If you are looking for a cloud-based software platform that can help you with incident management and site reliability engineering (SRE) practices, you might have come across two popular options: xMatters and PagerDuty. Both platforms claim to offer features and benefits that can help you detect, respond, and resolve incidents faster and more efficiently. But which one is better for your needs? In this blog post, we will compare xMatters and PagerDuty based on several criteria, such as features and pricing. By the end of this blog, you will have a better idea of which platform suits your business goals and challenges.
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Criteria
Category
xMatters
PagerDuty
Features
On-Call Alerting and Scheduling
More flexible and intuitive UI than PagerDuty.
Allows creation and management of on-call schedules, but with a less intuitive UI.
Service Catalog
Unique feature for visualizing and classifying services in a dashboard.
Does not offer a similar feature, has service listings instead.
Runbooks
Codeless workflow builder for automating tasks.
Offers Runbook automation via Rundeck.
Features
Status Pages
Status Pages are not available across any of the plans.
Provides customizable status pages for communicating service status as an additional add-on.
Generative AI
Currently, no features using Gen AI.
PagerDuty CoPilot is in the early access stage at the time of writing this comparison.
Workflows
Xmatters offers a visual workflow builder to create automated Incident Response Workflows.
PagerDuty offers Incident Workflows however this is based on setting conditional triggers and accompanying actions via a GUI.
Pricing
Base Plan
Includes more features in its base plan at $39/user/month.
Business plan at $41/user/month but charges extra for automation features.
Free Trial
More generous free trial with 10 users per month.
Offers upto 5 users in its free trial.
Pricing Transparency
Transparent and flexible pricing model, pay for what you use.
Base price available however there are multiple add-ons based on the customer use case.
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On-Call Scheduling and Alerting:
PagerDuty Offers effective on-call scheduling and alerting capabilities, but users may find the interface less intuitive. XMatters has similar on-call scheduling and alerting features as PagerDuty, but with a more flexible and user-friendly interface according to users that have left reviews on sites such as G2.Â
Service Catalog
PagerDuty lacks a specific feature for visualizing and classifying services within a unified dashboard. XMatters Provides a unique service catalog feature, enabling visualization and classification of services on a single dashboard, enhancing service management and service ownership.Â
Status Pages:
PagerDuty offers a comprehensive status page both internal and external as an additional add-on for 89$. Xmatters does not offer a Status page as part of any of its paid plans. This may be important for companies looking to use a single platform for their incident response and keeping their customers updated on scheduled maintenance or unplanned downtime. Â
Workflows:
PagerDuty: Offers automation capabilities via their AiOps add-on, while extensive and covering multiple use cases; these features need to be accessed via a GUI which may feel unintuitive and time-consuming for some. xMatters features a codeless workflow builder for automating incident resolution tasks, providing more comprehensive and user-friendly automation options.
Pricing:
PagerDuty professional plan is priced at $41 per user per month, with additional charges for some features included in the xMatters base plan. xMatters is priced at $39 per user per month for the base plan but includes additional features like workflow automation. However, depending on your company’s budget and developer preference for one or the other tool both xMatters and PagerDuty can serve your incident management needs.
SupportÂ
On the support front, PagerDuty charges premium support as an add-on across all its paid plans, which can range up to 5,000 dollars per year. Product training and onboarding are also paid add-ons in PagerDuty. xMatters offers 24/7 support along with product training at no additional cost over the base price per user.Â
Conclusion
In conclusion, xMatters and PagerDuty are both cloud-based software platforms that can help you with incident management and site reliability engineering (SRE) practices. When comparing xMatters and PagerDuty in terms of features and pricing, it appears that xMatters excels in areas such as pricing, potentially offering added value to its customers. Both platforms have their strengths and cater to different needs in incident management and SRE workflows. If you are considering a tool to enhance service reliability and an easy-to-use workflow builder, xMatters could be a viable option. Meanwhile, PagerDuty could be a viable solution for your needs as it offers extensive GUI-based automation, an inbuilt status page, runbook automation , and generative AI capabilities.Â
Before signing off, there is a third option available, Squadcast! We are a Reliability Automation Platform that combines the best of PagerDuty and Xmatters in one platform designed to make things easier for incident response teams. Our feature set covers each stage of the incident lifecycle with on-call scheduling, nifty AI/ML-based automation to reduce noise, extensive integrations ecosystem, API extensibility, and 24/7 chat and video call support to help you stay on top of your incidents. Our transparent yearly pricing starts at 16$ for our premium and 21$ for enterprise. You can give us a spin with a 14-day free trial.
