Tink vs bhyve
bhyve runs guests on a FreeBSD hypervisor. That is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux host, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
bhyve runs the guest. Tink answers “why is this VPS sick?”
Accidental sysadmins land on bhyve because a hypervisor console looks like ops. Then the volume fills, guest nginx dies, and bhyvectl still shows running — no host alarm matched guest fill. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not a bhyve job unless you scraped vm list and watched it.
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 using bhyve if you already run FreeBSD guests. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | bhyve |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours — kldload vmm, tap devices, bhyveload, UEFI firmware, then a guest that still has no mechanic after bhyvectl still says running |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | A type-2 hypervisor. Disk fill, guest nginx, Postgres, and certs stay your problem until you SSH in |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | A FreeBSD host plus the engineer who owns the box after vm list still shows On |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | A quiet zvol at 2am, a filling volume, and a second tool to tell you the Linux guest is sick while bhyve still shows running |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | Guest lifecycle and host vmm. bhyve does not watch a quiet cert or guest auth.log after the VM started |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | vmm.ko, tap, nmdm, bhyve.conf, and which guest death actually pages you |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | You read bhyvectl, then SSH in to change the Linux guest the hypervisor already sits under |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Start and stop guests only — bhyve cannot free guest disk, rotate a cert, or stop SSH brute-force unless you wrote that runbook |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Not a bhyve job — syslog plus a separate monitoring tool have to fire |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Not a bhyve job — a green running VM does not forecast a quiet volume filling up |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Never — bhyve does not read guest auth.log, journald, or firewall state after the VM started |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Silence if the guest dies after the last bhyvectl poll — unless you built a separate uptime check |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | None — bhyve has no customer-facing status page for the Linux guest |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | None — a vm list recap is not a plain-English fleet narrative |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — wire failed guests into PagerDuty or another incident tool |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | bhyvectl and vm-bhyve. No mechanic you text when /var filled and the last VM still showed On |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — vmm, tap, nmdm, UEFI firmware, and which host failure is the hypervisor vs the running guest |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Teams that already run bhyve guests and need a FreeBSD hypervisor console, not a sick-VPS mechanic |
When bhyve is the right choice
Keep using bhyve when you already want that exact job:
- FreeBSD guests — you need vmm, tap, and a bhyvectl inventory, not a mechanic.
- An existing bhyve estate — zvols, nmdm consoles, and isolation matter more than guest nginx, certs, and SSH on a quiet VPS.
- An existing lab or nested setup — guests already start, the hypervisor already ships, and someone owns the FreeBSD host.
- Hosts that only page on failed guests — you already run syslog and exporters, not a sick-box SSH loop.
The real cost of “just watch bhyvectl”
bhyve runs guests. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
- A running guest still means you SSH in and change the box by hand when it gets sick later
- Guest fill, nginx, certs, and SSH brute-force never appear unless a separate tool scraped those signals and a rule fired
- A filling /var is a Tink disk warning on every scan — bhyve will stay quiet until the next guest process dies
- A single VPS with a dead agent still needs a mechanic, not another vm list line
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than a bhyve host plus the engineer who keeps failed-guest notifications alive, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet bhyvectl poll will not type.
No hypervisor homework. No silent host. One command install.
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