Why SRE Teams Drop PagerDuty for Rootly: Faster, Simpler Ops

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams are under constant pressure to maintain system uptime. However, traditional on-call management tools like PagerDuty can introduce their own challenges, from alert fatigue and complex user interfaces to constant context switching during high-stakes incidents. This friction slows down response and increases cognitive load.

Rootly offers a modern, streamlined alternative designed to manage the entire incident lifecycle directly within Slack. This article explores the key reasons why SRE teams are migrating from PagerDuty to Rootly for faster, simpler, and more collaborative operations.

The Pain Points of Traditional On-Call Management with PagerDuty

Legacy alerting tools, while powerful, can add unnecessary friction to the incident response process. While PagerDuty holds a significant market position, users often note limitations that complicate workflows [1]. This leads to several common pain points for SRE teams.

Alert Fatigue and Clunky Workflows

An overwhelming volume of alerts from various monitoring systems can lead to "alert fatigue," where engineers become desensitized and struggle to distinguish critical issues from noise. The response process itself is often inefficient, forcing engineers to context-switch between PagerDuty for alerts, Slack for communication, and a separate wiki for runbooks. This disjointed process wastes valuable time and increases the risk of missed steps and miscommunication during a crisis.

Complicated On-Call Shift Handoffs and Scheduling

Configuring and managing on-call schedules and escalation policies in traditional tools can be complex. A significant challenge arises during on-call shift handoffs, where critical context about ongoing issues or recent system changes can be lost between the outgoing and incoming engineers. While some platforms offer rule-based routing, they may lack the intuitive interfaces needed for seamless handoffs, creating gaps in knowledge and preparedness [2].

Rootly’s Solution: Native Incident Management in Slack

Rootly’s core philosophy is simple: meet engineers where they already collaborate—Slack. By centralizing incident response, Rootly eliminates context switching and streamlines the entire process. This approach is built around Rootly on-call workflows integrated with Slack, turning your chat tool into a powerful command center.

A Single Command to Mobilize Your Team

With Rootly, any team member can declare an incident with a simple Slack command like /incident. This single action instantly triggers a series of automated tasks to mobilize your team:

• Creates a dedicated incident Slack channel.
• Invites the correct on-call responders from your schedules.
• Assigns key incident roles, such as Commander and Comms Lead.
• Establishes a video conference link for real-time collaboration.
• Begins logging a detailed timeline of events automatically.

This automation ensures that your team can start diagnosing the problem in seconds, without manual setup. You can create and manage incidents entirely within the Slack interface, keeping everyone on the same page [3].

Seamless Workflows and Automation

Rootly uses powerful, no-code workflows to automate repetitive tasks throughout the incident lifecycle. This frees up engineers to focus on resolution instead of administrative chores. Examples of automated tasks include:

• Notifying stakeholder channels with status updates.
• Sending periodic reminders to update the incident severity.
• Pinning important links and messages for easy access.

This level of automation ensures consistency and reduces human error. You can even extend these workflows by connecting Rootly to other tools through platforms like Zapier and n8n [4] [5]. By integrating Rootly with Slack, teams build a resilient and efficient response process.

Why SRE Teams Switch from PagerDuty to Rootly: A Direct Comparison

The growing trend of why SRE teams switch from PagerDuty to Rootly comes down to fundamental differences in philosophy and functionality. While PagerDuty excels at alerting, Rootly provides a comprehensive, collaboration-first incident management experience.

Speed and Simplicity vs. Complexity

• Rootly: Delivers unparalleled speed through Slack-native operations. Incidents are declared, managed, and resolved in one place, minimizing clicks and context switching.
• PagerDuty: Functions as a powerful alerting tool, but managing the full response often requires users to navigate a separate, more complex web UI, which can slow down the process.

All-in-One Collaboration vs. Alerting Layer

• Rootly: Serves as an all-in-one incident management platform. It combines on-call scheduling, automated workflows, and collaborative retrospectives into a single, cohesive environment. The entire process is built around the collaboration hub of Slack.
• PagerDuty: Primarily acts as an alerting and on-call scheduling layer. Teams often need to supplement it with other tools for real-time collaboration, documentation, and post-incident analysis.

Flexible Integration That Augments Your Stack

A full "rip and replace" isn't always necessary. Rootly integrates seamlessly with PagerDuty, allowing teams to adopt a more modern workflow without disrupting their existing alerting infrastructure. With this integration, you can:

• Leverage PagerDuty for its robust alerting and routing capabilities.
• Automatically trigger a Rootly incident workflow in Slack the moment a PagerDuty alert fires.
• Manage the entire response and resolution process in Rootly, where your team collaborates.

This approach gives you the best of both worlds. You can learn more about how to connect Rootly and PagerDuty to enhance your incident response.

Conclusion: The Future of Incident Management is Collaborative and Efficient

SRE teams are switching to Rootly because it aligns with the needs of modern, fast-moving engineering organizations. The shift is driven by a demand for greater speed, simplicity, and collaboration in a single, unified platform. Where traditional tools add administrative toil, Rootly reduces cognitive load and automates manual work.

In today's landscape of incident management tools, the most effective platforms are those that minimize manual tasks and centralize communication [6]. By embedding incident management directly into Slack, Rootly provides the efficiency and collaborative power that SRE teams need to build more reliable systems.

Ready to streamline your incident response? Book a demo with Rootly today.

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