xMatters vs PagerDuty

by Gralio Mar 11, 2025

xMatters and PagerDuty are both incident management platforms aimed at minimizing downtime and improving IT response times. xMatters stands out with its powerful workflow automation and flexible integrations, while PagerDuty excels in real-time alerting, automated escalations, and mobile accessibility. Both cater to mid-sized and large businesses but may have a limited fit for very small teams.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 1695 reviews and 60 websites, saving 9 hours, 55 minutes of reading.

xMatters

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PagerDuty

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About

xMatters is an incident management tool that helps businesses resolve IT issues faster and minimize downtime. It offers workflow automation, on-call scheduling, and incident analysis features. xMatters integrates with various IT tools and aims to improve response times, reduce errors, and provide data-driven insights for better decision-making in IT departments. It's used by companies of all sizes across various industries.

PagerDuty is a cloud-based software platform designed to help businesses prevent and resolve technology issues that impact their operations and customers. It provides a central hub where teams can receive alerts about incidents, collaborate on solutions, and track their progress in real-time. PagerDuty integrates with a wide range of monitoring and communication tools, automating workflows and ensuring that the right people are notified promptly to minimize downtime and maintain service reliability. The platform is trusted by companies of all sizes across various industries, helping them deliver seamless digital experiences while optimizing their IT operations.

Summary

Main difference

xMatters is a better choice for organizations needing robust workflow automation and flexible integrations with a wide range of IT tools. PagerDuty excels in providing prioritized alerts, automated escalations, and a user-friendly mobile experience, making it ideal for teams focused on real-time incident response and quick resolution.

Relative strengths of xMatters (compared to PagerDuty)

Strong workflow automation capabilities through Flow Designer, enabling flexible and custom incident response workflows.
Wide range of integrations with various IT tools, catering to diverse technology stacks.
Automated escalations and on-call scheduling ensure efficient alert routing and timely responses.

Relative weaknesses of xMatters (compared to PagerDuty)

Initial setup and integration processes can be complex and time-consuming, especially with certain vendors.
User interface may not be as intuitive as PagerDuty, potentially increasing the learning curve.
Limited user reviews compared to PagerDuty, making it harder to gauge overall user satisfaction.

What companies are using xMatters and PagerDuty?

PepsiCo

SKY

American Airlines

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Kelloggsville Public Schools

ACcenture

Tesco

No data

Who should use xMatters VS. PagerDuty

xMatters is an incident management platform ideal for mid-to-large businesses with 24/7 IT operations. Users praise its effective real-time alerts and automated escalations, simplifying notification management. However, some find integrating with third-party tools challenging. xMatters streamlines workflows, minimizes downtime, and improves response times through automation and collaboration.

PagerDuty is a real-time incident management platform that helps prevent and resolve IT issues. PagerDuty offers reliable alerts, customizable on-call schedules, and integrates with various tools. While setup can be complex and the cost is high, users appreciate the mobile app and real-time alerts. However, some find the UI/UX confusing and experience over-alerting.

Best for medium to large businesses (101+ employees) needing robust incident management.
Ideal for IT-intensive industries like healthcare, finance, and software.

Best for medium businesses (101-1000 employees) and large enterprises (1001+ employees).
Ideal for IT, DevOps, and SRE teams, especially in the software, IT, and telecommunications industry.

xMatters and PagerDuty features

Supported

Partially supported

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Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

Workflow automation

Supported

xMatters supports workflow automation with its Flow Designer, enabling flexible workflows through no-code and low-code integrations.

Supported

PagerDuty offers workflow automation with flexible workflows and integrations.
On-call management

Supported

xMatters supports frictionless on-call management with automated escalations, simplified scheduling, and actionable alerts.

Supported

PagerDuty offers automated escalations, simplified scheduling, and mobile access for on-call management.
Adaptive incident management

Supported

xMatters supports adaptive incident management through automation, collaboration, and data-driven insights.

Supported

PagerDuty supports adaptive incident management through automation, stakeholder communication, and post-incident analysis.
Alerting

Supported

xMatters can send alerts for network issues, potentially requiring custom integrations.

Supported

PagerDuty sends alerts about network issues using monitoring tools.
On-call scheduling

Supported

xMatters allows defining on-call schedules and rotations, enabling efficient alert routing.

Supported

PagerDuty allows defining on-call schedules and rotations for alerts.
Escalation policies

Supported

Escalation policies are supported, including escalating unacknowledged alerts.

Supported

PagerDuty escalates unacknowledged alerts to other team members based on configured escalation policies.

Qualities

Value and Pricing Transparency

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Customer Service

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Ease of Use

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Reliability and Performance

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Ease of Implementation

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Scalability

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xMatters and PagerDuty Pricing

No data

See full Pricing page

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See full Pricing page

xMatters and PagerDuty review insights

Users love

Automated escalation is easy to configure.
Real-time notifications and alerts are effective.
Robust monitoring and alerting system.
Simplified notification management.
Automated system monitoring and alerting.

