Is Checkmk or Stackdriver better?

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

Which is cheaper, Checkmk or Stackdriver?

Checkmk starts at Free and Stackdriver at Free.

Does Checkmk or Stackdriver run on more platforms?

Checkmk runs on Web. Stackdriver runs on Web, API.

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 Stackdriver is typically brought in for.

What can Checkmk do that Stackdriver cannot?

Stackdriver covers Log management, Metrics collection, Real-time monitoring, Error reporting.

Logging · head to head

Checkmk vs Stackdriver

Checkmk

Logging

Comprehensive IT monitoring, open and flexible

From: Free
Free plan: Yes

Visit Checkmk Full review

Stackdriver

Logging

Google Cloud Operations - Monitoring and Logging

From: Free
Free plan: Yes

Visit Stackdriver Full review

The short version

Stackdriver is free; Checkmk starts at €190/mo.
Where Checkmk falls short: pricing calculated by service count, not hosts (approximately 30 services per host on average).
Where Stackdriver falls short: Stackdriver is now branded Google Cloud Observability and cloud.google.com/stackdriver redirects to the Observability product page.
Prices and features on this page were last checked on 13 November 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Checkmk and Stackdriver actually diverge.

Attributes where Checkmk and Stackdriver differ
Attribute	Checkmk	Stackdriver
Pricing model	Subscription	Usage-based
Platforms	Web	Web, API

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), category (Logging).

Not yet recorded: founded for Checkmk.

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 Stackdriver does not also cover.

Only in Stackdriver

Log management
Metrics collection
Real-time monitoring
Error reporting
API
Webhooks
REST
Web support

What people use each for

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

Checkmk

Infrastructure monitoringnot Stackdriver
System observabilitynot Stackdriver
Enterprise compliance monitoringnot Stackdriver

Stackdriver

Application performance monitoringnot Checkmk
Log aggregation and analysisnot Checkmk
Cloud infrastructure observabilitynot Checkmk
Distributed trace analysisnot 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

Stackdriver

Stackdriver is now branded Google Cloud Observability and cloud.google.com/stackdriver redirects to the Observability product page
Cloud Logging charges $0.50 per GiB ingested, with only the first 50 GiB per project per month free
Logs kept beyond 30 days cost an extra $0.01 per GiB per month on top of the ingestion charge
Monitoring metric ingestion starts at $0.2580 per MiB, with only the first 150 MiB per billing account free
Alerting policies are billed at $0.35 per month for each metric reference in the policy
Uptime checks cost $0.30 per 1,000 executions and synthetic monitors $1.20 per 1,000 executions, with only 100 synthetic executions per billing account free
Monitoring read API calls cost $0.50 per million time series returned beyond the first million per billing account
Log volume is measured before indexing on the actual size of log entries, so verbose logging directly drives cost

Pricing, plan by plan

Checkmk

Free

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

Stackdriver

Free

FreeFree
- Log management
- Metrics collection
- Real-time monitoring

Which should you pick?

Choose Checkmk if

You want to start without paying.

Checkmk review

Choose Stackdriver if

You need log management.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, API.
You also want metrics collection.

Stackdriver review

Questions people ask

Is Checkmk or Stackdriver better?: Neither clearly leads. Checkmk starts at Free and Stackdriver at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Checkmk or Stackdriver?: Checkmk starts at Free and Stackdriver at Free.
Does Checkmk or Stackdriver run on more platforms?: Checkmk runs on Web. Stackdriver runs on Web, API.
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 Stackdriver is typically brought in for.
What can Checkmk do that Stackdriver cannot?: Stackdriver covers Log management, Metrics collection, Real-time monitoring, Error reporting.

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

Stackdriver: How much does Google Cloud Observability (Stackdriver) cost?

Google Cloud Observability does not publish fixed subscription prices. The service uses a usage-based pricing model where you pay for actual consumption. Specific rates require visiting the individual pricing pages for Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace, and Cloud Profiler.

Source

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

Stackdriver: What is the pricing model for Cloud Logging?

Cloud Logging uses usage-based pricing charged per GB of logs ingested and per GB stored, with monthly free tiers included. Storage charges vary by retention period and location.

Source

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

Stackdriver: How is Cloud Monitoring billed?

Cloud Monitoring charges per custom metric time series per month, with a monthly free tier for metrics. Standard monitoring includes basic default metrics at no extra charge.

Source

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

Checkmk vs Stackdriver

Checkmk

Stackdriver

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Checkmk

Only in Stackdriver

What people use each for

Checkmk

Stackdriver

Where each one falls short

Checkmk

Stackdriver

Pricing, plan by plan

Checkmk

Stackdriver

Which should you pick?

Choose Checkmk if

Choose Stackdriver if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Checkmk

More on Stackdriver

Keep looking

Other head to heads