Checkmate vs DNS Spy
Checkmate
checkmate.soDNS Spy
dnsspy.ioSide by side
| Figure | Checkmate | DNS Spy |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $9/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 2 |
| Spec score · DNS Monitoring Software | 8.5 (#5) | 8.0 (#16) |
| API | The maker says the API accepts JSON for bulk monitor setup and provides a REST API reference. | The Enterprise REST API provides 50+ endpoints, bearer-token authentication, and 10,000 calls per month. |
| Support | The maker identifies Discord as the fastest help channel and GitHub issues for bugs and feature requests, and says there is no paid support tier. | DNS Spy lists email support at [email protected] for technical, billing, and monitoring questions. |
Plans
In their own words
Checkmate
Checkmate is a free, open-source, self-hosted dashboard for monitoring infrastructure, service uptime, PageSpeed, and incidents. It checks HTTP, ping, TCP, gRPC, WebSocket, DNS, SSL, and more than 100 game server types. Its Capture agent reports server CPU, memory, disk, temperature, and network metrics, while PageSpeed monitoring tracks Lighthouse scores and Core Web Vitals over time. Public status dashboards can show per-service uptime and incident history with custom branding. Alerts can go to email, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Twilio SMS, Pushover, ntfy, Matrix, Rocket.Chat, PagerDuty, Microsoft Teams, and webhooks. The maker says metrics, logs, incidents, and user accounts remain in the database configured by the operator, with no phone-home or telemetry pipeline. Checkmate is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and can be installed with Docker Compose or Kubernetes/Helm; its image runs on x86, Apple Silicon, and Raspberry Pi. The maker says the API accepts JSON for bulk monitor setup and provides a REST API reference. The free plan includes all features, no monitor limits, self-hosting, and 12 alert channels. There is no one-click migration import or paid support tier.