Centreon is a capable Nagios-based IT platform. It shines when you already run pollers and plugin packs. It is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux server, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Accidental sysadmins often evaluate Centreon because it is the familiar European Nagios successor: open-source core, paid editions, thousands of plugin packs. When nginx is down, the disk will fill in six days, or SSH is being brute-forced, Centreon stays quiet unless you already configured that check, poller, and notification command.
Tink is the other job: detect the issue on the machine, say why it happened in plain English, propose the command, and run it only after you approve. Keep Centreon if you run a poller fabric. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | Centreon |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours to days — central, pollers, MariaDB, Broker, PHP, then host/service templates |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | Poller architecture, plugin packs, maps, and a Nagios-style service tree |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | Open Source is free; IT / Business / MSP editions are licensed per poller and host |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | A poller VM per site, MariaDB, Broker, PHP upgrades, and someone who knows Centreon templates |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | Central + remote pollers running plugin packs over NRPE, SNMP, and agent |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | Hosts, services, commands, time periods, templates, and discovery jobs |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | No — OK / WARNING / CRITICAL plus a plugin output string |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Monitoring only — you still SSH in |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Notification commands and contacts once you wire them |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | No — a service is ok or not |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Not included — write a custom plugin or buy a pack |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Host down if a poller cannot reach the check |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | Internal UI — not a customer-facing status page |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | Not included |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — add another tool |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | Web UI and notification commands only |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — pollers, Broker, ACL, templates, and plugin-pack licensing |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Ops teams already invested in Centreon pollers, maps, and plugin packs |
Keep Centreon when you already want that exact job:
The open-source tarball is free. A working ops loop is not:
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than the first weekend spent installing pollers and plugin packs, and every scan includes a diagnosis Centreon will never write.
No pollers. No plugin packs. One command install.
Try Tink free — one command installAlso compare: Tink vs Nagios · Tink vs Icinga · Tink vs Checkmk