PagerDuty is a well-known leader in the on-call management and incident response space. Its platform has long been a go-to for alerting and notifying engineers when services go down. However, while PagerDuty is powerful, many teams are exploring alternatives. Factors like high costs, complexity, or the need for more integrated features are driving this search. For example, PagerDuty's basic plan can be costly for teams, starting at $21 per user per month, yet it often lacks the essential features found in more comprehensive plans [3]. This article will compare some of the best PagerDuty alternatives, including Rootly, Splunk On-Call (formerly VictorOps), and Opsgenie, to help Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps teams find the best fit for their needs.
Why Teams Are Looking for PagerDuty Alternatives
Several common themes emerge when engineering teams evaluate PagerDuty alternatives. Understanding these drivers can help you clarify your own team's needs.
- Cost: PagerDuty's pricing structure can become expensive, particularly for larger teams or those that require advanced features like analytics and automation, which are typically gated behind higher-tier plans [3].
- Complexity: For some organizations, PagerDuty can feel overly complex or bloated with features that don't align with their specific workflows, leading them to seek simpler, more focused solutions [5].
- Lack of Innovation: While PagerDuty is an established market leader, its pace of innovation has been perceived by some as slower than that of its competitors, who are rapidly enhancing their offerings [4].
- Need for a Unified Platform: Modern teams often want a single platform that manages the entire incident lifecycle. This includes everything from on-call scheduling and alerting to automated response actions, collaborative retrospectives, and actionable analytics—not just a tool for paging.
What’s Included in the Modern SRE Tooling Stack?
When evaluating top incident management tools, it's important to understand the capabilities that define a modern platform. The best incident management software provides a comprehensive suite of features designed to improve reliability and streamline response.
- On-Call Scheduling & Rotations: Flexible scheduling and rotation management that supports teams across multiple time zones and follows the sun.
- Escalation Policies: Automated, multi-level rules that ensure critical alerts always reach the right person, preventing notification fatigue.
- Multi-Channel Notifications: The ability to send alerts through various channels, including SMS, phone calls, push notifications, and integrated chat applications like Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- Incident Response Automation: Powerful workflow engines that automate repetitive tasks, such as creating incident channels, inviting responders, notifying stakeholders, or pulling diagnostic data from other tools.
- Collaboration Hub: Deep integration with chat tools to create a central command center for incidents (ChatOps), allowing teams to collaborate without context switching.
- Retrospectives & Analytics: Built-in tools for conducting blameless post-mortems or retrospectives, automatically generating timelines, and tracking key metrics like Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA) and Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR).
- Integrations: A rich library of seamless integrations with monitoring, observability, and project management systems to create a connected ecosystem.
A Breakdown of the Best PagerDuty Alternatives
1. Rootly: The Complete Incident Management Platform
Rootly is more than just an on-call tool; it’s an end-to-end platform for DevOps incident management. Its primary focus is on automating the entire incident lifecycle, from initial detection all the way through resolution and learning. Key differentiators include a powerful no-code workflow builder, deep and native Slack integration, and integrated retrospective capabilities that automatically capture key events.
Rootly’s On-Call features allow teams to build schedules, define escalation policies, and manage notifications to ensure alerts are routed to the right engineer instantly. You can easily get started with creating schedules and setting up alerts. These on-call capabilities are seamlessly woven into a broader incident management framework that helps teams coordinate a fast and consistent response. You can learn more about how Rootly handles the full incident lifecycle in this overview.
2. Splunk On-Call (formerly VictorOps)
Splunk On-Call, which started as VictorOps, is a strong competitor focused on DevOps incident management. It provides real-time alerting, a mobile-first interface for on-the-go responders, and tools for post-incident review. One of its standout features is the "Transmogrifier," an alert-routing and enrichment engine that helps reduce noise by modifying alert payloads before they trigger a notification. As part of the Splunk ecosystem, it integrates tightly with Splunk's observability and security products.
