Is Checkmk or Soketi better?

Neither clearly leads. Checkmk starts at Free and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Checkmk or Soketi?

Checkmk starts at Free and Soketi at Free.

Does Checkmk or Soketi run on more platforms?

Checkmk runs on Web. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.

Can I use Checkmk for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is Checkmk best used for?

Checkmk is most often used for infrastructure monitoring, system observability, enterprise compliance monitoring. Of those, infrastructure monitoring and system observability are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.

What can Checkmk do that Soketi cannot?

Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Technology · head to head

Checkmk vs Soketi

Checkmk

Technology

Comprehensive IT monitoring, open and flexible

From: Free
Free plan: Yes

Full review Website

Soketi

Developer Tools

Self-hosted, Pusher-compatible WebSockets server with a stalled maintenance record

From: Free
Free plan: Yes

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Checkmk pricing calculated by service count, not hosts (approximately 30 services per host on average); Soketi maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Checkmk and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Checkmk and Soketi differ
Attribute	Checkmk	Soketi
Pricing model	subscription	Open source, no licence fee
Platforms	Web	Linux, macOS, Windows
Category	Technology	Developer Tools

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Checkmk

Nothing recorded that Soketi does not also cover.

Only in Soketi

Pusher protocol compatibility
Presence and private channels
Horizontal scaling
App management backends
Webhooks
Prometheus metrics

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Checkmk

Infrastructure monitoringnot Soketi
System observabilitynot Soketi
Enterprise compliance monitoringnot Soketi

Soketi

A Laravel application that already uses Echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime providernot Checkmk
Realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasonsnot Checkmk
A local or CI environment that needs a Pusher-compatible server without hitting a paid accountnot Checkmk
A high-connection-count application where hosted per-connection pricing has become the largest line in the infrastructure billnot Checkmk

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Checkmk

Pricing calculated by service count, not hosts (approximately 30 services per host on average)
Professional support limited to 8-10 hours per week on base plans
Synthetic monitoring is separate add-on with per-test pricing

Soketi

Maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
Dependency drift on Node and uWebSockets.js will eventually force you to fork or migrate, and that cost is unbudgeted at the point you adopt it.
There is no commercial support to buy, so a production incident at three in the morning is entirely your problem with no escalation path.
Scaling beyond a single node needs Redis and careful configuration, and getting presence channels correct across nodes is a genuine source of subtle bugs.
It implements the Pusher protocol rather than tracking it, so any protocol feature Pusher adds later will not appear, and the compatibility guarantee slowly decays.

Pricing, plan by plan

Checkmk

Free

Community (Self-Hosted)Free
- No cost, forever
- Up to ~100 hosts
- Basic infrastructure monitoring
Pro (Self-Hosted)$190/month
- Advanced analytics
- Reporting
- Distributed monitoring
Ultimate (Self-Hosted)$275/month
- Full-stack observability
- Advanced security compliance
- 10 hours x 5 days professional support (upgradable to 24/7)
CloudAI (SaaS)$240/month
- Fully managed cloud hosting
- 99.5% uptime SLA
- Supports up to 50000 services

Soketi

Free

SoketiFree
- MIT licensed
- Unlimited connections subject to your own hardware
- No vendor billing

Which should you pick?

Choose Checkmk if

You want to start without paying.

Checkmk review

Choose Soketi if

You need pusher protocol compatibility.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
You also want presence and private channels.

Soketi review

Questions people ask

Is Checkmk or Soketi better?: Neither clearly leads. Checkmk starts at Free and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Checkmk or Soketi?: Checkmk starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does Checkmk or Soketi run on more platforms?: Checkmk runs on Web. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Checkmk for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Checkmk best used for?: Checkmk is most often used for infrastructure monitoring, system observability, enterprise compliance monitoring. Of those, infrastructure monitoring and system observability are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Checkmk do that Soketi cannot?: Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Checkmk: Is there a free version of Checkmk?

Yes, Checkmk Community edition is free forever and supports up to approximately 100 hosts for basic infrastructure monitoring with no cost.

Source

Soketi: Is Soketi still maintained?

Barely. The maintainer has stated that available time is very limited and releases have been sparse; treat it as community-maintained.

Checkmk: How does Checkmk calculate pricing by host count?

Checkmk uses service-based pricing where each monitored aspect (file system, hardware sensor, switch port, metric) counts as one service. On average, there are approximately 30 services per host.

Source

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

No. Pusher client SDKs and Laravel Echo work by changing the host, port and credentials.

Checkmk: What is the difference between Checkmk Pro and Ultimate tiers?

Pro tier at 190 EUR/month includes advanced analytics and 8x5 support, while Ultimate at 275 EUR/month adds full-stack observability, advanced compliance features, and upgradable 24/7 support.

Source

Soketi: What does it cost?

Nothing in licence fees. It is MIT licensed; you pay for the server it runs on.

Checkmk: Does Checkmk offer a managed SaaS option?

Yes, Checkmk CloudAI is a fully managed SaaS tier at 240 EUR/month with 99.5% uptime SLA and support for up to 50000 services.

Source

Soketi: What are people moving to?

Laravel Reverb for Laravel applications, and Sockudo, a Rust reimplementation, for others.

Checkmk vs Soketi

Checkmk

Soketi

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Checkmk

Only in Soketi

What people use each for

Checkmk

Soketi

Where each one falls short

Checkmk

Soketi

Pricing, plan by plan

Checkmk

Soketi

Which should you pick?

Choose Checkmk if

Choose Soketi if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Checkmk

More on Soketi

Keep looking

Other head to heads