Choosing the right automation platform is critical when it comes to automating incident management and improving operational efficiency. Doctor Droid PlayBooks and StackStorm are popular platforms offering powerful automation capabilities, but there are significant differences between the two that can influence your decision.

Doctor Droid PlayBooks stands out as a modern solution that simplifies first-level diagnosis and streamlines incident response. With intuitive configurations, tailored integrations, and an emphasis on reducing the cognitive load on engineers,

In this blog, we will explore eight compelling reasons why Doctor Droid PlayBooks is a superior choice over StackStorm in automating your incident management workflows, empowering your on-call engineers, and improving overall system reliability. Let’s understand why Doctor Droid PlayBooks is the smarter choice for your team.

While StackStorm has been a reliable and scalable workflow automation tool for engineers, Doctor Droid PlayBooks brings a fresh perspective. It packs a punch when it comes to integrations, ease of use, and features tailored for on-call teams.

Both platforms have merits, but Doctor Droid PlayBooks stands out for Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams looking to automate runbooks and streamline incident management.

Here are eight key reasons why SRE teams should choose Doctor Droid PlayBooks over StackStorm to enhance their on-call workflows.

1. Designed for On-Call Task Automation vs. Designed for Day-to-Day Ops Automation

While StackStorm excels at automating day-to-day DevOps tasks like the automatic creation of IAM policies and infrastructure management, Doctor Droid PlayBooks is specifically designed to accelerate and automate on-call investigations. This makes it the ideal tool for engineers responding to production incidents.

Doctor Droid PlayBooks has an intuitive UI that supports:

• Displaying diagnostic data like metric graphs, logs, and bash command outputs directly within the interface, allowing engineers to quickly assess system health.

• Viewing past playbook runs and data from each step, helping on-call teams easily track investigations and resolutions over time.

In contrast, StackStorm focuses on automating routine DevOps workflows, which, while powerful, is not tailored to the high-pressure, real-time needs of on-call incident response.

Doctor Droid’s specialization in on-call task automation makes it a more effective tool for SRE teams dealing with critical system issues and diagnostics.

2. Active Maintainers vs. Community-Only Support

One of the key advantages of Doctor Droid PlayBooks over StackStorm is the level of active support and development provided by the Doctor Droid organization.

Doctor Droid is actively maintained and supported not only by the community but also by a dedicated team at Doctor Droid. This means that enterprise customers, as well as open-source users, can rely on prompt support for feature requests, bug fixes, and platform updates. Doctor Droid’s active involvement ensures that the platform stays current and continues to meet the evolving needs of SRE teams.

Additionally, Doctor Droid fosters an active Slack community where users can engage with both the development team and other users for quick responses and knowledge sharing.

While StackStorm also has a vibrant Slack community for support, it relies heavily on community-driven development and maintenance. This means that when it comes to critical bugs or the need for new features, StackStorm is dependent on community contributions, which may not always keep pace with the demands of enterprise environments. The lack of a dedicated team can lead to slower updates and a higher risk of stagnation as the platform matures.

For organizations that require timely updates, bug fixes, and long-term platform relevance, Doctor Droid PlayBooks offers a clear advantage with its combination of active development, enterprise-level support, and community engagement.

3. Deep Integrations with Cloud-Native Observability & Alerting Tools

One of the standout features of Doctor Droid PlayBooks is its deep integrations with cloud-native observability and alerting tools. It seamlessly integrates with the Grafana stack and a wide range of cloud providers, allowing SRE teams to monitor their infrastructure components in real-time.

Additionally, Doctor Droid PlayBooks supports integration with all major alerting tools, enabling teams to enrich their alerts with relevant data, no matter where they view or receive them. This level of integration streamlines the diagnostic process, providing engineers with a comprehensive view of their system’s health and performance.

You can see the complete list of integrations here!

In contrast, StackStorm relies on community-contributed packs for its integrations. While this offers some flexibility, the generic nature of these packs often increases the time it takes to understand and adopt them, particularly for teams looking for tailored solutions.

Additionally, StackStorm lacks native integrations with key tools like Grafana and certain popular cloud providers, making it less convenient for teams already using these platforms.

For teams looking for fast, native integrations with their existing cloud-native observability and alerting tools, Doctor Droid PlayBooks offers a superior, ready-to-use solution that significantly reduces setup time and complexity.

4. Preservation & Propagation of Context from Incident → Investigation → Action

Doctor Droid PlayBooks excels in preserving and propagating context throughout the entire incident response lifecycle, from the initial alert to the investigation and final resolution.

With Doctor Droid PlayBooks, you can pass relevant information from an incident directly into your investigation queries and actions, allowing for greater re-usability of playbooks and more focused investigations. This ensures that when engineers are diagnosing an issue, they are working with the specific context related to that incident, which leads to more efficient problem-solving and reduced data footprints—engineers only need to focus on the most relevant data rather than sifting through everything.

