It still works just fine. It pretty ideal for the "12 devices. 2 routers, 5 switches and 3 access points" case as that all fits on one map.
The Dude does take a little configuration, but if you do it first, then run the "auto-scan", it will pre-populate all your devices. e.g. for the non-mirkotik things, you'll likely want to enable SNMP and then configure that in using dude.exe settings for "SNMP Profiles" once connected your hEX with dude.npk+SD-card. For the MikroTik devices, you just need to provide the RouterOS username/password on each device and it will use "winbox-protocol" to do the monitoring (winbox being more efficient since it binary than SNMP). There are "probes" you can configure to customize monitoring, but it does basic thing like `ping, and also CPU/mem/disk for SNMP-enabled devices.
The one thing that's easy to miss is using the "Add Link" on the map view. Once you have devices populated, you need to draw link between devices... which then will let you pick how you want to monitor the link (so speeds) between interface/devices. Again if you have SNMP, you can use that. If it's RouterOS (with username/password set on the linked device), the it just picking the RouterOS interface to use for the speed of the link. The "Add Link" is essentially a special probe for to track network traffic speeds. Like "probes" (e.g. ping, http, SNMP get, etc), the link speeds are captured on certain intervals/polling. This polling can be controlled on the device/map/"global" level.
What the probe monitors is then written the dude.db SQLite DB that (should) live on the SD-Card, so thing like ping (up/down +ms) are recorded. The level of polling will determine how big the DB can get. But the default are pretty reasonable, and the default also "rolls up" data so more recent data is more granular while older data becomes summarized by a longer timespan. So the growth of the DB is entirely controllable. And the defaults are reasonable, but it fully customizable.
It's "dense" in the configuration is main thing. So some things like variables/functions are just plain weird in how the work. Or the notification scheme are dated, but extendable to modern things. But functionally speaking, I've used for a decade since I have have a few isolated sites, with various dozen(s) of devices each... so each site gets a dude instances, and all the data is recorded. Mostly just sitting there if needed for troubleshooting some problem with all the current/historical data "just there".
The only complaint, other than probes/function being complex, is that once you add a device to a map it's "stuck", so while you can delete/recreate same device on a new map... that blows aways it historical data. So in 10 years, a missing "move device to map..." is only "missing features".
Now... if you have dozen devices... that likely be one map, so won't run into that. But the real benefit of the dude is no extra servers/containers or internet/cloud is needed to do basic monitoring. Since the dude.exe lets you export CSV... you can then use the raw data in whatever report/tool you want... as the basic reporting tools in dude.exe are reasonable but Excel likely be more customizable Charts from Dude export.
Now it's sad MikroTik let it languish as long as they have. They seem to lump it in with "new controller" that been discussed for years. IMO it the data collection side that's most useful, especially now with AI being able to create you whatever interface/report you want if it had data the Dude already collects.
Anyway worth a try, since it free. You can also disable/remove the page/SD-card if you don't like it.
