Cachet vs Checkmate
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Cachet
Open-source status page system for communicating outages
VS
Checkmate
Open-source uptime and infrastructure monitoring tool
| Feature | Cachet | Checkmate |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 76 · Good | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 15,248 | ★ 10,883 |
| First released | 2014 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Statuspage, Better Uptime | Pingdom, Better Uptime |
What are Cachet and Checkmate?
Cachet
Cachet is an open-source status page system written in PHP (Laravel) for communicating downtime and incidents. It supports components, incident timelines, scheduled maintenance windows, metrics, and subscriber notifications.
- Public status page
- Incident timeline updates
- Scheduled maintenance windows
- Subscriber notifications
Checkmate
Checkmate is an open-source server monitoring application that tracks uptime, response times, and infrastructure health. It offers incident notifications and a clean dashboard for homelabs and small teams.
- Uptime and response monitoring
- Infrastructure health agent
- Incident notifications
- Modern dashboard
Cachet vs Checkmate: key differences
Cachet is written in PHP, while Checkmate is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for Cachet versus AGPL-3.0 for Checkmate. Cachet is the more established project (first released 2014), while Checkmate arrived in 2024.
Why pick each one
Choose Cachet if…
- Polished public-facing page
- REST API
Watch out for
- Development has been intermittent
- Needs a database
Choose Checkmate if…
- Clean modern interface
- Active development
Watch out for
- Newer project
- Feature set still growing
Frequently asked questions
Is Cachet or Checkmate better?
Neither is universally better. Cachet has the larger community, while Checkmate is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Cachet and Checkmate free and open-source?
Yes. Cachet is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Checkmate under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cachet and Checkmate with Docker?
Cachet: yes. Checkmate: yes.