The best PagerDuty alternatives, compared honestly
PagerDuty is the incumbent for on-call and incident response — reliable, deep, and safe. Teams leave over cost: per-user pricing plus expensive add-ons that push real invoices well past the sticker. And with Opsgenie shutting down, the whole market is up for grabs. Here are the alternatives that actually hold up, by need.
The best PagerDuty alternative depends on what's pushing you off it:
- Best all-round, Slack-native → incident.io — modern incident response + on-call, the top Opsgenie migration landing spot.
- Open-source / already on Grafana → Grafana IRM (OnCall) — free to self-host, AGPLv3.
- SRE + post-incident + AI → Rootly — automated runbooks, deep post-mortems, Slack & Teams.
- Cheapest credible → Squadcast — free up to 5 users, Pro ~$12/user/mo.
Why teams look elsewhere
What pushes teams off PagerDuty
PagerDuty's reliability and depth are rarely the problem — the friction is cost, add-on sprawl, and a market suddenly in motion.
Per-user, then add-ons
Professional is ~$21/user/mo and Business ~$41/user/mo (annual) — but the real spend arrives as separate add-ons stacked on top.
The add-on bill
AIOps ~$799/mo, Advance AI ~$415/mo, status pages ~$89/mo per page, Runbook Automation $59–$125/user/mo. The sticker is rarely what you pay.
Real invoices run 4×
A 10-person Professional team with a status page is ~$4k/yr; add AIOps and it jumps past ~$13.6k/yr — more than four times the base advertised cost.
Opsgenie is shutting down
Atlassian stopped Opsgenie sales (June 2025), cut JSM-bundled access (Oct 2025), and ends support April 5, 2027 — sending a migration wave across the whole category.
Chat-native by default now
Modern teams run incidents in Slack or Teams. Newer tools (incident.io, Rootly) make chat the command center; PagerDuty feels heavier for that workflow.
Built for the enterprise
The depth that suits large orgs is overkill for small and mid-sized teams, who want alerting and on-call without a rollout project.
The shortlist
7 PagerDuty alternatives worth trying
Ranked by how well they solve the most common reasons to switch — cost, modern chat-native workflows, and a clean path off Opsgenie. There's no single winner: the best pick depends on your team size, budget and whether you want open source.
Slack-native incident response and on-call in one modern platform, widely rated best on UX and the top Opsgenie migration destination. Team from $19/user/mo; on-call add-on +$12/user/mo (Pro all-in ~$45/user/mo). Free tier. Trade-off: premium pricing at the top end. PagerDuty vs incident.io →
On-call and alerting inside the Grafana stack, ideal if you already use it for dashboards. AGPLv3, free to self-host; managed via Grafana Cloud IRM. Trade-off: the self-hosted OnCall OSS entered maintenance mode in March 2025 — Grafana steers new users to Cloud IRM. PagerDuty vs Grafana OnCall →
SRE-focused, Slack & Teams-native incident management with automated runbooks, strong post-mortems and "AI SRE". From $20/user/mo — but incident response and on-call are sold separately (~$40/user/mo combined). SOC 2 Type II. Trade-off: two products to price.
Bundles uptime monitoring, on-call, status pages and incident management per Responder ($34/mo, $29 annual) with unlimited SMS and phone alerts. Free tier. Trade-off: lighter on deep enterprise incident automation than incident.io or Rootly.
Budget-friendly, SRE-focused alerting and on-call with post-incident tooling. Free up to 5 users; Pro ~$12/user/mo. Now part of SolarWinds (acquired March 2025). Trade-off: post-acquisition roadmap direction is worth watching.
AI-first alerting, on-call and status pages with EU data residency and a privacy focus. Genuinely useful free plan up to 5 users including SMS and voice alerts. Trade-off: smaller ecosystem and integration catalog than the incumbents.
The former Zenduty, rebranded to Xurrent IMR after acquisition (late 2025). On-call scheduling, escalation policies, multi-channel alerting and basic response automation, with a free tier for small teams. Trade-off: mid-rebrand, so docs and branding are in flux.
Side by side
PagerDuty alternatives compared
PagerDuty is included as the baseline. Everything below is compiled from each vendor's official pages — verify current terms before you commit.
| Platform | Type / license | Free tier | Self-host | Chat-native | Entry price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PagerDuty (baseline) | Proprietary SaaS | 5 users | ✗ | Via integrations | $21/user/mo + add-ons | Enterprise depth & AIOps |
| incident.io | Proprietary SaaS | Yes | ✗ | ✓ Slack-native | $19/user/mo (+$12 on-call) | All-round, Opsgenie migration |
| Grafana IRM (OnCall) | Open source (AGPLv3) + Cloud | Self-host / Cloud free | ✓ | ✓ Slack/Teams | Free (self-host) | Open-source, Grafana users |
| Rootly | Proprietary SaaS | Trial | ✗ | ✓ Slack & Teams | $20/user/mo per product | SRE, post-incident, AI |
| Better Stack | Proprietary SaaS | Yes | ✗ | ✓ | $29/Responder/mo (annual) | Uptime + on-call + status |
| Squadcast | Proprietary SaaS (SolarWinds) | 5 users | ✗ | ✓ | ~$12/user/mo | Cheapest credible |
| ilert | Proprietary SaaS (EU) | 5 users (SMS+voice) | ✗ | ✓ | Free tier / paid tiers | European / privacy-first |
| Xurrent IMR (ex-Zenduty) | Proprietary SaaS | Yes | ✗ | ✓ | Free tier / paid tiers | Straightforward on-call |
Pricing and free tiers change often — check each vendor for current terms. Figures reflect entry plans (billed annually where applicable). Compiled July 2026 from each vendor's official pricing pages.
