Tink vs FOG Project
FOG Project captures and deploys PXE images from a FOG server. That is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux host, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
FOG clones the disk. Tink answers “why is this VPS sick?”
Accidental sysadmins land on FOG Project because a free PXE clone farm looks like insurance. Then the host volume fills, nginx dies, and the last capture task still looks complete — no image match for host fill. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not a FOG job unless you scraped task mail 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 FOG Project if you already run network clones. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | FOG Project |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours — stand up a FOG server, DHCP/PXE/TFTP/NFS, register hosts, then a box that still has no mechanic after the last capture task shows complete |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | Hardware-independent images and a deploy path. Disk fill, nginx, Postgres, and certs stay your problem until you SSH past the last FOG capture |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | GPL and free for commercial use. You still pay the person who owns the VPS after the last deploy looks finished |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | A quiet image that is not host fill, a dedicated FOG server, PXE on the LAN, and a second tool to tell you the box is sick while the capture still showed complete |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | FOG server, capture/deploy tasks, multicast. FOG Project does not watch a quiet cert or host auth.log after the last image landed |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | Which hosts, which image, multicast vs unicast, PXE boot, and which failed FOG task actually pages you |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | You read the FOG task log, then SSH into the host to change the Linux box FOG already registered |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Capture, deploy, and multicast — FOG cannot free host disk, rotate a cert, or stop SSH brute-force unless you reimage the whole machine |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Not a FOG job — task mail from a failed capture plus a separate monitoring tool have to fire |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Not a FOG job — a captured image date does not forecast a quiet host filling up |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Never — FOG Project does not read host auth.log, journald, or firewall state after the last image landed |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Silence if the host dies after the last FOG capture — unless you built a separate uptime check |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | None — FOG Project has no customer-facing status page for the Linux host |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | None — a capture-task recap is not a plain-English fleet narrative |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — wire failed FOG tasks into PagerDuty or another incident tool |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | The FOG web UI and SSH. No mechanic you text when /var filled and the last capture still showed complete |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — FOG server, PXE, DHCP/TFTP/NFS, multicast, and which failure is the image vs the running host |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Teams that already run FOG Project for network cloning, not a sick-VPS mechanic |
When FOG Project is the right choice
Keep using FOG Project when you already want that exact job:
- Network disk imaging — you need a FOG server, PXE, capture/deploy tasks, and multicast, not a mechanic.
- An existing clone stack — registered hosts, hardware-independent images, and a lab LAN matter more than guest nginx, certs, and SSH on a quiet VPS.
- An existing lab or nested setup — FOG already runs, the image already exists, and someone owns the FOG server.
- Hosts that only page on capture or PXE death — you already run failed-task mail, not a sick-box SSH loop.
The real cost of “just watch the FOG task log”
FOG Project clones disks over PXE. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
- A healthy capture still means you SSH into the host and change the box by hand when it gets sick later
- Host 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 — FOG will stay quiet until the next capture fails
- A single VPS with a dead agent still needs a mechanic, not another PXE image
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than the engineer who keeps failed-task notifications alive after a green FOG capture, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet image list will not type.
No FOG server or PXE homework. No silent host. One command install.
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