Furthermore, all investigation steps are tied back to the original incident or alert, ensuring that the context is preserved throughout the process. This tight coupling of context and actions allows for seamless transitions between different stages of incident management, reducing confusion and ensuring that engineers are always working with the most relevant information.

In comparison, StackStorm offers basic context passing by allowing variables to be provided within the workflow. However, there is no automatic propagation of context from the initial trigger to subsequent actions, meaning engineers often need to manually ensure that context is passed through different stages. This can increase complexity and lead to inefficiencies, especially in fast-paced on-call scenarios.

For teams looking for a solution that ensures context is maintained and automatically propagated through each step of the incident resolution process, Doctor Droid PlayBooks offers a more streamlined and efficient approach.

5. Ease of Collaboration in Investigations

Doctor Droid PlayBooks offers a superior collaboration experience by making it easy to share and review the outputs of playbook executions, whether they are automated or manual.

Each playbook run is preserved, including all diagnostic data and actions taken, which can be easily shared with anyone involved in the investigation. This feature is especially beneficial during war room scenarios, where additional team members may need to join an ongoing investigation. New team members can quickly get up to speed by reviewing what has already been executed and the corresponding outputs, saving valuable time and reducing the risk of redundant work.

Additionally, Doctor Droid PlayBooks automatically stores past playbook executions with their outputs for reference and audit purposes. This ensures that all actions and diagnostics are fully documented, which is not only useful during the incident resolution but also valuable for post-incident reviews and compliance audits.

In contrast, StackStorm preserves workflow success or failure, but the internal data from each step is not automatically stored unless explicitly logged by the user within the sensor, action, or rule code. This requires extra effort from engineers and increases the chance that important diagnostic information might be lost or overlooked.

For teams that require a smooth, collaborative process during incident investigations, Doctor Droid PlayBooks provides a more efficient solution, with built-in data preservation and sharing features that help teams work together effectively during high-pressure situations.

6. More Control Over Playbook Executions

Doctor Droid PlayBooks provides teams with greater control over playbook execution, allowing them to decide which steps can run automatically and which require manual intervention. This flexibility is particularly valuable for teams that are cautious about fully automating certain actions, giving them the ability to adopt automation gradually and build confidence in the system.

By enabling engineers to customize which parts of the process are automated and which are manually executed, Doctor Droid PlayBooks fosters a higher level of trust and ease of adoption within teams.

On the other hand, StackStorm does not offer such granular control over the execution of workflows. In StackStorm, workflows typically run without the option to control which steps should be automated and which should be manually triggered, which may limit the level of confidence teams have in fully automating complex or high-risk actions.

With Doctor Droid PlayBooks, teams can enjoy the benefits of automation while maintaining oversight and control, leading to smoother adoption and greater trust in the system.

7. Provides Great Flexibility on Conditions

Doctor Droid PlayBooks offers exceptional flexibility when it comes to setting multiple conditions on query outputs, allowing users to configure various paths for their investigations within the same playbook. This means that based on the data received, engineers can dynamically choose different paths or have the system automatically guide them to the next logical step.

This feature empowers teams to adapt their investigations in real-time based on the evolving context, making the process more efficient and effective.

Doctor Droid's intuitive UI makes it easy to set up these conditions without writing any code, giving users a simplified experience for managing complex logic. Different condition types are tailored to the specific output, enabling users to handle varying data types with ease and allowing for a more fluid, decision-driven investigation process.

In contrast, StackStorm relies on more rigid, linear conditions similar to IFTTT (If This Then That) or requires users to code complex conditions directly into their workflows. This approach can be tedious and time-consuming, making it less user-friendly for teams that need flexibility in their incident response workflows.

With Doctor Droid PlayBooks, users benefit from a visual and flexible approach to defining conditions, making it easier to adapt to real-time investigation needs without the burden of writing code.

8. Easy-to-Use Interface

Doctor Droid PlayBooks boasts a simple and intuitive interface designed with a clear focus on minimizing distractions for users when configuring and executing playbooks. The platform is built to ensure that even non-technical users can easily navigate through the setup process, execute playbooks, and analyze results without the need for extensive training. The streamlined UI allows users to stay focused on the task at hand, enabling faster responses during critical incidents and ensuring a smooth, efficient workflow.

In contrast, StackStorm is primarily a CLI-based tool, with a web interface that can be more difficult to learn and navigate. StackStorm’s interface requires users to have a deeper understanding of the platform, making the learning curve steeper and adoption slower, particularly for teams that are new to automation or prefer a more visual and accessible approach.

For teams seeking a user-friendly and efficient tool for automating incident response, Doctor Droid PlayBooks offers a more accessible and intuitive experience compared to StackStorm’s more complex interface.