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In a modern tech company, getting an alert or a production issue is a real concern. Why? Top reasons for that:
Software is not just driving their internal IT anymore, it’s driving a lot of user facing features and often (directly) impacting revenue. In traditional / IT teams, there used to be a hand-off between development teams and operations/support teams.
In modern tech companies, the fundamentals of Full-Service Ownership are dedicatedly followed, where the people who develop the software take responsibility for the software’s correct functionality at every point in the life cycle.
Alert management is a broad topic that large teams end up spending significant time & energy on. Broadly there are three top categories of tools that come up in Alert management:
An alert is generated in one of the monitoring tools. Now what? Whom to send that alert? Will they miss the Slack message / mail? Should they be called?
This set of tools involve common functionality like calling/sending SMS to users in the middle of the night in case of an incident, managing team rosters / schedules on who should be called and bringing alerts from multiple tools to a single tool to route it to the right stakeholder.
Cool. The alert is sent to an engineer. The alert says “backend server down” and after a quick analysis, the engineer feels it’s a SEV0 or P0 alert as many users are impacted.
He’s unable to figure out the issue or fix it. What should he do? Call his manager? Call his senior developer? Call the other 6 teams that are also related to this alert? Or send a message in a company wide Slack channel?
Now that’s where an Incident Response management tool comes into picture.
The tool helps you automate the workflow that is to be followed in case of any incident so that even if the person on-call doesn’t know all the processes, they can help mitigate the issue fast enough.
Some sample steps in these workflows could include:
(a) creating a Slack channel for that incident
(b) creating a supporting Zoom link
(c) Automatically adding all upstream/downstream teams
(d) Acting as a single source of truth for update about the incident whenever a management team member or new-to-incident member asks “what’s the status?”
Got it. But can some of these efforts be automated? As an on-call engineer, I see a lot of times when there’s often false alarms at 2am when I need to wake up, only to realize it wasn’t an issue. That’s what an AIOps tool does. lt assists in:
Alert Process Analytics: How many tickets were opened? What was the average time to resolve an incident (MTTR)? Which team needs to work on reducing their MTTR?
In this section we’ll look at some of the top tools for Alert & On-Call Management:
PagerDuty enables organizations to deliver seamless digital experiences by offering real-time insights and automation through its Operations Cloud. Built to handle critical incidents, PagerDuty allows teams to quickly detect, assess, and resolve issues, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous business operations.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in San Francisco, PagerDuty stands out as a comprehensive incident response solution designed for IT departments. It is well-regarded for its robust automation and real-time operations.
G2 Ratings: 4.5
https://www.g2.com/products/pagerduty/reviews
PagerDuty's pricing starts at $0 for the free plan and goes up to $21 per user per month for the Professional plan. Custom pricing is available for the Enterprise plan.
Opsgenie is a modern incident management platform designed for always-on services, trusted by thousands worldwide. It offers robust solutions for alerting and on-call management, enabling companies to respond effectively to IT and DevOps issues.
OpsGenie, launched in 2012 and based in Boston, is known for its strong focus on flexible user operations and scalability, suitable for both small startups and large enterprises.
G2 Ratings: 4.2
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https://www.g2.com/products/opsgenie/reviews
Opsgenie offers pricing plans starting at $0 for the Free plan. Advanced features are available in the Essentials plan at $9.45 per user/month and the Standard plan at $19.95 per user/month.
Grafana Labs offers an open and flexible monitoring and observability stack centered around Grafana, the leading open-source tool for dashboards and visualization. With over 3,000 customers, including major brands like Bloomberg, Citigroup, and Dell, and more than 1 million active Grafana instances globally, Grafana Labs supports companies in managing their observability strategies. Their LGTM Stack can be fully managed via Grafana Cloud or self-managed with Grafana Enterprise, providing scalable solutions for metrics (Mimir), logs (Loki), and traces (Tempo), along with powerful enterprise data integrations and security features.
Grafana On-Call, part of the Grafana Labs family since its inception in 2014 and headquartered in New York, offers an open-source tool that integrates seamlessly with Grafana for monitoring.
G2 Ratings: 4.5
https://www.g2.com/products/grafana-labs/reviews
Free to use
Zenduty is a comprehensive incident management platform designed for real-time alerting, task delegation, and SLA compliance. It integrates seamlessly with over 100+ monitoring and ticketing tools, making it ideal for infrastructure and support teams to manage on-call responsibilities.
Zenduty, established in 2019 with its headquarters in New York, is recognized for its modern approach to incident management and team collaboration.
G2 Ratings: 4.6
https://www.g2.com/products/zenduty/review
Zenduty offers pricing plans starting at $0 for the Free plan. It also offers paid plans starting at $5 per user/month, with additional plans at $14 and $21 per user/month, depending on features and scale.
Squadcast is a unified incident management platform designed to help enterprises automate their incident response processes, reduce downtime, and boost tech team efficiency through its Reliability Automation Platform.
Founded in 2017 and based in San Francisco, Squadcast emphasizes simplicity and usability in its approach to on-call and alert management.
G2 Ratings: 4.4
https://www.g2.com/products/squadcast/reviews
Squadcast offers pricing plans starting at $0 for basic features, with paid plans beginning at $9 per user/month for advanced functionality.
Rootly is a modern on-call and incident management platform built with industry best practices in mind. It offers purpose-driven tools for effective incident management, trusted by leading companies such as NVIDIA, Squarespace, Canva, Grammarly, and LinkedIn to streamline their incident response processes.
Rootly, established in 2020 and based in San Francisco, is one of the newer entrants in the field of incident management. It has quickly gained recognition for integrating automation directly into the workflow of incident management.
G2 Ratings: 4.8
https://www.g2.com/products/rootly/reviews
Rootly’s Essential plan starts at $20 per user/month for startups, while the Scale plan offers custom pricing for larger organizations requiring advanced security and customization.
VictorOps is a part of the Splunk family and is known for its focus on real-time incident management and collaboration.
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, VictorOps is a part of the Splunk family and is known for its focus on real-time incident management and collaboration.
Offers several plans, starting at $5 per user/ month Growth ($23 per user/ month) Enterprise ($25 per user/ month)
Selecting the right on-call and alert management tool is crucial for any tech team aiming to enhance their operational efficiency and reduce response times. Each tool we've discussed offers unique strengths and caters to different requirements, from robust integration capabilities and advanced intelligence features to user-friendly scheduling and effective incident management. Whether you're part of a small startup or a large enterprise, the effectiveness of your on-call response can significantly impact your service quality and customer satisfaction.
As you consider these tools, think about the specific needs of your team and the complexities of your operations. The right tool should not only fit seamlessly into your existing tech stack but also grow with you as your needs evolve.
