head to head · open source
Uptime Kuma vs Checkmk
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars, 8,426 forks, 805 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Checkmk has 2,368 stars, 555 forks, 55 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Uptime Kuma leads on adoption by 3,763% (91,477 vs 2,368 stars). Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript under MIT; Checkmk is written in Python under GPL-2.0. Uptime Kuma has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Checkmk 23%. Uptime Kuma was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (monitoring), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Uptime Kuma | Checkmk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 555 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Uptime Kuma if
- You weight community size — 91K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Checkmk if
- You want the Checkmk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Checkmk fits your workflow better
About Uptime Kuma
Uptime Kuma is a free, MIT licensed, self hosted monitoring tool with a reactive web dashboard, built for operators and teams that want to watch their own HTTP, TCP, and DNS endpoints and keep the resulting data on their own infrastructure.
read the full Uptime Kuma overview →
About Checkmk
Checkmk is a comprehensive IT monitoring system for infrastructure and application monitoring across physical, virtual, containerized, and cloud environments. It is an open source Python project released under the GNU GPL v2, and it lives in the infrastructure monitoring and observability ecosystem. The project provides a central monitoring engine, a web based interface, and support for many official and community maintained plugins.
read the full Checkmk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Uptime Kuma or Checkmk more popular?
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars and Checkmk has 2,368. Uptime Kuma has the larger community by that measure.
Are Uptime Kuma and Checkmk free?
Both are open source. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT and Checkmk under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Uptime Kuma and Checkmk?
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript and Checkmk in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Uptime Kuma or Checkmk?
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want the larger community (91,477 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Checkmk if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.