GoAlert vs PagerDuty
GoAlert
goalert.me
PagerDuty
pagerduty.comSide by side
| Figure | GoAlert | PagerDuty |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $21/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 9 |
| Spec score · On-Call Scheduling Software | 8.0 (#13) | 9.0 (#2) |
| Spec score · On-Call Management Software | 7.9 (#18) | 9.0 (#3) |
| Spec score · IT Alerting Software | 7.7 (#16) | 8.9 (#3) |
| Support | The project lists [email protected] and the #goalert channel in Gophers Slack as ways to get help. | The pricing comparison lists Knowledge Base and Community access across plans, while Standard Email & Chat Support is not included in Free and is included in Professional and higher plans. |
Plans
PagerDuty
- FreeFree
- Incident Management FreeFree
- Professional annual$21 a month
- Professional monthly$25 a month
- Business annual$41 a month
- PD Reliability Platform Starter$2,800 a year
- PD Reliability Platform Essential$12,000 a year
- Incident Management ProfessionalPrice not published
- PD Reliability Platform UltimatePriced on request
In their own words
GoAlert
GoAlert is free, open-source software for on-call scheduling, alert routing, and escalation. Schedules, rotations, and escalation policies decide who receives an alert and move it onward when it is not acknowledged. Alerts can enter through the generic API, email, Grafana, Prometheus, Site24x7, Sensu, or manual interface entry. Notifications include Twilio SMS and voice, Mailgun email, and Slack. GoAlert is self-hosted, distributed as a single binary or Docker images, and requires a running PostgreSQL instance. Administrators can enable GitHub OAuth or OpenID Connect. The setup guide recommends a data-encryption key for sensitive stored information such as API keys. The interface is responsive and mobile friendly. Two-way SMS is available for US-based numbers; Indian government regulations prevent it for Indian numbers. Rotation scheduling, escalation policies, handoff tools, multichannel notifications, and calendar sync are listed capabilities. The project is licensed under Apache License 2.0.
PagerDuty
PagerDuty manages incidents from detection through resolution using automation and real-time collaboration. Its AIOps tools are described as reducing alerts, automating repetitive tasks, and accelerating resolution, while PagerDuty Automation standardizes workflows across people, tools, and systems. Teams can use on-call scheduling, escalation policies, stakeholder updates, ChatOps incident actions, and post-incident reviews. PagerDuty lists more than 750 integrations, with connections through email, API, or MCP; examples include AWS, Slack, Anthropic Claude Connector, Microsoft Teams, Cursor, and Datadog. Its iOS and Android apps support incident response, schedules and overrides, incident context, and automated response tasks, but require a PagerDuty account. The free Incident Management plan covers up to five users, one on-call schedule, and one escalation policy. Paid incident management starts at $21 per user per month with annual billing, and a 14-day trial is listed. PagerDuty says it serves developers, reliability engineers, customer success, security, and C-suite teams. It reports SOC 2 Type II examinations and ISO 27001 certification for its services.