose the right edition?
- FAQ
- Summary
What is Checkmk and where does it come from?
Checkmk is an IT monitoring platform developed by German company tribe29, combining infrastructure, application and network monitoring in a single tool. It is distinguished by an exceptionally high level of automation – automatic service detection, intelligent configuration management and a rich library of plug-ins make the time required to set up monitoring much shorter than with Nagios or Zabbix.
Checkmk Raw Edition – what does the free version offer?
Checkmk Raw Edition (CRE) is a fully open-source version of the platform, available free of charge and without any license restrictions on the number of hosts or users. It is built on the Nagios Core engine with a Checkmk overlay that significantly simplifies configuration and expands capabilities.
CRE offers automatic service detection, a rich catalog of more than 2,000 official Check Plugins, network monitoring via SNMP, application and database monitoring, customizable dashboards and alerts. It’s a complete tool that for many environments is fully sufficient.
A limitation of Raw Edition is performance with large environments – the Nagios Core engine has its limits when it comes to monitoring scale.
Checkmk Standard Edition – what do the commercial versions add?
Checkmk Standard Edition (CSE) and the newer Checkmk Cloud replace the Nagios Core engine with its own CMC (Checkmk Micro Core) – many times more powerful and optimized for large environments.
Commercial editions also add: built-in Business Intelligence (BI) for aggregating statuses into hierarchical views, PDF reporting, an Event Console module for log and event management, support for distributed monitoring environments with central management, and guaranteed technical support from the manufacturer.
Checkmk Managed Services Edition – for whom?
Checkmk Managed Services Edition (CME) is designed for managed monitoring service providers (MSPs). A key feature is multi-tenancy – the ability to monitor multiple clients from a single instance with full isolation of data and permissions between clients. CME also offers advanced billing and per-client reporting.
Key technical differences: Nagios Core vs CMC
This is the most important technical difference between Raw and commercial versions. Nagios Core is a proven but older engine that was not designed with thousands of hosts and tens of thousands of sites in mind.
CMC is a rewritten monitoring engine from scratch, optimized for performance. The main differences are significantly lower CPU and memory consumption with the same number of hosts, faster check and alert processing times, and better support for distributed environments.
Scalability and performance in practice
In practice, Raw Edition performs well up to about 500-1000 hosts on a single server. Above this scale, higher check latency and higher server load start to be noticeable.
Commercial editions with CMC easily support 5000-10000 hosts on a single server, and in a distributed monitoring configuration – tens of thousands of hosts in a single managed instance.
Support and community
Raw Edition is backed by an active open-source community with a forum and extensive documentation. This is sufficient for experienced administrators. Commercial editions offer guaranteed support response times, dedicated support channels and regularly updated enterprise documentation.
How to choose the right edition?
Raw Edition is a good choice when: the environment has up to a few hundred hosts, there are no SLA requirements for monitoring, there is technical competence in the team to maintain and configure it independently.
Commercial editions are advisable when: the environment exceeds 500-1000 hosts and growing, guaranteed vendor support is needed, advanced reporting and BI features are required, or the organization provides managed monitoring for multiple customers.
FAQ
Can I migrate from the Raw Edition to the commercial edition? Yes – migration is supported by Checkmk tools and preserves the entire configuration.
Does Raw Edition have restrictions on the number of hosts? There are no formal licensing restrictions, but Nagios Core’s performance naturally limits the scale.
Do the commercial editions offer a trial? Yes – Checkmk offers a free trial of commercial editions for a limited time.
Does Checkmk run on containers and in the cloud? Yes – official Docker images and Helm charts for Kubernetes are available, and Checkmk Cloud is optimized for cloud environments.
Summary
The choice between Checkmk Raw Edition and the commercial versions mainly comes down to the scale of the environment and operational requirements. Checkmk Raw Edition is an excellent starting point for smaller environments that can be expanded to the commercial edition as needs grow. Commercial editions with the CMC engine, on the other hand, are the choice for organizations that need performance, scalability and guaranteed support.