3. Opsgenie by Atlassian
Opsgenie is a popular oncall platform and one of the most common Opsgenie alternatives to PagerDuty. Its appeal is particularly strong for teams already embedded in the Atlassian ecosystem (Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket). Opsgenie excels at robust alerting, flexible on-call scheduling, and creating detailed escalation policies. Its deep integration with Jira makes it a natural choice for teams that want to link incidents directly to development backlogs and track remediation work seamlessly.
4. Other Notable Alternatives
- xMatters: An enterprise-focused platform known for its advanced workflow automation. It's designed to handle complex communication and response scenarios in large, distributed organizations.
- Xurrent IMR / Zenduty: These platforms are positioned as cost-effective
PagerDuty alternativesthat cater to fast-growing teams. They offer essential features for on-call management and incident response at a competitive price point [2]. - incident.io: This tool takes a Slack-native approach to incident management. It's ideal for teams that live in Slack and want to manage incidents from declaration to resolution without leaving their primary communication tool.
Comparison Table: PagerDuty vs. Top Alternatives
To compare oncall platforms effectively, it helps to see their features side-by-side. This table outlines the key differences between PagerDuty and its leading competitors.
Feature
PagerDuty
Rootly
Splunk On-Call
Opsgenie
On-Call Management
Excellent
Excellent
Strong
Excellent
Incident Automation & Workflows
Strong (higher tiers)
Excellent (no-code workflow builder)
Good (alert routing)
Good (integrates with Jira automation)
ChatOps Integration (Slack/Teams)
Good
Excellent (native, full lifecycle management)
Good
Good
Retrospectives / Post-mortems
Basic (add-on)
Excellent (built-in, automated timelines)
Good
Good (integrates with Confluence)
Analytics & Reporting
Excellent (higher tiers)
Excellent
Good
Strong
Pricing Structure
Per user, tiered
Per user, tiered
Per user, tiered
Per user, tiered
Best For
Large enterprises needing mature on-call notification
Teams wanting to automate the full incident lifecycle from a single platform
DevOps-centric teams in the Splunk ecosystem
Teams heavily invested in the Atlassian suite (Jira)
How to Choose the Best On-Call Software for Your Team
Making the right decision requires evaluating each tool against your team's unique context. Here are the key factors to consider when choosing from the many site reliability engineering tools available.
- Team Size & Maturity: Is your team just starting with on-call, or are you a mature organization with complex needs? A startup may only need simple alerting, while a larger company will benefit from a comprehensive incident management platform.
- Integration Needs: Make a list of your must-have integrations. The best tool will fit into your existing stack of
SRE tools for incident tracking, such as Datadog, Jira, and GitHub. - Automation Goals: How much of the incident response process do you want to automate? If your goal is to reduce manual toil and enforce consistency, look for tools with powerful and flexible workflow engines like Rootly.
- Budget: Compare the total cost of ownership, not just the per-user, per-month price. Factor in which features are included in each tier to avoid unexpected costs as your needs grow.
- Focus on Learning: Does the tool help you learn from incidents? Features like automated timelines, collaborative retrospectives, and insightful analytics are critical for fostering a culture of continuous improvement. For a deeper dive, check out this incident management platform showdown.
Choosing the right tool has a direct impact on key reliability metrics. The right platform can significantly lower your MTTA and MTTR by streamlining communication and automating response actions.
Conclusion: Find the Right Fit for Your Reliability Goals
While PagerDuty remains a formidable tool, the market now offers a range of excellent alternatives tailored to different team sizes, workflows, and budgets. The best oncall software for teams ultimately depends on your specific requirements. This could mean the deep enterprise focus of xMatters, the tight Atlassian integration of Opsgenie, or the powerful, end-to-end automation of Rootly.
For modern engineering teams that want to move beyond simple alerting and automate their entire incident lifecycle, Rootly stands out. By centralizing communication, automating manual tasks, and embedding learning into the process, Rootly helps reduce the cognitive load on responders and builds a culture of continuous improvement.
Ready to see how a complete incident management platform can transform your response process? Get Started with Rootly On-Call to learn more.