How to Choose Incident Management Software

Choosing the right incident management software can make or break your organization's operational resilience . Modern IT environments are growing complex, and so are customer expectations for always-on services. Having robust incident management capabilities isn't just nice to have, it's essential for business continuity.

Recent years have brought exciting innovation to incident management. Still, there's a critical distinction between platforms that understand the interconnected nature of incident response and those that treat core capabilities as standalone features. Many teams fall into the trap of thinking about alerting as one tool, on-call management as another, and incident management as something else entirely. The reality is that alerting and creating on-call schedules are foundational elements of incident management (not separate functions), but essential building blocks that must be architected together from the ground up.

The challenge lies in navigating a crowded marketplace filled with solutions that range from basic alerting tools to comprehensive incident management platforms. Some vendors like Rootly, FireHydrant, and incident.io have brought targeted innovation to specific aspects of incident response, making these areas more engaging and user-friendly, while PagerDuty delivers end-to-end incident lifecycle management built on a foundation where core capabilities work as an integrated whole.

True incident management encompasses the entire lifecycle and extends beyond reactive response to include proactive operational maturity improvements. More advanced platforms, like PagerDuty, use AI-driven recommendations, autonomous agents, and intelligent orchestrations to help organizations learn and improve during peacetime, not just during incidents. A proactive approach means your platform continuously evolves based on responder behavior and operational patterns, preventing future issues rather than just managing current ones. This means your team can respond faster, learn more effectively, and prevent future issues rather than just reacting to them.

In this guide, we'll walk through the essential features to evaluate, the common pitfalls to avoid, and why having a comprehensive incident management solution beats cobbling together point solutions. Whether you're replacing an existing system or building your incident response capabilities from scratch, this guide will help you make the right choice for your team.

What to Look For in Incident Management Software

Comprehensive Incident Lifecycle Management

Incident management goes far beyond just sending alerts and managing on-call schedules. While alerting and on-call scheduling are foundational elements of any incident response strategy, they're just the beginning of effective incident management. Look for a platform that supports the entire incident lifecycle, from initial detection through resolution and learning.

Your ideal solution should offer structured incident response workflows, automated stakeholder communications, seamless handoffs between teams, and comprehensive retrospective capabilities. This end-to-end approach ensures that every incident becomes a learning opportunity, not just a fire to put out.

Many tools in the market focus solely on one piece of this puzzle. Platforms like Rootly and incident.io might have sleek interfaces and chat-first capabilities, but they often lack the depth needed for enterprise-scale operations. When pressure mounts during a critical incident, these fragmented solutions can leave gaps in your response process that slow down resolution and impact your customers.

Advanced AI and Automation Capabilities

Modern incident management platforms should leverage artificial intelligence to reduce noise, accelerate response times, and provide actionable insights. Look for solutions that offer advanced noise reduction using machine learning, not just basic time-based or content-based grouping that many platforms provide.

Key AI and automation features to evaluate include:

• Intelligent event correlation and machine learning-based noise reduction that identifies patterns, surfaces root causes faster, and goes beyond simple rule-based filtering.
• Automated diagnostics and remediation that can resolve issues before they impact customers.
• AI-powered triage capabilities that identify outliers, determine probable origins, and correlate recent changes with ongoing incidents.
• AI agents for autonomous operations that can handle scheduling conflicts, capture contextual insights from video calls, and provide proactive recommendations based on operational data analyses, all without human intervention.

Enterprise-Grade Reliability and Architecture Independence

Your incident management platform should solve problems, not become one. There's a critical difference between platforms that integrate with chat tools and platforms that depend on them for core functionality. When evaluating vendors, scrutinize their reliability track record, published SLAs, and infrastructure architecture. Look for platforms that offer zero scheduled downtime and maintain high availability even when other systems fail.

Critical reliability factors include:

• Published SLAs with high availability guarantees (99.9% or higher).
• Zero scheduled downtime for maintenance and updates.
• Multi-channel communication capabilities that work even during widespread issues
• Redundant infrastructure built for resilience.
• Enterprise security and compliance , including SOC 2, FedRAMP Authorization, and other certifications.
• Architectural independence from third-party services that could create single points of failure.

The most reliable platforms are built with redundancy and multi-channel capabilities that ensure you stay connected even during widespread issues.

