PagerDuty is a well-known name in on-call scheduling and alerting, but many modern engineering teams find its capabilities limiting. As incident management evolves, teams are actively searching for PagerDuty alternatives that offer more than just notifications. Common drivers for this search include high costs, platform complexity, and a narrow focus on alerting [7].
This is where Rootly comes in. Rootly is a leading PagerDuty alternative designed for the entire incident lifecycle, from initial detection to resolution and learning. This article will compare on-call platforms, stacking Rootly against PagerDuty and other tools to help you find the best on-call software for your teams.
What is PagerDuty and Why Look for an Alternative?
PagerDuty was a pioneer in the incident management space, focusing primarily on alerting and on-call schedule management. Its strong brand recognition has made it a default choice for many organizations over the years [6]. However, as technology and team needs have advanced, the limitations of a tool focused solely on alerting have become more apparent, prompting teams to look for better solutions.
Common Drawbacks of PagerDuty
- High and Complicated Pricing: PagerDuty's pricing is not only expensive but can escalate quickly as your team grows or requires more advanced features. This often forces teams to make difficult decisions about who gets access, hindering a unified response.
- Limited to Alerting: Modern incident response is about more than just waking someone up. PagerDuty is primarily an alerting tool. It lacks the integrated capabilities needed to manage the entire lifecycle, such as automated incident coordination, seamless communication, and data-driven retrospectives.
- Outdated User Experience: Compared to modern, chat-native tools, PagerDuty's user interface can feel complex and less intuitive. This friction can slow down response times when every second counts.
- Lack of Deep Automation: While PagerDuty offers some basic automation, it falls short of the powerful, no-code workflow capabilities needed to automate the hundreds of repetitive tasks that occur during an incident.
Introducing Rootly: The Modern End-to-End Incident Management Platform
Rootly is more than just an alternative; it's a complete incident management platform built for speed, collaboration, and learning. It was designed from the ground up to handle the full incident lifecycle, ensuring a consistent and efficient process every time. Rootly seamlessly guides teams through every stage of an incident, from the first alert to the final retrospective.
The key stages of the incident lifecycle managed within Rootly include:
- Detection & Alerting
- Incident Creation & Triage
- Automated Response & Coordination
- Resolution
- Retrospectives & Learning
- Analytics & Insights
Rootly's power comes from its focus on automation and native integration with the collaboration tools your team already uses, like Slack and Microsoft Teams. You can manage incidents from detection to resolution without leaving your chat application.
Compare On-call Platforms: Rootly vs. PagerDuty
A direct, head-to-head comparison reveals why modern teams are moving away from siloed alerting tools and toward comprehensive platforms like Rootly.
Feature Comparison: Rootly vs. PagerDuty
Feature
Rootly
PagerDuty
On-Call & Alerting
Native, integrated with the entire response workflow
Core feature, but siloed from broader incident management
Incident Workflows
Powerful, no-code automation for hundreds of tasks
Basic, limited automation capabilities
Retrospectives
Native, automated, and data-rich for continuous learning
Requires third-party tools or significant manual effort
Slack/Teams Integration
Deeply integrated; manage the entire incident from chat
Basic notifications and a limited set of actions
Analytics & Reporting
Comprehensive dashboards on the entire lifecycle and reliability
Focused primarily on alerting and on-call metrics
Pricing Model
Transparent and value-based to support your growth
Complex, user-based, and can become very expensive
Key Differentiators That Make Rootly Superior
- Powerful Automation with Workflows: Rootly's no-code workflows automate hundreds of manual steps. This includes creating incident channels, inviting the right responders, sending status updates, and creating follow-up tickets. This automation reduces cognitive load and minimizes the chance of human error during a stressful event.
- Complete Lifecycle Management: Rootly unifies the entire process on one platform. You can seamlessly manage the incident from detection to resolution and learning, eliminating the need to stitch together multiple tools.
- Seamless Collaboration: With Rootly's deep integration into Slack and Microsoft Teams, engineers can manage incidents within the environment where they already work. This fosters clear communication, keeps stakeholders informed, and accelerates resolution.
How Rootly Stacks Up Against Other PagerDuty and Opsgenie Alternatives
The incident management market is filled with options, making it one of the top incident management tools categories [3]. While many tools claim to be PagerDuty alternatives or Opsgenie alternatives, most fall into the same trap: focusing only on a small piece of the puzzle.
Rootly vs. Opsgenie
Opsgenie is another common choice, particularly for teams heavily invested in the Atlassian ecosystem (Jira, Confluence). Like PagerDuty, Opsgenie is a capable tool for on-call management and alerting. However, it shares the same fundamental limitation: it doesn't offer the deep, automated incident response and integrated learning capabilities that define a modern platform like Rootly.
Rootly vs. Other On-Call Tools (e.g., Squadcast, VictorOps)
Other competitors, such as Squadcast, VictorOps, and a long list of others, also vie for a spot in your incident management toolkit [8]. While many of these are competent alerting tools, they primarily focus on the on-call and notification part of the problem. Rootly stands apart because it’s not just an on-call software; it's a comprehensive platform built for improving overall system reliability.
Why Modern Teams Choose Rootly for On-Call and Incident Response
Modern engineering organizations choose Rootly because it delivers tangible results that go far beyond simple alerting.
- Reduce Toil and Standardize Response: By automating repetitive tasks, Rootly frees up engineers to focus on what matters most: diagnosing and fixing the problem. This standardization ensures a consistent, best-practice response every time.
- Lower MTTR and Minimize Downtime: With streamlined workflows and better collaboration, teams resolve incidents faster. In an environment where downtime can cost an average of $9,000 per minute, efficient tooling is not a luxury—it's a business necessity [4].
- Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning: Rootly’s integrated retrospectives and powerful analytics make it easy to learn from every incident. The platform helps you identify trends, track action items, and make data-driven improvements to prevent future failures.
- Get More Value for Your Money: Rootly provides a comprehensive, end-to-end solution with transparent pricing. This delivers significantly more value than PagerDuty's expensive, siloed approach, where you often have to pay for multiple products and add-ons to build a partial solution.
Conclusion: Move Beyond Alerting and Embrace Modern Incident Management
PagerDuty and similar tools are for basic alerting, but modern reliability requires a comprehensive platform that supports the entire incident lifecycle. Sticking with a tool that only handles notifications leaves your team manually managing the most critical parts of the response process.
Rootly is the best PagerDuty alternative because it provides an end-to-end solution that automates workflows, streamlines collaboration, and promotes continuous learning. It’s the platform designed not just to manage incidents, but to make your entire system more reliable.
Ready to see why the best teams are replacing PagerDuty with Rootly? Schedule a demo today.