PagerDuty vs. xMatters

PagerDuty and xMatters are both IT alert and incident response management tools. Like many alert management products, they both provide on-call scheduling and resource management. 

PagerDuty and xMatters cater to distinct market segments and needs. PagerDuty is used primarily by midsize businesses and enterprises, with a focus on alert aggregation and prioritization. In contrast, xMatters is more focused specifically on enterprises with a need for heavy business process automation and custom-build integrations.

Features

PagerDuty and xMatters each have a range of advantages to each tool worth evaluating. 

PagerDuty excels at helping organizations manage alert and escalation policies. Reviewers highlight PagerDuty’s flexible escalation rules across communication channels. This flexibility allows organizations to ensure alerts are addressed without overwhelming IT staff. PagerDuty’s customer support is also highly praised by users. 

xMatters provides tools designed to meet enterprises’ unique needs around incident alerts and responses. For instance, it facilitates excellent stakeholder communication in order to keep all parties in the loop as an incident is identified and addressed. This visibility is both more challenging and more crucial to maintain in an enterprise environment. It also has the capacity for in-house customization and integration via open APIs, which enterprises are better able to take advantage of. 

Limitations

There are also some drawbacks to each platform worth considering. 

PagerDuty’s mobile application is not on par with its desktop application. It has comparatively little mobile customization, and the administrative functionalities are much more limited than expected. 

On the other hand, xMatters is more limited in its alert escalation. Specifically, its group customization is less mature, which makes the platform more challenging to adapt to enterprises’s individual escalation processes. This can lead to overcommunication via mass notifications, which is a less ideal user experience.

Pricing

PagerDuty offers 5 different plans, each tier adding functionalities on the lower-tier plan:

• The Free plan provides on-call scheduling, unlimited API calls, and always-up service for up to 5 users. 
• The Starter plan, at $10/user/month for up to 6 users, ads unlimited domestic text notifications and escalation policies, as well as 1 year of data access and email/chat support. 
• The Team plan, at $29/user/month, adds unlimited global phone/text notifications, more integrates, response orchestration, and a status dashboard. 
• The Business plan, at $39/user/month, adds SSO and advanced permissions, advanced integrations, unlimited data access, and phone support. 
• The Digital Operations plan, priced by quote from the vendor, provides a suite of add-on products, more automation, event management, analytics, and a visibility console.

xMatters has 4 different plans:

• The free plan provides on-call management and a mobile application for alert management and routing. 
• The Starter plan, at $16/user/month, adds one year of historical data access, longer-term reporting, and a 99.9% SLA. 
• The Base plan, at $39/user/month, provides additional vendor support, data syncing, multilingual support, and live status updates, as well as one non-production instance. 
• The Advanced plan, at $59/user/month, adds best practice templates for incident management, workflows, change requests, and unlimited historical reporting, as well as 2 non-production instances.