Checkmate vs DriftWatch
Checkmate
checkmate.soDriftWatch
driftwatch.appSide by side
| Figure | Checkmate | DriftWatch |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $29/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 | 3 |
| Spec score · DNS Monitoring Software | 8.5 (#5) | 7.9 (#18) |
| API | The maker says the API accepts JSON for bulk monitor setup and provides a REST API reference. | The REST API uses Sanctum token authentication and supports managing domains, querying changes, configuring alerts, and triggering scans. |
| Product | Checkmate is an open-source, self-hosted infrastructure monitoring dashboard for uptime, PageSpeed, hardware, Docker, and incident alerts. | DriftWatch monitors domains for DNS record changes and alerts teams with before-and-after diffs. |
| 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. | The maker lists [email protected] for general enquiries and support and says it typically responds within one business day. |
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.
DriftWatch
DriftWatch has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.