Process Exporter is ncabatoff's named-process scrape: regex groups that turn cmdline matches into Prometheus gauges. That is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux server, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Accidental sysadmins land on Process Exporter because every Prometheus diagram adds it after node_exporter when someone asks which process ate CPU. Then disk fills, nginx dies, and Grafana is quiet — nothing matched, so nothing fired.
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 Process Exporter if you already operate Prometheus and need named-process gauges. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | Process Exporter |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours — binary, process-exporter.yml name groups, :9256, prometheus.yml scrape job, dashboards, and Alertmanager |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | A named-process scrape target. Disk, nginx, and certs stay your problem until PromQL fires and you SSH in |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | Free software (MIT). You still pay for Prometheus, Grafana, Alertmanager, and the engineer who writes the matchers |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | Regex name groups, cmdline cardinality, zombie children, and a second tool to tell you the box is sick |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | named_process_cpu_seconds_total and memory gauges. Process Exporter does not watch host disk or a quiet cert unless you added another exporter |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | process_names matchers, --web.listen-address, scrape intervals, relabeling, and which PromQL actually pages you |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | You graph named_process_resident_memory_bytes in Grafana, then SSH in to change the box |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Export only — process-exporter cannot restart nginx or kill a runaway worker |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Not a Process Exporter job — Prometheus rules and Alertmanager have to fire |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Not an exporter job — a process matcher does not forecast a quiet volume |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Only if you ship auth.log elsewhere, parse it, write a query, and wire an alert downstream |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Silence if process-exporter dies — unless you built an up{job="process"} deadman check |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | None — Process Exporter has no customer-facing status page |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | None — a process scrape target is not a plain-English fleet narrative |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — wire Alertmanager into PagerDuty or another incident tool |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | curl :9256/metrics and Grafana. No mechanic you text when a worker ate RAM |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — process_names YAML, PromQL, scrape configs, cardinality, and which rule actually pages |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Teams that already run Prometheus and need named-process scrapes, not a sick-VPS mechanic |
Keep Process Exporter when you already want that exact job:
A process scrape is in every Prometheus diagram after node_exporter. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than Process Exporter plus the engineer who keeps Prometheus scrape alive, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet /metrics endpoint will not type.
No process_names YAML. No silent host. One command install.
Start MechanicAlso compare: Tink vs Node Exporter · Tink vs cAdvisor · Tink vs Prometheus