Checkmate vs Spectate

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.

Spectate monitors websites, APIs, servers, infrastructure, and applications, and provides tools for managing incidents. Website checks track uptime and performance, run globally, capture screenshots, and alert on SSL certificate expiry. A custom-built server agent is described as open source, dependency-free, and designed to add no server load. Incident features include merging incidents, collaboration, AI-assisted root cause analysis, postmortems, interactive alerts, and status page publishing. Status pages support branding, custom domains, user issue reports, subscriptions, and postmortems. Alerts can go through Slack, Discord, or Pushover, or be sent by voice or SMS. Spectate is available on Android, iOS, and web. The free Hobby tier allows five monitors or servers and one status page. Paid tiers list monitor or server limits from 15 to 250; Solo is $12.00 per month, billed $144 yearly. On-call scheduling and incident escalation policies are marked as coming soon.