Official pages: PagerDuty · incident.io · Grafana IRM · Rootly · Better Stack · Squadcast · ilert · Xurrent
Tie it into your pipeline
Where Buddy fits (it's not on this list)
Buddy isn't a PagerDuty alternative — it feeds the one you pick
Buddy is a CI/CD and deployment platform, not an on-call or paging tool, so it doesn't belong in the ranking above. It's here for one honest reason: a large share of incidents start with a bad release, so you'll want your deploys wired into whichever alerting tool you choose.
A Buddy pipeline step can call your alerting tool's events API through a webhook / notification action — so a failed deploy or health check opens an incident automatically in incident.io, Grafana IRM, PagerDuty or any of the tools above. Buddy's Ops Inbox then keeps those operational events in one place. There's no dedicated PagerDuty action; you use a generic HTTP/webhook step against its Events API.
A fair call
When PagerDuty is still the right choice
Switching isn't always worth it. PagerDuty earned its incumbent status for real reasons.
PagerDuty is fine if…
- You're a large enterprise that needs the deepest automation, event intelligence and mature AIOps.
- You rely on its breadth — 650+ integrations, global voice/SMS reliability, and battle-tested escalation at scale.
- Your on-call program is already standardised on it and the switching cost outweighs the savings.
- You want the safe, proven incumbent and budget isn't the binding constraint.
Consider an alternative if…
- Add-on sprawl makes the bill unpredictable — Squadcast, ilert or Better Stack are far cheaper.
- You run incidents in Slack or Teams — incident.io or Rootly make chat the command center.
- You're migrating off Opsgenie and re-evaluating anyway — incident.io and Rootly are the common landing spots.
- You want open source or to self-host — Grafana OnCall.
Common questions
PagerDuty alternatives — common questions
What is the best open-source PagerDuty alternative?
Grafana OnCall is the best-known open-source option (AGPLv3), especially if you already run Grafana for dashboards and alerting. Note that the self-hosted OnCall OSS project entered maintenance mode in March 2025 and Grafana steers new users to the managed Grafana Cloud IRM. For a fully self-hostable stack you can also look at OneUptime. Most other strong alternatives — incident.io, Rootly, Better Stack, Squadcast, ilert — are commercial SaaS with free tiers rather than open source. Full PagerDuty vs Grafana OnCall →
Why is PagerDuty so expensive?
PagerDuty charges per user (Professional about $21/user/month billed annually, Business about $41/user/month), and the advertised price is only the starting point. Most of the platform's power — AIOps (about $799/month), the Advance AI add-on (about $415/month), status pages (about $89/month per page) and Runbook Automation ($59–$125/user/month) — is sold as separate add-ons. A 10-person team on Professional with a status page runs roughly $4,000/year, and adding AIOps pushes it past $13,000/year, more than four times the base advertised cost.
What is happening to Opsgenie, and where should I migrate?
Atlassian is retiring Opsgenie. It stopped new sales on June 4, 2025, ended access for Jira Service Management-bundled customers in October 2025, and reaches full end of support on April 5, 2027. Atlassian's official path is Jira Service Management plus Compass, but many teams dislike splitting incident response across two products and instead move to a dedicated tool — incident.io and Rootly are the most common landing spots, with Better Stack, Squadcast and ilert as budget-friendly options. See PagerDuty vs Opsgenie →
Which PagerDuty alternative is cheapest?
Squadcast (now part of SolarWinds) is the cheapest credible option, with a free tier up to 5 users and a Pro plan around $12/user/month. ilert also has a genuinely useful free plan for up to 5 users that includes SMS and voice alerts. Better Stack's per-Responder pricing ($29/month annual) bundles uptime monitoring, on-call and status pages, which can be cheaper than paying for those separately. Grafana OnCall is free to self-host.
What is the best PagerDuty alternative for Slack-based teams?
incident.io and Rootly are the two strongest Slack-native platforms. incident.io is generally rated best on overall UX and is the most common Opsgenie/PagerDuty migration destination; Rootly is stronger on post-incident learning, automated runbooks and AI-assisted response, and also supports Microsoft Teams. Both let you declare incidents, spin up a dedicated channel and pull in responders without leaving chat. Full PagerDuty vs incident.io →
Is PagerDuty still worth it?
For large enterprises that need the deepest automation, the broadest integration catalog (650+) and mature AIOps/event intelligence, PagerDuty is still a strong, safe choice. Teams switch mainly over cost and add-on sprawl, not reliability. If you're a small or mid-sized team, want Slack-native workflows, or are migrating off Opsgenie and re-evaluating anyway, a modern challenger is usually cheaper and easier to run.
Does Buddy replace PagerDuty?
No. Buddy is a CI/CD and deployment platform, not an on-call or paging tool, so it's not a PagerDuty alternative and isn't ranked here. Where it fits: because many incidents start with a bad release, you can wire a Buddy pipeline step to call your chosen alerting tool's events API via a webhook or HTTP action (or a built-in Slack/Teams notification) so a failed deploy automatically opens an incident. Buddy also has an Ops Inbox that unifies operational events.