If you’re a Squadcast user, you’ve likely heard the big news: SolarWinds acquired Squadcast. This major change might have you wondering what happens next.
Will your familiar tool change? Are price increases coming despite the “no immediate changes” promise? What about the product roadmap you’ve been counting on?
These are valid concerns for any Squadcast customer. While the FAQ page offers reassurances, acquisitions often bring unexpected changes. That’s why many teams are now exploring Squadcast alternatives that offer stability and certainty.
This blog post presents six squadcast alternatives if you’re considering a switch. Each alternative provides distinct advantages that might better serve your incident management needs going forward.
6 Better Squadcast Alternatives
| Platform | Best For | Starting Price (billed annually) |
|---|---|---|
| Spike | Teams of all sizes seeking simplicity | $6.4/per user/month |
| PagerDuty | Large enterprises and organizations | $21/per user/month |
| incident.io | Chat-first teams | $15 per user for incident response and additional $10 per user for oncall per month |
| Datadog Oncall | Datadog platform users | $20/per user/month |
| xMatters | Enterprise organizations | $9/per user/month |
| Splunk Oncall | Splunk ecosystem users | $5/per user/month |
1. Spike
Spike is a modern incident response platform that focuses on simplicity and user experience. With over 15 million incidents processed, 750,000 alerts sent, and 90,000+ on-call shifts rotated, it’s rapidly becoming a go-to choice for many teams.
Why Choose Spike as Squadcast Alternative
- Quick setup in under 5 minutes. Plus, you get ready-to-use templates to create escalation policies, on-call schedules, and alert rules.
- Multi-channel alerts beyond Squadcast’s limited options (email, push, SMS, voice)—Spike adds WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, Discord, and more.
- Affordable pricing starting at $6.4 per user/month compared to Squadcast’s $9 per user/month.
- On-call well-being features—Deep work & Cooldown modes, out-of-office setting, and alert suppression prevent burnout.
Mohammad Hani, Head of Engineering at Thndr, about Spike
Best suited for: Teams of all sizes—startups, SMEs, enterprises, or anyone who’s looking for a no-nonsense incident management solution with quick setup, multiple alert channels, and affordable pricing.
2. PagerDuty
PagerDuty stands as the veteran in the incident management space. Founded in 2009, it’s grown into a comprehensive platform trusted by organizations worldwide.
Why Choose PagerDuty as a Squadcast Alternative
- Enterprise-grade reliability with a proven track record of uptime and performance during critical incidents.
- Massive integration ecosystem with 700+ tools, including native connections to major monitoring, helpdesk, and project management platforms.
- Advanced features like machine learning-powered alert grouping, custom fields for incident enrichment, and cross-team collaboration tools.
- Comprehensive reporting and analytics that help teams track on-call performance, incident trends, and response metrics over time.
Best suited for: Large enterprises and organizations that need a battle-tested, full-featured incident management platform and can justify the higher price tag.
3. Datadog Oncall
Datadog Oncall integrates incident response with Datadog’s observability platform, embedding monitoring data directly into your incident management workflow.
Why Choose Datadog Oncall as a Squadcast Alternative
- Get instant context with every alert. Notifications include relevant Datadog metrics, logs, and traces. This helps you understand and resolve incidents faster.
- Automatic team-service mapping alerts the right people. You can also manage on-call rotations and escalations easily across any time zone.
- Track and improve your incident response with rich analytics. Measure resolution times, on-call load distribution, and team performance.
- Your stakeholders are informed with automated status updates while your team focuses on incident resolution with Datadog’s integrated troubleshooting tools.
Best suited for: Teams already using Datadog’s observability platform who are looking for a seamless integration between their monitoring and incident management workflows.
4. Incident.io
Incident.io is a chat-first end-to-end incident management platform with an intuitive user interface.
Why Choose Incident.io as a Squadcast Alternative
- Slack-first experience lets you create, update, and resolve incidents right where your team already collaborates.
- AI-powered features suggest follow-up actions and incident summaries based on context from incident channels.
- User-friendly interface makes incident management accessible to everyone on your team, not just engineers.
- Real-time status pages keep stakeholders informed with automated updates in dedicated channels.
Best suited for: Teams who are looking for a user-friendly, chat-first incident management solution, especially those heavily invested in Slack or Microsoft Teams.
5. xMatters
xMatters (now part of Everbridge) is an enterprise-grade incident management platform that focuses on workflow automation and team collaboration.
Why Choose xMatters as a Squadcast Alternative
- Alerts reach the right people through multiple channels—from SMS to Slack with customizable routing based on skills and availability.
- Connect your incident response with ITSM tools through deep integration with ServiceNow and popular helpdesk platforms to keep processes in sync.
- Manage on-call schedules with intuitive group calendar views and simple rotation management across time zones, plus multilingual messaging for global teams.
- Build custom incident workflows that automates key tasks and helps teams reduce mean time to resolve (MTTR).
Best suited for: Enterprises who are looking for a highly customizable incident management solution with strong ITSM integration capabilities and advanced workflow automation.
6. Splunk Oncall
Splunk Oncall (formerly VictorOps) combines data analytics and incident response capabilities. It brings Splunk’s powerful analytics directly into your incident response workflow.
Why Choose Splunk Oncall as a Squadcast Alternative
- As part of the Splunk ecosystem, you get seamless integration with Splunk logs and hundreds of existing toolkits.
- Context-rich alerts pull in relevant Splunk observability data, while ML-based routing sends notifications to the right experts.
- Simplified on-call management from rotations to overrides makes scheduling easier. ML recommendations help distribute on-call duties based on expertise.
- Instant access to historical incidents, runbooks, and relevant dashboards to speed up resolution.
Best suited for: Teams already invested in Splunk’s ecosystem who need deep data analysis capabilities alongside their incident management solution.
Switch to a Better Squadcast Alternative Today!
Choosing the right Squadcast alternative comes down to your team’s specific needs and preferences.
PagerDuty offers enterprise-grade features for larger organizations. Incident.io excels in Slack-first operations. Datadog and Splunk OnCall bring observability integration to the table. xMatters focuses on ITSM workflows and automation.
However, if you’re looking for a solution that combines simplicity with powerful features, Spike stands out with its quick setup, intuitive interface, and comprehensive alert channels.
The SolarWinds acquisition of Squadcast doesn’t need to disrupt your incident management. A smooth transition to a better alternative can actually improve your team’s response capabilities.
Ready to try a more intuitive incident management solution? Start your 14-day free trial with Spike today!