Tink vs Cilium
Cilium is a Kubernetes CNI. It also exposes Hubble flows and Prometheus gauges — drops, forwards, policy verdicts. That is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux server, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Cilium scrapes the datapath. Tink answers “why is this VPS sick?”
Accidental sysadmins land on Cilium Hubble because every Kubernetes networking diagram includes a scrape. Then the volume fills, nginx dies, and Grafana still shows forwards — no PromQL matched host fill. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not a Cilium job unless the packet path itself is the failure.
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 scraping Cilium if you already operate Kubernetes and need CNI SLOs. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | Cilium |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours — Helm chart, kube-proxy replacement, Hubble, prometheus.yml scrape, and NetworkPolicy |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | A CNI scrape target. Host disk fill, nginx, Postgres, and certs stay your problem until PromQL fires and you SSH in |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | Free software (Apache 2.0). You still pay for Prometheus, Grafana, Hubble UI, and the engineer who writes the drop rules |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | eBPF maps, Hubble relay, identity GC, a noisy drop histogram, and a second tool to tell you the box is sick |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | cilium_drop_count_total and Hubble L7 flows. Cilium does not watch host fill or a quiet cert unless you added another exporter |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | Helm values, Hubble enablement, NetworkPolicy, and which PromQL actually pages you |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | You graph cilium_forward_count_total in Grafana, then SSH in to change the box |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Metrics only — Cilium cannot free disk, restart nginx, or rotate a cert |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Not a Cilium job — Prometheus rules and Alertmanager have to fire |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Not a Cilium job — a CNI scrape does not forecast a quiet volume filling up |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Never — Cilium does not read auth.log, journald, or host firewall state |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Silence if the agent dies — unless you built an up{job="cilium"} deadman check |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | None — Cilium has no customer-facing status page |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | None — a Hubble 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 | cilium CLI and Grafana. No mechanic you text when /var filled and Hubble still showed flows |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — eBPF maps, Hubble, NetworkPolicy, PromQL, and which drop reason actually pages |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Teams that already run Kubernetes and need CNI/Hubble scrapes, not a sick-VPS mechanic |
When Cilium metrics are the right choice
Keep scraping Cilium when you already want that exact job:
- Kubernetes CNI SLOs — you need drop reasons, Hubble flows, and policy verdicts, not a mechanic.
- eBPF datapath latency — identity maps and L7 proxy histograms matter more than host nginx, certs, and SSH on a quiet VPS.
- An existing Prometheus + Grafana stack — Cilium already clusters, Hubble already runs, and someone owns NetworkPolicy.
- Hosts that only page on Cilium — you already run exporters and PromQL, not a sick-box SSH loop.
The real cost of “just scrape Cilium”
Cilium is in every Kubernetes networking diagram. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
- A healthy cilium_forward_count_total still means you SSH in and change the box by hand
- Host fill, nginx, certs, and SSH brute-force never appear unless Prometheus scraped those signals and a rule fired
- A filling /var is a Tink disk warning on every scan — Cilium will stay quiet until the packet path itself is the failure
- A single VPS with a dead Cilium agent still needs a mechanic, not another CNI scrape
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than Cilium plus the engineer who keeps Prometheus scrapes and Hubble drop rules alive, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet Hubble UI will not type.
No Hubble homework. No silent host. One command install.
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