Deep Integration Ecosystem

Your incident management platform also needs to work seamlessly with your existing tech stack, not force you to rip and replace critical tools. The best solutions offer extensive pre-built integrations, but more importantly, they focus on the integrations that drive the most operational value.

PagerDuty's 700+ integrations are strategically designed around event-driven automation, connecting monitoring tools, cloud platforms, and infrastructure services that feed critical operational data into your incident response workflows. At PagerDuty, we take a more infrastructure-focused approach, prioritizing the integrations that enable automated event processing, intelligent routing, and proactive remediation. This event-centric approach means we excel at automating processes based on real-time data from your systems, rather than requiring manual coordination through chat interfaces.

Look for platforms that offer native interface integrations, allowing you to manage incidents directly within tools like ServiceNow, Jira, or Salesforce without context switching. PagerDuty's bi-directional sync capabilities ensure that updates flow seamlessly between systems, while advanced features like JQL-triggered incidents in Jira provide enterprise-grade flexibility that chat-dependent platforms can't match.

The key distinction is between platforms that use integrations to enhance functionality versus platforms that require specific integrations for core incident management capabilities. PagerDuty's integration strategy focuses on expanding operational capabilities while maintaining platform resilience, rather than creating single points of failure for essential incident response functions.

Flexible Automation Without Complexity

Every organization has unique workflows, escalation policies, and operational requirements. Your incident management platform should adapt to your processes, not force you to conform to rigid templates.

Essential automation capabilities include:

• Custom incident types and workflows that match your operational processes.
• Flexible escalation policies with multiple routing options.
• Event orchestration that can auto-resolve, enrich, and trigger self-healing actions.
• Conditional logic for routing incidents based on severity, timing, or service type.
• Automated stakeholder communications with customizable messaging.
• Integration-triggered actions that connect incident response to your broader toolchain.

Advanced platforms offer event orchestration capabilities that can create custom logic to auto-resolve, enrich, and trigger self-healing actions based on event data. This level of automation goes beyond basic alert grouping to actually prevent incidents from reaching your team when they can be resolved automatically.

However, customization shouldn't require extensive training or complex configuration. Some platforms make simple tasks like creating schedule overrides or setting up escalation policies unnecessarily complicated, requiring users to go through extensive training just to perform basic functions. The best platforms balance flexibility with ease of use, allowing teams to get up and running quickly while still supporting sophisticated operational requirements.

Comprehensive Learning and Analytics

Post-incident analysis is where many incident management platforms fall short. Basic timeline and documentation features aren't enough - you need a platform that can analyze integration data from Slack, Jira, Zoom, and other tools to identify improvement opportunities and patterns.

Advanced learning capabilities should include:

• Contextual learning systems that tag and categorize incidents for deeper analysis.
• Collaborative timeline documentation with multi-user event categorization.
• Evidence attachments and timeline annotation capabilities.
• Integration of data analysis from communication and collaboration tools.
• Pattern recognition that surfaces related incidents and trends.
• Participation tracking that shows responder engagement and team dynamics.
• Improvement opportunity identification based on historical data.

Look for solutions that offer contextual learning systems that can tag and categorize incidents for deeper analysis. The most advanced platforms provide collaborative timeline documentation with multi-user event categorization, evidence attachments, and timeline annotation capabilities.

Some platforms offer basic metrics dashboards but lack the sophisticated analysis needed to drive real improvement. The best solutions, including PagerDuty, provide learning management capabilities that track on-call patterns, response times, team participation metrics, and can surface related incidents to help teams learn from past experiences.

Proven Track Record at Scale

When evaluating incident management platforms, consider the vendor's customer base and track record. Platforms trusted by Fortune 100 companies and government agencies have proven they can handle the most demanding operational requirements.

Key indicators of platform maturity include:

• Enterprise customer base with Fortune 500 and government clients.
• Published case studies with measurable outcomes.
• Third-party validation and industry recognition.
• Volume metrics showing platform scale and reliability.
• Customer retention rates and satisfaction scores.
• Regulatory compliance certifications for enterprise requirements.

Look for vendors that can demonstrate measurable outcomes, such as reduced response times, improved team productivity, and concrete ROI. The most established platforms can show proven results through case studies and third-party validation.

