Disambiguation of Checkmk software and appliance

This article does not cover the editions of the Checkmk software!

Table of Contents

Problem

Users and customers sometimes confuse the terms used to describe the Checkmk software and the Checkmk appliance.

Solution

There are two entirely different topics: The Checkmk appliance and the Checkmk software. Read on for the disambiguation.

Checkmk Appliance

The Checkmk appliance is an operating system in a can. It is merely a platform to run the Checkmk software on if your organization is not Linux-savvy.
The appliance has two flavors: A virtual template in OVA format and a physical server.
Both flavors contain - among others - the following features:

A preconfigured operating system, ready to support the Checkmk software
A console interface for first boot and basic configuration
A web interface for operating system level configuration, installing the Checkmk software, site management, and backup

Checkmk Demo Appliance

The Checkmk Demo appliance is a publicly available version of the virtual appliance. It is intended for testing and concept proofing only.
Its limitations are:

You can only install the Checkmk Free Edition
You cannot get root access

Checkmk Software

The Checkmk software itself is the monitoring system you use all day. It can be installed on all major Linux distributions and the Checkmk appliance and run as a Docker container.

Checkmk Free Edition

See https://checkmk.com/l/t/enterprise-free-trial.