PagerDuty is a well-known name in the world of incident management. For a long time, it has been a popular choice for on-call scheduling and sending alerts. But as technology has evolved, many teams now find it overly complex, expensive, and not fully equipped for modern incident response. As teams search for the best oncall software for teams, they're asking: is there a better way? What does a simpler, more connected, and easier-to-use alternative look like?
Why Teams Are Searching for PagerDuty Alternatives
As our reliance on digital services grows, the tools we use to keep them running are more important than ever. Companies are learning that just getting an alert about a problem isn't enough. They need a complete solution that helps them fix issues faster and learn from them to prevent future outages. This is why many are looking for PagerDuty alternatives, seeking more modern, affordable, and integrated solutions that are considered top incident management tools.
Bloated Features and Complex Pricing
One of the most common complaints about PagerDuty is its cost. The platform is sold in different tiers, but this structure can be confusing, and many crucial features are only available as expensive add-ons or in the priciest plans [3]. This makes it hard to predict the final bill. Many teams feel they are paying for "feature bloat"—a long list of features they don't actually need or use [7].
This pressure on tech spending is having an impact. PagerDuty's dollar-based net retention has fallen to 104% as even loyal clients are downgrading subscriptions to manage tighter budgets, a clear sign of strain [6]. This has pushed more organizations to look for alternatives that offer better value for their money.
A Complicated and Frustrating User Experience
When something goes wrong, every second counts. A complicated tool can slow your team down at the worst possible moment. Many users find PagerDuty's interface difficult to navigate, which can get in the way of fixing an incident quickly [4].
This complexity doesn't just impact engineers. A study found that during incidents, 63% of engineers feel frustrated by constant interruptions from other departments, while a staggering 73% of non-technical staff feel they don't have clear information [5]. A confusing user experience slows everyone down and creates communication gaps, showing a clear need for a more intuitive platform.
Meet Rootly: The Modern, All-in-One Alternative
Rootly is the answer to these challenges. It’s not just another on-call tool; it’s a complete incident management platform built for simplicity, speed, and teamwork. Rootly gives you one central place to respond to, resolve, and learn from every incident.
Simplified and Powerful On-Call Management
Rootly provides all the essential on-call features you need without the extra complexity or confusing price tags. It makes sure every important alert gets to the right person, right away. With Rootly, you can easily get started with core features designed for effective on-call management:
- Schedules: Easily set up on-call rotations, define working hours, and manage overrides for vacation or sick days.
- Escalation Policies: Create simple, step-by-step rules to ensure that if the first person on call doesn't respond, the alert automatically goes to the next person in line.
- Notification Channels: Reach your team members wherever they are, with alerts through voice calls, SMS, Slack, email, and mobile push notifications.
- Live Call Routing: Let someone with an urgent issue call a dedicated number that pages the on-call engineer or connects them directly.
- Heartbeats: Set up proactive checks on your systems to catch silent failures before they cause a major problem.
A Unified Platform Beyond Alerting
On-call scheduling is just the beginning. To be truly reliable, you need a smooth process that covers the entire life of an incident. Rootly brings on-call management and incident response together into one seamless workflow.
Instead of switching between different tools for alerts, communication, and post-incident reviews, Rootly brings it all together. You can manage the entire incident management process from start to finish:
- Detection and Alerting: Connect your monitoring tools like Datadog or Grafana to automatically start the incident process.
- Incident Creation and Triage: With one command, create a dedicated Slack channel, a video conference call, and a public status page.
- Coordinating a Response: Use simple, no-code workflows to automate tasks like assigning roles, gathering logs, and updating stakeholders.
- Resolution and Learning: When the incident is over, Rootly automatically creates a timeline and helps you write a retrospective to learn from what happened.
Compare On-call Platforms: Rootly vs. PagerDuty
To help you see the difference, here is a direct alert management software comparison between Rootly and PagerDuty.
Feature
PagerDuty
Rootly
On-Call Scheduling
Yes
Yes
Integrated Incident Mgmt
Separate product / Add-on
Fully Integrated
Workflow Automation
Limited, requires higher tiers
Powerful, no-code, included
Slack Integration
Basic
Native and Deep
Pricing Model
Complex Tiers with add-ons
Transparent, All-in-One
The table shows a key difference: Rootly is a single, unified platform, while PagerDuty often makes you piece together different products and add-ons. Alternatives like Rootly are built to deliver more value with simple, upfront pricing and fully integrated features [2].
Exploring Top Incident Management Tools
The search for better reliability tools goes beyond just PagerDuty. As teams compare oncall platforms, they are finding a growing number of modern solutions.
Opsgenie Alternatives and Other Contenders
Teams looking for Opsgenie alternatives often run into similar issues with complexity and features that don't work well together. Rootly is a strong competitor to both PagerDuty and Opsgenie because it offers a more complete and user-friendly approach. The market is full of great tools offering new ways to manage incidents, and it’s smart to see what's out there. Modern solutions prove that powerful incident management doesn't need to be complicated or break the bank [1].
Conclusion: Simplify Your On-Call and Incident Response with Rootly
PagerDuty's complexity and unclear pricing are leading more teams to search for the best pagerduty alternatives. The need for a simple, powerful, and connected solution is clearer than ever.
Rootly offers a modern, unified platform that combines on-call scheduling with the entire incident management process. By switching to Rootly, your team can enjoy:
- Less complexity and fewer tools to manage.
- A lower total cost with clear, transparent pricing.
- Faster and more consistent incident resolution powered by automation.
See for yourself why today's top engineering teams are switching. Book a demo or start a free trial to discover why Rootly is the best on-call and incident management software for your team.