Be cautious of newer vendors that may have attractive interfaces but lack the operational maturity needed for mission-critical environments. When your business depends on rapid incident response, proven reliability and comprehensive capabilities trump flashy features.

Why PagerDuty is the Best Solution for Incident Management

The PagerDuty Operations Cloud stands apart as the only platform that truly unifies enterprise-grade alerting, response, prevention, and learning in a single solution. While point solution vendors (Rootly, FireHydrant, and incident.io) focus on pieces of the incident management puzzle, PagerDuty delivers comprehensive capabilities that scale with your business.

Unmatched Reliability and Scale

PagerDuty maintains 99.9% web availability SLAs with zero scheduled downtime. Our platform is trusted by nearly 70% of the Fortune 100 and has handled over 891 million incidents, proving its reliability at enterprise scale. When your systems experience issues, you need absolute confidence that your incident management platform will be there.

Unlike competitors that rely on third-party services or require regular maintenance windows, PagerDuty's architecture is built for resilience. Our multi-channel approach ensures you stay connected even during widespread issues, while enterprise security features, including FedRAMP Low authorization , meet the most stringent compliance requirements.

Advanced AI, Automation, and Next-Generation Autonomous Agents That Actually Work

PagerDuty's AI-powered capabilities are built into the platform's core, not bolted on as expensive add-ons. Our advanced noise reduction uses machine learning to prevent alert fatigue, while intelligent event correlation helps teams identify root causes faster.

PagerDuty offers AI-powered triage capabilities that go beyond basic incident summaries to identify outliers, determine probable origins, and provide intelligent change correlation. With features like automated diagnostics and remediation through Event Orchestration, PagerDuty can resolve issues before they impact customers, capabilities that single-purpose tools simply can't match.

Our AI-First Operations Platform includes comprehensive AI agents that operate at the infrastructure level, not dependent on third-party chat integrations that can fail during critical moments. Our advanced AI capabilities include:

• PagerDuty Advance AI Assistant (Generally Available): Integrated directly with the PagerDuty Operations Cloud to empower responders with contextual information and automated documentation.
• Next-Generation AI Agents (Early Access & Upcoming):
  • Shift Agent : Automates on-call scheduling conflict resolution without manual intervention.
  • Scribe Agent : Captures contextual insights from video calls and eliminates manual incident documentation through intelligent automation.
  • Insights Agent : Continuously analyzes operational data to provide proactive recommendations for improving operational maturity.
  • SRE Agent : Automatically identifies and classifies incidents, surfaces critical context from past incidents, recommends remediation steps, and generates incident playbooks with continuous learning capabilities.

PagerDuty provides comprehensive AI assistance that understands both technical and business context through years of operational intelligence and works across your entire incident management workflow, something impossible to achieve through chat-only interfaces.

Operationalizing LLMs: Why LLMOps Matters for Modern Incident Management

As organizations race to deploy large language models (LLMs) in production, a new set of operational challenges is emerging. LLMs are powerful, but they're also unpredictable: prone to issues like model drift, hallucinations, API failures, and compliance risks that traditional incident management tools simply weren't built to handle. That's where LLMOps comes in.

What is LLMOps, and Why Does It Matter?

LLMOps (Large Language Model Operations) is the discipline of managing, monitoring, and continuously improving LLM-powered applications in production. Just as DevOps transformed how we build and operate software, LLMOps is quickly becoming essential for organizations that rely on AI to power customer experiences, automate workflows, or drive business decisions.

Unlike traditional software, LLMs can change their behavior over time, sometimes in subtle, hard-to-detect ways. Model drift, hallucinations (where the model generates plausible but incorrect information), and performance degradation can all lead to incidents that impact customers, introduce compliance risks, or erode trust in your AI systems. Add in the complexity of integrating with cloud AI services and the need for human oversight on sensitive outputs, and it's clear that LLM-powered environments demand a new approach to operational resilience.

Why Traditional Incident Management Isn't Enough

Most incident management tools were designed for infrastructure and application outages, not the unique risks of AI. They lack the ability to detect LLM-specific anomalies, integrate with model monitoring tools, or escalate incidents for ethical and compliance review. As a result, teams are often left scrambling to diagnose and resolve LLM issues with manual processes and fragmented tools, slowing down response times and increasing business risk.

