For modern engineering teams, including Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps, fast and reliable incident management isn't just a goal; it's a core requirement for business continuity. While tools like PagerDuty have long been staples for on-call alerting, the demands of today's complex, distributed systems call for a more integrated approach. The incident management software market is projected to grow from USD 7,215 million in 2024 to over USD 15,578 million by 2032, highlighting the need for solutions that go beyond simple alerts [1]. Rootly is a comprehensive incident management platform built to manage the entire incident lifecycle, not just the initial page.
The Evolving Landscape of SRE and Incident Management
The scope of Site Reliability Engineering has expanded well beyond just "keeping the lights on." It now focuses on driving continuous improvement and building long-term system resilience. However, using a collection of siloed tools—separate tools that don't talk to each other—for alerting, communication, and post-mortems creates friction, leading to manual work and slower response times. The market is shifting toward consolidated platforms that offer a "single pane of glass," or one central place, for the entire incident response process.
This trend is reflected in how the industry evaluates tooling. With the retirement of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management (ITSM) platforms, buyers are rethinking their priorities [2]. Instead of focusing on vendor marketing, engineering leaders now prioritize practical concerns like deployment speed, user adoption, and deep integration—areas where a unified platform excels.
What’s included in the modern SRE tooling stack?
A modern SRE tooling stack must provide end-to-end support for the incident lifecycle. It should bring together monitoring, alerting, on-call management, incident response coordination, stakeholder communication, and post-incident learning into one cohesive system. The goal is to allow teams to focus on resolving issues rather than fighting their tools.
Understanding PagerDuty and Its Limitations
PagerDuty is an established and effective tool for its core function: on-call scheduling, escalations, and alert management. It excels at routing an alert to the right person at the right time. However, alerting is only the first step of a much larger process.
The main gaps in a PagerDuty-centric workflow appear after the alert is acknowledged. Teams are often left to manually:
- Create a dedicated Slack or Microsoft Teams channel.
- Start a conference bridge like a Zoom meeting.
- Spin up and update a status page.
- Document the incident timeline and key decisions.
- Gather data and schedule a retrospective meeting.
While PagerDuty has added features to address some of these needs, they can feel disconnected from its core alerting engine. For teams seeking a truly seamless experience, this creates an opportunity for a more integrated solution. Rootly offers a deep integration with PagerDuty, allowing teams to bridge these gaps, but also provides a native, all-in-one alternative.
Why Rootly is a Better PagerDuty Alternative
Rootly was designed from the ground up as a comprehensive platform that unifies every phase of an incident, making it one of the best PagerDuty alternatives available.
A Unified Platform for the Entire Incident Lifecycle
Rootly is an end-to-end incident management software that centralizes every task into a single, cohesive workflow. It manages the full incident lifecycle seamlessly:
- Detection & Alerting: Integrates with your monitoring tools to automatically declare incidents from any alert source.
- Triage & Assessment: Provides context and automates checklists to help responders understand the impact.
- Response & Coordination: Creates dedicated Slack channels, starts video calls, and assigns roles with one command.
- Resolution: Tracks action items and communicates status updates until the incident is resolved.
- Retrospectives & Learning: Automatically generates a complete timeline and a retrospective document to drive continuous improvement.
With Rootly, teams can manage the entire incident from declaration to resolution without juggling different tools.
Powerful, Codeless Automation with Workflows
Rootly’s workflow engine is a key differentiator that eliminates manual toil and enforces best practices. You can build codeless automations for any task, such as:
- Automatically creating and archiving incident-specific Slack channels.
- Paging on-call responders based on the affected service and severity level.
- Updating internal and external status pages in real-time.
- Assigning incident roles (for example, Commander, Ops Lead) and tasks.
- Generating retrospective documents with pre-populated timelines, graphs, and action items.
Seamless Management Directly Within Slack
Switching between different apps kills productivity during a high-stress incident. Rootly’s deep Slack integration allows responders to manage the entire incident without leaving their chat client. With simple Slack commands, users can declare an incident, assign roles, add notes, pull metrics, and resolve the incident. This approach keeps all stakeholders aligned in one place and dramatically reduces the time spent on coordination.
Data-Driven Insights and Continuous Improvement
You can't improve what you don't measure. Rootly provides built-in analytics with key reliability metrics like Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR), Mean Time to Detection (MTTD), and incident frequency by service or severity. The platform automates the creation of retrospectives, pulling in the entire incident timeline automatically. This focus on turning incidents into learning opportunities is a core principle of modern reliability and what separates good SRE tools for incident tracking from the rest.
Feature Comparison: Rootly vs. PagerDuty
This alert management software comparison shows how Rootly provides a more complete, integrated solution out of the box when you compare oncall platforms.
Feature
PagerDuty
Rootly
On-Call & Alerting
Core strength. Excellent for scheduling and alert routing.
Robust, native on-call scheduling, escalations, and alerting. A complete replacement.
Incident Response Automation
Limited native automation. Requires custom scripting or separate tools.
Powerful, codeless workflow engine to automate the entire incident lifecycle.
Retrospectives
Basic functionality. Often requires manual data gathering.
Automatically generates retrospectives with a full timeline, metrics, and action items.
Status Pages
Available as an add-on or in higher-tier plans.
Fully integrated internal and external status pages included.
Slack Integration
Good for notifications, but most management happens in the PagerDuty UI.
Deep, native integration. Manage the entire incident lifecycle from within Slack.
Analytics & Reporting
Focuses on alerting and on-call metrics.
Comprehensive reliability metrics (MTTR, MTTD, etc.) tied to services and teams.
Pricing Model
Per-user pricing that can become expensive as teams grow. Add-ons cost extra.
Unified platform with transparent pricing. More cost-effective at scale.
What About Other PagerDuty Alternatives like Opsgenie?
Other PagerDuty alternatives like Opsgenie also offer strong on-call and alerting features. They are a solid choice for teams looking for different alerting and notification options. However, like PagerDuty, their primary focus remains on the alerting component of incident management.
Rootly stands apart with its superior, workflow-first approach to automating the entire incident lifecycle. It's built for teams looking to consolidate their DevOps incident management toolchain and reduce the operational overhead associated with juggling multiple platforms. The market is increasingly demanding this level of integration, with analysts predicting that the integration of AI will enhance automated incident detection and resolution by up to 40% [3].
Making the Switch: Can Rootly Replace PagerDuty?
Yes, with the introduction of Rootly On-Call, Rootly can serve as a complete replacement for PagerDuty. The platform provides robust on-call schedules, escalation policies, and multi-channel alerting (SMS, phone, push), making it one of the best oncall software for teams seeking a single, unified solution for both alerting and response.
For teams who aren't ready to make a full switch, Rootly's powerful PagerDuty integration allows you to augment your existing on-call setup with Rootly's automation and incident management capabilities. You can trigger Rootly workflows directly from a PagerDuty alert, getting the best of both worlds as you plan a gradual migration.
Conclusion: The Future of Incident Management is Integrated and Automated
Modern reliability challenges demand more than just a glorified pager. While traditional tools like PagerDuty solve the alerting problem well, they leave a significant gap in the rest of the incident management lifecycle. This gap is filled with manual tasks, context switching, and missed learning opportunities.
Rootly offers a forward-thinking, integrated approach. By combining on-call alerting with powerful automation, seamless collaboration in Slack, and data-driven learning, Rootly provides a unified platform for building a more resilient and efficient incident management practice.
Ready to see how a truly integrated platform can transform your incident response? Book a demo of Rootly today.