Incident management is a critical function for modern technology teams, including Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps. While PagerDuty is a well-known tool for on-call alerting, many teams are now looking for the best PagerDuty alternatives. This search is driven by high costs, the need for features that go beyond simple alerting, and a desire for a more integrated and flexible solution. For teams seeking a modern, complete incident management software, Rootly stands out as the leading choice.
What is PagerDuty?
PagerDuty is an incident response platform primarily known for its on-call management and alerting capabilities. Its core function is to aggregate alerts from various monitoring systems, notify the correct on-call engineers based on predefined schedules, and manage escalation policies to ensure alerts are acknowledged. Its strong brand recognition has made it a common, though not always optimal, choice in the market [5].
Why Teams Are Looking for PagerDuty Alternatives
Organizations are increasingly exploring other options for DevOps incident management. The reasons often come down to cost, a need for more comprehensive features, and better workflow integration.
High Costs and Complex Pricing Tiers
A significant driver for seeking alternatives is the cost of PagerDuty. Many users find its pricing plans to be complex and expensive, especially since essential features are often locked behind higher-priced enterprise tiers [3]. This can make it a costly option for growing teams, with some plans reaching approximately $35 per user per month [2].
Need for a More Comprehensive Incident Management Platform
Modern incident response involves more than just alerting. Teams require site reliability engineering tools that support the entire incident lifecycle. This includes detection, response coordination, stakeholder communication, resolution, and post-incident learning. An effective platform unifies these stages, providing a single source of truth from the first alert to the final retrospective. Rootly is built to manage the complete incident lifecycle efficiently.
Lack of Native Collaboration and Workflow Automation
While PagerDuty integrates with collaboration tools, it doesn't function as a native collaboration hub. Today's engineering teams need powerful, flexible workflow automation built directly into their incident management platform. This reduces manual toil, shortens response times, and enforces best practices without forcing engineers to switch between multiple tools.
Introducing Rootly: The Top Choice for DevOps Incident Management
Rootly is a comprehensive incident management platform that directly addresses the shortcomings of traditional alerting tools. It's designed to manage the entire incident lifecycle, making it one of the top incident management tools available today.
A Complete, End-to-End Solution
Rootly manages incidents from detection to resolution and learning, all within a single platform.
- Detection & Alerting: Connect with monitoring tools to automatically declare incidents and trigger workflows.
- Response & Coordination: Centralize all incident communication in Slack or Microsoft Teams, automate status page updates, and manage tasks seamlessly.
- Resolution: Execute automated "on-resolve" workflows to streamline the process of closing out an incident.
- Learning & Improvement: Automatically generate detailed retrospectives and access powerful analytics on metrics like Mean Time To Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time To Resolution (MTTR).
The platform provides a clear structure for handling every aspect of an incident, ensuring a consistent and efficient response process.
Seamless Integration and Flexibility
Rootly integrates with over 100 tools, including monitoring, communication, and project management platforms, to create a central command center for incidents. This flexibility allows teams to either enhance their existing PagerDuty setup or replace it entirely. The Rootly and PagerDuty integration offers features like two-way sync of incident details, automated paging from Rootly workflows, and the ability to import PagerDuty services directly into Rootly.
A Look at Other PagerDuty and Opsgenie Alternatives
To make an informed decision, it's helpful to compare Rootly with other tools in the market.
Rootly vs. Opsgenie
Opsgenie is another common PagerDuty alternative, often used by teams within the Atlassian ecosystem. However, it's a less viable long-term option for new adopters. Atlassian announced it will stop selling Opsgenie as a standalone product and will shut it down entirely on April 5, 2027 [6]. This forces current users to migrate, making it a risky choice for teams seeking stability. As organizations look for Opsgenie alternatives, Rootly emerges as a stable, feature-rich, and future-proof platform.
Other On-call Tools (Zenduty, Squadcast)
Other competitors, such as Zenduty [1] and Squadcast, also offer on-call and alerting features. While these tools address some of the same pain points, Rootly provides a more comprehensive and seamlessly integrated platform built for the entire incident lifecycle, not just alerting.
Can Rootly Fully Replace PagerDuty?
Yes. For teams looking to consolidate their toolchain, Rootly can serve as a complete replacement for PagerDuty. With the release of Rootly On-Call, the platform now natively manages on-call schedules, escalations, and alerting. This allows organizations to unify their entire incident management process within Rootly. For those who prefer a hybrid approach, Rootly continues to offer deep integration with PagerDuty and other paging providers.
Conclusion: Why Rootly is the Best On-Call Software for Teams
For organizations seeking to move beyond basic alerting, Rootly is the superior choice among PagerDuty alternatives. It addresses the key limitations of older tools by offering a modern, comprehensive solution.
- It’s a complete incident management platform that covers the entire lifecycle, not just an alerting tool.
- It offers powerful workflow automation that reduces manual work and enforces consistency.
- It's cost-effective and designed to scale with your team's needs.
- It serves as a stable and robust alternative to tools like Opsgenie that are being sunsetted.
For any organization serious about improving site reliability and streamlining its DevOps incident management, Rootly is the clear winner.
Ready to see how Rootly can transform your incident response? Schedule a demo to learn more.