Why SRE Teams Ditch PagerDuty for Rootly’s AI Scheduling

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams are the backbone of modern digital services, and their on-call management is critical for maintaining system uptime. However, the persistent challenges of on-call burnout and alert fatigue can undermine even the most skilled teams. An important question many teams are asking is how to reduce alert fatigue on-call. While traditional tools like PagerDuty have long been part of the on-call landscape, their limitations are becoming more apparent in today's complex, cloud-native environments.

This has led many teams to seek out PagerDuty alternatives for on-call engineers that can keep pace with their needs. Rootly’s AI-powered scheduling and incident management platform is emerging as a powerful solution that directly addresses these pain points. This article explores why SRE teams switch from PagerDuty to Rootly, moving from a reactive, manual approach to an intelligent, automated one.

The Core Problem with Traditional On-Call Management

Traditional on-call tools were built for a simpler time. As systems have grown in complexity, the static, rule-based nature of these tools has created significant strain for the engineers who rely on them.

The Strain of Static Schedules

Tools like PagerDuty often depend on rigid, manually configured schedules. This inflexibility creates a significant administrative burden, as managers must constantly handle overrides, swaps, and exceptions. This manual toil not only consumes valuable engineering time but also struggles to adapt to the dynamic workloads and personal needs of a team.

This rigidity often leads to imbalanced on-call rotations, where some engineers are consistently overloaded while others are underutilized. Over time, this imbalance is a primary contributor to on-call burnout, which can degrade team morale and performance [7].

Alert Fatigue: The Unseen Cost of Noise

Alert fatigue happens when engineers are so overwhelmed by a constant flood of notifications that they become desensitized and start missing critical alerts. Traditional systems often contribute to this problem by forwarding a high volume of low-context alerts from various monitoring tools. The consequences are severe: slower response times, missed incidents, and frustrated engineers.

This issue isn't unique to tech; in healthcare, for instance, up to 90% of clinical alarms are false or non-actionable, leading to similar fatigue [2]. For SREs, this translates into a sea of noise that makes it nearly impossible to spot the real signals. Instead of just forwarding alerts, modern platforms must help cut through the noise. That's why Rootly uses AI to differentiate from rule-based systems, ensuring engineers only see what matters.

How Rootly’s AI Transforms On-Call Scheduling and Alerting

Rootly addresses the fundamental flaws of traditional on-call management by leveraging artificial intelligence to create a smarter, more humane system. It shifts the focus from simply routing alerts to intelligently managing incidents and engineer workload.

Intelligent, Self-Optimizing Schedules

The core differentiator for Rootly is its approach to Rootly AI on-call scheduling optimization. Instead of relying on static calendars, Rootly’s AI analyzes historical incident data, alert patterns, and individual team member workloads. Based on this data, it automatically generates schedules that are balanced, fair, and sustainable.

The system is adaptive. If an engineer has had a particularly heavy on-call shift, the AI can suggest swaps or rebalance future rotations to prevent burnout. This ensures that the on-call burden is distributed equitably across the team, all while minimizing the manual overhead of schedule management. Teams can easily manage their schedules and coverage with a system that works for them, not against them.

From Reactive Alerting to Proactive Incident Management

Rootly’s AI also tackles the root cause of alert fatigue: noise. Rather than just passing along every notification, Rootly’s machine learning algorithms automatically correlate related alerts, deduplicate redundant information, and add context.

This means that instead of receiving a storm of disconnected notifications for a single issue, the on-call engineer receives one actionable incident with all the relevant context in one place. This allows them to immediately start diagnosing the problem rather than trying to piece together what’s happening from dozens of alerts. This intelligent prioritization is key to how Rootly uses machine learning to help teams respond faster and more effectively.

Rootly vs. PagerDuty: A 2025 Comparison

When evaluating why SRE teams are making the switch, it's helpful to compare the two platforms directly. The differences highlight a fundamental shift from manual effort to intelligent automation.

Feature Breakdown: AI-Powered Automation vs. Manual Toil

The core distinction lies in how each platform approaches on-call management. Rootly is built with AI at its core to reduce toil, while PagerDuty remains a largely manual, rule-based system.

Feature

Rootly

PagerDuty

Scheduling

AI-driven, adaptive schedules based on workload and historical data.

Static, rule-based schedules requiring manual configuration and overrides.

Alert Management

AI-powered correlation, deduplication, and prioritization to reduce noise.

Basic routing and escalation rules based on predefined conditions.

Automation

Automated remediation actions, like one-click Kubernetes rollbacks.

Primarily limited to escalating alerts to different people or teams.

Rootly's platform offers smart escalation and automated rollbacks, moving beyond simple notifications to provide engineers with tools that help them resolve issues faster.

The Pricing and Value Proposition

When considering the Rootly vs PagerDuty pricing 2025 comparison, it’s essential to look beyond the license fees and consider the total cost of ownership (TCO). PagerDuty’s traditional per-user pricing model can become expensive as teams grow, especially when feature add-ons are required for more advanced functionality.

Rootly's value proposition is centered on return on investment (ROI). By reducing alert noise, automating manual tasks, and preventing engineer burnout, Rootly delivers significant cost savings. The financial impact of inefficient alert management—through wasted time and slower response—can be substantial [5]. Rootly’s intelligent platform lowers Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR), reduces the risk of costly engineer turnover, and frees up your team to focus on innovation, making it a more cost-effective solution in the long run.

Building a Healthier On-Call Culture with Rootly

The tool you choose for on-call management has a direct and profound impact on your engineering culture. It can either reinforce a stressful, reactive environment or foster a proactive, sustainable one.

Shifting from Firefighting to Sustainable Reliability

A tool that bombards engineers with alerts can create a constant "firefighting" culture where teams are always on the defensive. This aligns with the anti-pattern of piling up operational work, which Google's SRE workbook warns against [8]. Rootly, by contrast, promotes a calmer, more proactive approach. By delivering high-signal, low-noise alerts and automating routine tasks, it allows engineers to manage incidents with focus and intention, not panic.

Designing for Engineer Well-being

Ultimately, a healthy on-call rotation is about more than just technology; it's about people. Rootly's features are designed with engineer well-being in mind. Fair and balanced schedules built by AI, combined with meaningful, contextualized alerts, create a foundation of trust and psychological safety. When engineers know they will only be paged for something important, they can truly rest when they are off-call.

The dangers of alert fatigue are real, with security professionals reporting they are unable to handle a significant percentage of their weekly alerts [4]. By adopting a platform that prioritizes signal over noise, organizations can implement best practices for modern on-call management that protect their most valuable asset: their people.

Conclusion: The Future of On-Call is Intelligent

The migration of SRE teams from PagerDuty to Rootly marks a pivotal shift in the industry. It represents a move away from rigid, manual systems toward an intelligent, automated platform designed for the complexities of modern software.

Rootly’s key advantages—AI-powered scheduling, proactive alert management, and a deep focus on reducing engineer burnout—are a direct response to the biggest challenges in on-call management today. Adopting a tool like Rootly isn't just a technical upgrade; it's a strategic decision to build a more resilient, effective, and sustainable on-call culture.

Ready to see how AI can transform your incident management process? Book a demo of Rootly today.

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