Checkmate vs Visual Sentinel
Checkmate
checkmate.soVisual Sentinel
visualsentinel.comSide by side
| Figure | Checkmate | Visual Sentinel |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $4.50/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 15 |
| Spec score · DNS Monitoring Software | 8.5 (#5) | 8.5 (#7) |
| API | The maker says the API accepts JSON for bulk monitor setup and provides a REST API reference. | The public REST API uses scoped organization keys and exposes monitors, incidents, status pages, maintenance windows, reports, notification channels and servers. |
| Integrations | Alert channels include email, Slack, Discord, Telegram, Twilio SMS, Pushover, ntfy, Matrix, Rocket.Chat, PagerDuty, Microsoft Teams, and webhooks. | The pricing comparison lists Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Cloudflare import and proxy bypass, and server-to-site correlation. |
| Maker | Checkmate is built by Bluewave Labs with community contributors. | Acefina LLC builds and operates Visual Sentinel, which the maker says was founded and built by Rai Ansar. |
| 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 company says human support replies typically within 24 hours by email. |
Plans
Visual Sentinel
- Solo$6 a month
- Solo$54 a year
- Starter$12 a month
- Starter$108 a year
- Business$39 a month
- Business$351 a year
- FreeFree
- Agency$149 a month
- Agency$1,341 a year
- FreeFree
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.
Visual Sentinel
Visual Sentinel monitors websites and servers, including page changes that ordinary uptime checks may miss. Its monitoring covers uptime, screenshot-based visual comparison, SSL, DNS, performance, content, APIs, endpoints, and servers. For visual checks, it captures a page in a browser and compares the screenshot with a prior baseline. Users can exclude changing page elements with CSS selectors and set the amount of change needed to flag a capture. Failed uptime checks are repeated; a site is marked down only if it fails from all selected regions. Alerts can go to email, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, webhooks, Prometheus, and browser push. The REST API manages monitors, incidents, status pages, maintenance windows, reports, and notification channels; API access is listed for Business and Agency. The Free plan costs nothing and includes three monitors, 10-minute checks, and one status page. Solo costs $6 a month. Visual Sentinel is built and operated by Acefina LLC and is intended for small teams, agencies, and site owners.