Tink vs Nginx
Nginx is a web server and reverse proxy. That is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux server, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Nginx keeps the site up. Tink answers “why is this VPS sick?”
Accidental sysadmins land on nginx because every VPS tutorial starts there. Then the volume fills, Postgres dies, and the site still served a 200 — no access-log line matched host fill. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not an nginx.conf job unless the proxy 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 nginx if you already terminate HTTP on the box. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | Nginx |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Minutes to hours — nginx.conf, upstreams, TLS, and still no host mechanic |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | HTTP serving and proxying. Disk fill, SSH brute-force, and a quiet Postgres stay your problem until the site 502s |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | Open-source (2-clause BSD). You still pay the VPS and the person who reads error.log when /var fills |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | Reload gymnastics, stub_status scrape, cert renewals, and a second tool that pages you when memory climbs |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | Access/error logs and optional stub_status. Nginx does not watch host fill or auth.log |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | nginx.conf server blocks, upstreams, ssl_certificate, and whether stub_status is even on |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | You grep error.log for 502s, then SSH in to change the box |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Proxy only — nginx cannot free disk, restart Postgres, or fail2ban an attacking IP |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Not an nginx job — scrape stub_status or tail logs before anyone is paged about the host |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Never — nginx answers HTTP after traffic already arrived. It does not forecast a quiet volume filling up |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Never — nginx does not read auth.log, journald SSH, or host firewall state |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Silence if the process dies — unless an outside uptime check already watches the site |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | None — nginx has no customer-facing fleet status page |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | None — an access-log line is not a plain-English fleet narrative |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — wire uptime checks into PagerDuty or another incident tool |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | journalctl -u nginx. No mechanic you text when /var filled and HTTPS still looked fine |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Moderate — nginx.conf, upstreams, TLS, and which 502 actually means the box is sick |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Teams that already run nginx for HTTP and still need a separate mechanic for the Linux host |
When nginx is the right choice
Keep running nginx when you already want that exact job:
- HTTP serving and reverse proxy — you need upstreams and TLS, not a mechanic.
- A small number of sites on one VPS — nginx.conf server blocks matter more than fleet health scores.
- An existing uptime check on the public hostname — you already know the site is up, and someone owns the config.
- Hosts that only page on HTTP — you already scrape stub_status, not a sick-box SSH loop.
The real cost of “just run nginx”
Nginx is a serious web server. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
- A valid TLS cert still means you SSH in and change the box by hand
- Host fill, Postgres, and SSH brute-force never appear unless something else watched those signals
- A filling /var is a Tink disk warning on every scan — nginx will stay quiet until the proxy itself 502s
- A single VPS with a dead nginx still needs a mechanic, not another server block
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than nginx plus the engineer who tails error.log after the disk is already full, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet HTTPS handshake will not type.
No nginx.conf homework. No silent host. One command install.
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