What operating systems does Tink support?

Any Linux distribution with curl and Node.js 20 or newer. The installer uses a user-local command and does not require systemd or root access.

Does Tink run commands automatically?

No. Tink suggests fixes and waits for your explicit approval. Nothing runs without you confirming it first.

How much resources does the Tink agent use?

Minimal. The agent idles at under 20MB RAM and near-zero CPU between scans. Scans themselves take a few seconds.

Can I use Tink on containers?

Tink is designed for long-running servers, not ephemeral containers. For Kubernetes, point it at your nodes instead.

What data does Tink collect?

System metrics (CPU, memory, disk, network), running services, and relevant log snippets when diagnosing issues. No application data, credentials, or file contents.

Tink vs bwm-ng

bwm-ng (Bandwidth Monitor NG) is a Linux console bandwidth meter with curses, plain, and csv output across multiple interfaces. It is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux host, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.

bwm-ng counts the NIC. Tink answers “why is this VPS sick?”

Accidental sysadmins land on bwm-ng because every interface fits one screen and bwm-ng -o curses needs no dashboard. Then disk is at 91%, nginx dies, and nobody is watching the TUI — no sentence that says what to run. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not a bwm-ng Rx column.

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 bwm-ng if you already want live interface counters on an SSH session. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.

Feature	Tink	bwm-ng
Setup time	30 seconds (one curl \| sh command)	apt/yum install bwm-ng, then bwm-ng -o curses every time the NIC looks busy
What you get	Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes	Live rx/tx rates per interface in curses, plain, or csv — plus bits/bytes/packets
Pricing	Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month	Open source. You still pay the person who SSH'd in after the outage
Hidden costs	None — fully managed	Which output mode, -I interface list, -u units, and no pager unless you wrap csv
Monitoring approach	Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports	Interactive or scripted counters on NICs. bwm-ng does not parse auth.log or propose a command
Configuration	None after install — heuristics and AI	Output type, interface filter, units, and whether you left bwm-ng running in tmux
Plain-English diagnosis	Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix	No — you read Rx/Tx columns yourself
Fix execution	Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail	Monitoring only — bwm-ng cannot stop the flood, restart nginx, or rotate a cert
Alerting	Built-in across 8 channels	None by default — curses is live; csv is a dump you still have to page
Predictive alerts	Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends	Live rates only — bwm-ng does not forecast fill time or a quiet NIC going bad later
SSH brute-force detection	Built-in — parses auth.log every scan	Not included — bwm-ng does not read host auth.log or journald
Machine offline detection	Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts	If the host is down you cannot SSH into bwm-ng either
Public status page	Shareable URL with 90-day history	Not included — bwm-ng has no customer-facing status page
Weekly fleet digest	Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open	Not included — a rate table is not a plain-English fleet narrative
On-call tracking	Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment	Not included — wire something else into PagerDuty
Conversation interface	Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI	SSH + curses/plain/csv. No mechanic you text when /var filled
Learning curve	None — works after install	Low to launch; higher to map a spike on eth0 back to the process that filled the disk
Best for	Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers)	Operators already SSH'd in who want live rx/tx on every interface

When bwm-ng is the right choice

Keep using bwm-ng when you already want that exact job:

All interfaces at once — nload graphs one NIC; bwm-ng lists every device in one curses table.
Scriptable csv — -o csv dumps rates you can pipe; that is still not an alert or a fix.
No extra service — a package on the box, not a hub, SaaS, or Telegram bot.
No conversation layer wanted — some operators prefer a TUI and will never use a mechanic.

The real cost of “just run bwm-ng”

The package is easy to install. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:

A healthy rate table still means you SSH into the host and change the box by hand when it gets sick
Host fill, nginx, certs, and SSH brute-force never appear unless you built extra checks
A filling /var is a Tink disk warning on every scan — bwm-ng stays a bitrate counter until you are looking
A single VPS with nobody logged in still needs a mechanic, not another curses session

For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than the engineer who opens bwm-ng after the outage, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet TUI will not type.

No SSH homework. No silent host. One command install.

Start Mechanic

Also compare: Tink vs nload · Tink vs nethogs · Tink vs iftop