Hey there! Recently, we had a fantastic webinar discussing the migration from PagerDuty and why engineering teams are reconsidering their on-call tools. If you missed it, don’t worry – I’ve got you covered with a summary right here.
Let’s dive into the common frustrations teams encounter with PagerDuty and how incident.io On-Call offers a refreshing solution.
Let’s Talk About the Status Quo
For a long time, PagerDuty has been the go-to on-call tool for engineering teams. It’s reliable in waking you up when things go south.
But here’s the thing – beneath the surface, there’s a sense of dissatisfaction. Many engineering leaders express similar grievances: “It gets the job done, but it’s draining,” “We’re spending a fortune on a tool that feels outdated,” “I’m spending more time battling PagerDuty than resolving incidents.”
Over the past year, we’ve witnessed a significant number of teams transitioning from PagerDuty to incident.io On-Call. In fact, 70% of our paying customers are now using it.
We designed incident.io On-Call from scratch to address the major headaches caused by PagerDuty: escalating costs, cumbersome service models, rigid schedules, and a disconnect from how modern teams handle incidents. Let’s explore these issues together!
The Cost-Value Disconnect: Why Teams Feel Cheated
PagerDuty’s pricing structure poses two primary challenges.
Firstly, essential features are often locked behind pricey plans and confusing bundles, forcing users to upgrade to access basic functionalities. This understandably frustrates customers.
Secondly, the core areas of the product that most customers rely on – like scheduling and alerting – haven’t kept pace with the price hikes. As one engineering leader aptly put it: “The features we depend on in PagerDuty have remained stagnant, while the costs keep rising.”
incident.io changes the game. You’re not just getting a pager; you’re getting a comprehensive incident management platform. On-call duties, response mechanisms, and status updates seamlessly integrate. No more cobbling together multiple tools. Just transparent pricing, better value, and a unified platform to track everything.
PagerDuty centers around “Services.” If that aligns with your team’s structure, great. But for many, it’s too rigid.
Picture setting up on-call for a new system. In PagerDuty, you create a new “service,” but it doesn’t quite fit into your existing framework. Before you know it, you’re tangled in a web of services that don’t reflect your actual setup, ranging from software components to teams to miscellaneous items. You’re either trying to fit your workflow into PagerDuty’s mold or resorting to messy workarounds.
Enter Catalog in incident.io. Here, you define teams, services, and ownership in a manner that mirrors your organization’s actual operations. Alerts and escalations reach the right individuals automatically, eliminating the need for manual adjustments.
When an incident kicks off, where do you typically turn first? Probably Slack or Microsoft Teams.
While PagerDuty has a Slack integration, it feels like an add-on rather than an integral part of the experience. It lacks a truly seamless interface, making you feel like you’re operating on the outskirts rather than at the core. It’s clunky and slows you down when time is of the essence.
We believe that incidents fundamentally revolve around human communication and coordination. And where does this typically occur? In modern tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom. From day one, we’ve embedded our product directly into these platforms, making them central to our operations. When a page comes in, you acknowledge it there. Need to escalate? Just a click away. Initiating an incident? It’s already in progress right where your team is collaborating.
No need to switch between contexts or rely on additional tools. Everything you need is seamlessly integrated.
Scheduling Shouldn’t Be a Nightmare
If you’ve ever attempted to set up an on-call schedule in PagerDuty, you know it’s no walk in the park, especially for anything beyond the basics. Need to establish primary/secondary rotations? You’re juggling multiple schedules and escalation policies. Want to swap shifts or create follow-the-sun rotations? These tasks often entail a lot of manual effort and are prone to errors.
With incident.io On-Call, scheduling is a breeze. It provides clear visibility into on-call personnel and their schedules, enables easy shift swaps where you can request cover directly within Slack or Microsoft Teams, and offers intelligent scheduling options for setting up rotations effortlessly.
One Seamless Platform, Not a Hodgepodge of Tools
The key distinction between PagerDuty and incident.io? We view on-call as part of a larger incident management framework, not as a standalone feature.
PagerDuty wakes you up, but incidents aren’t confined to a simple acknowledgment. They unfold over time, involve multiple teams, and demand coordination, communication, and follow-up.
With incident.io, on-call duties, response actions, and post-incident workflows are seamlessly integrated. Acknowledging a page automatically initiates an incident if necessary. Escalations are documented within the incident timeline. Post-mortems capture all details, including who was paged, actions taken, and incident resolution.
The outcome? Reduced noise, smoother incident response, and enhanced overall efficiency in managing incidents.
Ready to Take the Plunge?
Transitioning from PagerDuty may seem like a daunting leap, but those who’ve made the switch echo the same sentiment: “I wish we’d done this sooner.”
We’ve developed importer tools to seamlessly migrate your schedules, escalation policies, and users from PagerDuty in minutes. You can test incident.io alongside your current setup before fully transitioning, ensuring a risk-free transition to a superior on-call experience.
If you’re fed up with PagerDuty’s costs, complexities, and limitations, let’s talk. Drop me an email at stephen at incident.io, and I’ll guide you through the process. We’re confident that you’ll find it so impressive, you might just start breaking things on purpose.
