Incident management without the PagerDuty overhead.
PagerDuty is a serious tool, built for enterprise SRE teams with complex needs. Runframe is built for lean engineering teams that want reliable on-call scheduling and incident tracking without weeks of setup or a $49/user bill that keeps growing.
Why teams switch from PagerDuty
Not because PagerDuty is bad. Because it was designed for a different kind of team.
Pricing that compounds
PagerDuty's Professional plan starts at $25/user/month, but most teams need the Business plan at $49/user/month for custom fields, advanced workflows, and internal status pages. Then AIOps is another $699/month, AI features start at $415/month, and status pages are $89/month extra. A 10-person team on Business with AIOps is over $1,600/month before you add anything else.
Setup measured in weeks
PagerDuty is powerful, but configuring escalation policies, service dependencies, business services, event rules, and integrations from scratch takes time. Most teams spend 1–2 weeks before they feel confident in their setup. Runframe takes under 10 minutes.
Built for enterprises, not your team
PagerDuty was designed for large organizations with dedicated SRE teams. If you are a 5–50 person engineering team that just needs reliable on-call scheduling, incident tracking, and Slack integration, you are paying for a lot of complexity you will never use.
Runframe vs PagerDuty
A direct comparison across the features that matter most.
| Feature | Runframe | PagerDuty |
|---|---|---|
| Incident Management | ||
| On-Call Scheduling | ||
| Slack-native Workflow | ||
| Postmortems | ||
| Escalation Policies | ||
| Pricing | $15/user/mo | $25-49/user/mo |
| Setup Time | < 10 minutes | 1–2 weeks |
| AI Features | AI postmortem drafts | |
| Enterprise SSO | Enterprise tier | |
| Free Tier | Up to 5 users | Up to 5 users |
An honest comparison
We are not going to tell you PagerDuty is terrible. It is not. Here is where each tool actually wins.
Where Runframe wins
Best fit for teams of 2–100 that live in Slack and want fast setup.
- Incidents declared directly from Slack with /inc, no context switching
- Dedicated Slack channel created automatically for every incident
- Up and running in under 10 minutes. No professional services required
- Transparent, flat pricing with no add-on surprises
- Free tier for teams up to 5 users, no credit card required
Where PagerDuty wins
Best fit for large enterprises with dedicated SRE teams and compliance requirements.
- Enterprise SSO and advanced security compliance
- 700+ pre-built integrations across the full observability stack
- AI ops features including noise reduction and intelligent alert grouping
- Established track record with Fortune 500 customers
Common questions about switching
Straightforward answers, no sales spin.
Try Runframe free. No credit card.
Set up in under 10 minutes. Free for up to 5 users. Grow to a paid plan only when you need to.