Tink vs Weave Net
Weave Net is a Kubernetes CNI. It also exposes overlay connection gauges and flow counters for Prometheus. That is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux server, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Weave Net scrapes the overlay. Tink answers “why is this VPS sick?”
Accidental sysadmins land on Weave Net because every older Kubernetes networking diagram includes weave-net. Then the volume fills, nginx dies, and Grafana still shows peers — no PromQL matched host fill. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not a Weave Net job unless the overlay 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 Weave Net if you already operate Kubernetes and need CNI SLOs. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | Weave Net |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours — weave-net DaemonSet or weave launch, VXLAN, IPAM, WeaveDNS, and prometheus.yml scrape |
| 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 | Open-source Weave Net is free (the Weaveworks repo is archived). You still pay Prometheus, Grafana, and the engineer who owns the overlay |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | VXLAN MTU surprises, IPAM exhaustion, a stalled weave-net peer, and a second tool to tell you the box is sick |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | weave_connections and flow gauges. Weave Net does not watch host fill or a quiet cert unless you added another exporter |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | Encryption, IPAM ranges, WeaveDNS, NPC, and which PromQL actually pages you |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | You graph weave_flows in Grafana, then SSH in to change the box |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Metrics only — Weave Net cannot free disk, restart nginx, or rotate a cert |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Not a Weave Net job — Prometheus rules and Alertmanager have to fire |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Not a Weave Net job — a CNI scrape does not forecast a quiet volume filling up |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Never — Weave Net 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="weave-net"} deadman check |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | None — Weave Net has no customer-facing status page |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | None — a weave-net 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 | weave status and Grafana. No mechanic you text when /var filled and peers still showed connected |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — VXLAN, IPAM, WeaveDNS, NPC, PromQL, and which peer drop actually pages |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Teams that already run Kubernetes and need Weave Net overlay scrapes, not a sick-VPS mechanic |
When Weave Net metrics are the right choice
Keep scraping Weave Net when you already want that exact job:
- Kubernetes CNI SLOs — you need overlay peers, VXLAN health, and flow counters, not a mechanic.
- An existing Weave Net cluster — IPAM, WeaveDNS, and encryption matter more than host nginx, certs, and SSH on a quiet VPS.
- An existing Prometheus + Grafana stack — weave-net already clusters, metrics already scrape, and someone owns the overlay.
- Hosts that only page on Weave Net — you already run exporters and PromQL, not a sick-box SSH loop.
The real cost of “just scrape Weave Net”
Weave Net is in every older Kubernetes networking diagram. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
- A healthy weave_connections 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 — Weave Net will stay quiet until the overlay itself is the failure
- A single VPS with a dead weave-net still needs a mechanic, not another CNI scrape
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than Weave Net plus the engineer who keeps Prometheus scrapes and overlay peer rules alive, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet Grafana board will not type.
No overlay homework. No silent host. One command install.
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