Rootly vs PagerDuty: Faster Incident Ops and Lower Cost

In today's digital-first world, incident management and on-call platforms are non-negotiable for engineering and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams. When services go down, every second counts. This article will compare oncall platforms by looking at two major players: PagerDuty, the established market leader, and Rootly, a modern, integrated challenger. The goal is to provide a detailed comparison focusing on operational speed, comprehensive features, and total cost of ownership to help your team choose the right solution.

The Evolving Landscape of Incident Management

The pressure for constant system uptime has never been greater. Outages don't just frustrate users; they carry significant financial and reputational costs. In fact, major outages have impacted a significant number of organizations, underscoring the critical need for effective incident management tools [3].

PagerDuty has long been a go-to tool, but it began primarily as an alerting platform, adding incident response features over time. In contrast, Rootly was built from the ground up as a comprehensive incident management platform and now includes full on-call capabilities, presenting a modern, all-in-one alternative.

Head-to-Head: Rootly vs. PagerDuty Feature Breakdown

Choosing the right platform requires a close look at features, usability, and pricing. This direct comparison will break down the core aspects of Rootly and PagerDuty to help you determine which tool is the best fit for your team's needs.

Feature

Rootly

PagerDuty

Core Focus

Comprehensive incident management & collaboration (Slack-native)

On-call management & alerting

Pricing Model

Transparent, all-inclusive pricing

Complex tiers with hidden costs & expensive add-ons

Automation

Deep, workflow-based automation across the entire incident lifecycle

Primarily focused on alert routing & escalation

User Experience

Intuitive, integrated within existing tools like Slack

Powerful but can be complex and overwhelming

Core Functionality: Comprehensive Management vs. On-Call Alerting

Rootly's Approach

Rootly operates as a centralized command center, designed to manage the entire incident lifecycle from detection and response to retrospectives and postmortems. Its collaboration-first design works natively within Slack, allowing teams to manage incidents without context switching. With the addition of on-call scheduling and alerting, Rootly now serves as a complete platform, offering a more robust and centralized solution than PagerDuty alone. You can even integrate PagerDuty with Rootly if you're looking to transition smoothly.

PagerDuty's Approach

PagerDuty Operations Cloud is primarily focused on IT alerting and on-call management. As a long-standing tool, it has a significant market presence and is a top-ranked product in its category, holding a market share of 19.5% [2]. Its strength lies in ensuring the right person is notified when an issue arises.

Pricing and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

PagerDuty's Complex Pricing Model

PagerDuty's pricing for 2025 is structured in tiers, which can become complicated and expensive [7]. Many essential features are locked behind higher-priced plans or require separate, costly add-ons. This can lead to significant hidden costs, as organizations may face extra charges for implementation support and feature upgrades, ultimately increasing the total cost of ownership [8]. For many teams, the high price tag can be difficult to justify, especially if they don't use the full suite of advanced features [6].

Rootly's Cost-Effective Alternative

Rootly offers a more cost-effective solution with straightforward pricing. It provides a comprehensive feature set without the complex tiers and hidden fees associated with PagerDuty. By consolidating tools into a single, unified platform, organizations can replace PagerDuty entirely, simplifying their incident management stack and significantly lowering their total cost of ownership.

Usability and User Experience

Rootly

Rootly consistently receives high marks for its usability, earning a rating of 9.3 out of 10 from users [1]. Its focus on an intuitive, simple workflow inside Slack minimizes friction and helps teams resolve incidents faster. This positive user experience is reflected in its perfect 10.0 recommendation score, with users praising its ease of use and support [1].

PagerDuty

While PagerDuty is a powerful and feature-rich tool, its extensive capabilities can create a more complex user experience. It holds a solid rating of 8.6 out of 10, but some teams find the platform can be overwhelming if they don't require its full range of advanced features [1].

Can Rootly Completely Replace PagerDuty?

Yes, absolutely. With the launch of Rootly On-Call, the platform now provides all the core functionality needed to replace PagerDuty, including on-call schedules, escalation policies, and multi-channel alerting (SMS, phone, Slack, and email). This allows organizations to consolidate their toolchain into a single platform for both on-call management and incident response. By moving to Rootly, teams can simplify workflows, reduce costs, and manage everything from one centralized location.

Considering Other PagerDuty and Opsgenie Alternatives

The market for PagerDuty alternatives and Opsgenie alternatives is growing, and while this article focuses on Rootly, it's worth noting other options exist. Tools like BigPanda and Freshservice offer different approaches to incident management [5]. Other modern platforms, such as ilert, offer an end-to-end solution with a different feature set and integration focus [4].

However, Rootly stands out among these alternatives. Its unique combination of powerful automation, a seamless Slack-native experience, and a cost-effective, unified platform makes it a leading choice for modern engineering teams looking to improve their incident management process.

Conclusion: Switch to a Faster, More Affordable Incident Management Platform

While PagerDuty remains a capable tool for on-call alerting, Rootly offers a more modern, streamlined, and cost-effective approach to incident management. By combining on-call management with a powerful incident response engine in one place, Rootly helps teams resolve issues faster and with less manual effort.

Key advantages of choosing Rootly include:

• A single, unified platform for on-call, alerting, and incident response.
• Powerful automation that reduces manual work and lowers Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR).
• A simpler, more transparent pricing model that results in a lower total cost of ownership.

Ready to see how Rootly can streamline your incident operations and reduce your costs? Schedule a demo today to experience the benefits firsthand.

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