Real-time alerts and notifications are reliable.
Customizable on-call schedules and escalation policies.
Wide range of integrations with monitoring and communication tools (e.g., Slack, Jira, AWS).
Mobile app enables alert management on-the-go.

Users dislike

Difficult integration with some third-party tools.
Complex setup process for integrations, causing delays.
Confusing steps for integration with certain vendors.
Challenging initial setup, though training videos are helpful.
Third-party calendar integrations are lacking.

Complex initial setup can be challenging for new users.
High cost compared to other incident management solutions.
UI/UX, especially the web interface, can be confusing and unintuitive.
Over-alerting and difficulties with alert grouping/suppression.

xMatters and PagerDuty Ratings

Glassdoor

4.6/5

(10)

Glassdoor

4.0/5

(435)

Company health

Employee growth

5% decrease in the last year

26% increase in the last year

Web traffic

5% increase in the last quarter

Financing

March 2018 - $97M

May 2023 - $524M

How do xMatters' workflow automations compare to PagerDuty's?

Both xMatters and PagerDuty offer workflow automation capabilities. xMatters emphasizes its Flow Designer, enabling flexible, no-code/low-code integrations for custom workflows. While PagerDuty also supports automated workflows, its focus is primarily on automating incident response through features like alert prioritization, escalations, and on-call scheduling. Therefore, xMatters provides more robust and flexible workflow automation for broader use cases beyond incident management, while PagerDuty's automation is more geared towards streamlining incident response processes.

Which product best integrates with existing monitoring tools?

PagerDuty is the better choice for integration with existing monitoring tools. While xMatters offers integrations, user reviews highlight difficulties and complexities. PagerDuty is praised for its wide range of integrations with various monitoring and communication tools, suggesting a smoother and more robust integration experience.

What are the advantages of xMatters?

xMatters offers advantages in workflow automation through its Flow Designer, enabling flexible, no-code/low-code integrations. It also provides more robust adaptive incident management features, combining automation, collaboration, and data-driven insights. While both platforms offer on-call scheduling and alerting, xMatters excels in streamlining incident resolution and analysis.

What are the disadvantages of xMatters?

xMatters users report difficulties integrating with some third-party tools, a complex setup process for integrations, and confusing integration steps with certain vendors. The initial setup is also considered challenging, although training videos are available. Finally, third-party calendar integrations are reportedly lacking.

Alternatives to xMatters and PagerDuty

Splunk Platform

Splunk Platform helps you investigate and understand what's happening across your IT systems. It collects and analyzes data from various sources, giving you insights into performance, security threats, and user behavior. This allows you to quickly identify and address problems, improve efficiency, and make better business decisions. Splunk is particularly helpful for managing complex IT environments and is used by companies of all sizes.

incident.io

incident.io is a platform designed to help companies manage internal incidents like outages or service disruptions. It connects to your communication tools to loop in the right people and automate your response process. The software provides a central place to track the incident, communicate with stakeholders, and learn from what happened. incident.io is used by tech companies like Etsy and Monday.com to streamline their incident response and build more reliable systems.

Jira Service Management

Jira Service Management, formerly Jira Service Desk, helps IT teams manage requests and incidents quickly. Built on the familiar Jira platform, it simplifies IT processes, enabling your teams to collaborate easily and deliver excellent customer and employee support.

Spike.sh

Spike.sh is an incident management platform designed to help businesses respond to and resolve IT issues quickly. It provides real-time alerts via phone calls, SMS, and popular platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, integrating with over 80 tools. Spike.sh enables on-call scheduling, automated escalation, and incident tracking to minimize downtime and keep teams informed. It also offers features like status pages, automated responses for common incidents, and collaborative workspaces for faster resolution.

Novisto

Novisto is a software platform designed to help mid-sized and large companies manage their sustainability efforts. It allows you to collect, track, and analyze data related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. With Novisto, you can automate reporting, gain insights from your data to make better decisions, and measure your company's sustainability performance against industry benchmarks. It simplifies tasks like responding to investor questionnaires and ensuring your company meets evolving regulatory requirements.

AlertOps

AlertOps is a software platform designed to help businesses manage and respond to IT incidents effectively. It provides a centralized system to receive alerts from various monitoring tools, automate escalation procedures, and notify the right people through different channels. This helps minimize downtime, streamline incident resolution, and improve communication within your IT team and with stakeholders. AlertOps integrates with a range of other tools and offers flexible configuration options to suit your company's specific needs and processes.

Page co-authored by

Michal Kaczor

CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

Tymon Terlikiewicz

CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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