How PagerDuty Enables LLMOps

PagerDuty is leading the way in operationalizing LLMs by bringing LLMOps capabilities directly into the incident management workflow . Here's how:

• Real-Time Detection and Response for LLM Incidents: PagerDuty integrates with leading LLM monitoring and cloud AI services to detect anomalies, performance issues, and API failures as soon as they happen. Automated event correlation and AI-powered triage help teams pinpoint root causes faster, whether it's a sudden spike in hallucinations or a drop in model accuracy.
• Human-in-the-Loop Escalation: Not every LLM incident can be resolved automatically. PagerDuty's flexible workflows enable human-in-the-loop escalation for ethical, legal, or compliance review, ensuring that sensitive outputs are handled with the right level of oversight.
• Post-Incident Analysis and Continuous Improvement: PagerDuty's post-incident reviews make it easy to document LLM incidents, analyze contributing factors, and surface patterns over time. This continuous improvement loop helps teams refine their models, update guardrails, and reduce the risk of future incidents.
• Integration with Your AI Stack: PagerDuty supports over 700 integrations, including support for LLM monitoring, cloud AI platforms, and collaboration tools, fitting right into your existing workflows. You can automate incident response, trigger remediation actions, and keep stakeholders informed, all from a single platform.

The Business Value of Operationalizing LLMs

Operationalizing LLMs isn't just about risk reduction, it's about delivering reliable, trustworthy AI experiences at scale. With PagerDuty, organizations can resolve LLM incidents faster, minimize customer impact, and maintain compliance amid constantly changing regulations. This means greater confidence in your AI investments, better customer experiences, and a competitive edge in the era of intelligent automation. Explore our LLMOps use case to learn more.

Comprehensive Integration Ecosystem

With over 700 integrations, PagerDuty fits seamlessly into any tech stack. But we go beyond basic connectivity to offer native interface integrations with ServiceNow, Jira, Salesforce, and other critical business systems. This means your teams can manage incidents directly within their existing workflows without context switching.

Our bi-directional sync capabilities ensure that updates flow seamlessly between systems, while advanced features like JQL-triggered incidents in Jira provide the flexibility that enterprise teams demand - a feature that platforms like Rootly don't offer in their Jira integration.

PagerDuty uniquely offers native interface integration with customer service applications, connecting front-line customer service teams directly to developers through Salesforce, Zendesk, and ServiceNow CSM integrations.

Through our Model Context Protocol (MCP), we enable cross-agent communication and interoperability, connecting LLMs and AI agents directly to PagerDuty while maintaining existing workflows. We're the first incident management platform to integrate with Amazon Q Business, enabling teams to surface critical data from connected apps, such as Confluence or GitHub, directly from where they work.

End-to-End Incident Management

PagerDuty covers the complete incident lifecycle: our platform includes structured incident workflows, automated stakeholder communications, comprehensive retrospective capabilities, and advanced learning management features.

Our Jeli Learning Center provides deeper analysis and filterable data to show responder participation patterns, incident distribution, and improvement opportunities. Features like collaborative timeline documentation, contextual learning systems, and the ability to surface related incidents ensure that every incident becomes a learning opportunity for continuous improvement.

PagerDuty also offers unique capabilities, like a centralized operations console for managing live incidents in bulk, tailor-built for central teams to monitor, manage, and respond across the organization.

Choose the right incident management software to boost resilience, speed response, and prevent issues with AI-driven workflows.

Transparent Value and Proven ROI

PagerDuty customers report an average 249% ROI, 59% less downtime, and 50% reduction in incidents - outcomes that demonstrate real business value. Our platform has ingested over 65 billion events and achieved a 91% reduction in alert noise for our customers.

Unlike vendors that charge separately for basic features like AI capabilities or advanced integrations, PagerDuty includes comprehensive functionality in our core platform. This transparent approach eliminates hidden costs and ensures you get maximum value from day one.

The choice is clear: when you need an incident management platform that can scale with your business, integrate with your existing tools, and deliver proven results, PagerDuty is the only solution that delivers on all fronts. Don't settle for fragmented tools or platforms that only handle pieces of your incident management needs when your business depends on rapid incident response.

Ready to see the difference? Start your free trial today and experience what enterprise-grade incident management looks like.