PagerDuty is an incident response and on-call management platform focused on alerting and escalation workflows, while Datadog is a comprehensive observability platform that includes monitoring, logging, APM, and incident management in one suite. Datadog offers deeper infrastructure visibility; PagerDuty excels at incident coordination.
PagerDuty vs Datadog — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Incident response and on-call management platform for alert orchestration and team coordination.
Cloud monitoring and observability platform with integrated APM and infrastructure monitoring
Primary Function. Log Management. APM (Application Performance Monitoring). Starting Price (Monthly). Integrations. Incident Response Workflow. Infrastructure Monitoring
Choose PagerDuty if your primary need is incident response orchestration, on-call scheduling, and alert routing—it's the market leader in incident management with superior escalation workflows and team collaboration features. Choose Datadog if you need a unified observability platform that eliminates tool sprawl by combining infrastructure monitoring, log management, APM, and incident management in one product with better cost efficiency at scale.
PagerDuty: API-based integration | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Cloud, hybrid, self-hosted (enterprise) | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: $49 | Datadog: $15.00 (base) + metered
PagerDuty: 200+ integrations | Datadog: 100+
Mean Time to Response (MTTR) Improvement
PagerDuty: Enterprise tier only | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: 60% via deduplication | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: 400+ via integrations | Datadog: 600+ native integrations
PagerDuty: Not included | Datadog: 90 days
PagerDuty: 75% alert noise reduction | Datadog: 60% alert reduction via AI
PagerDuty: 87% faster | Datadog: 72% faster
PagerDuty: No (integration only) | Datadog: Yes (full distributed tracing)
PagerDuty: 8-16 hours | Datadog: 4-8 weeks
PagerDuty: Native, advanced rotation policies | Datadog: Basic (limited schedule management)
PagerDuty: iOS & Android (full-featured) | Datadog: N/A
Average Incident Resolution Time Improvement
PagerDuty: 35% faster (reported by customers) | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: N/A - not data-focused | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Full (scheduling, ack, resolve on mobile) | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: N/A - incident focused | Datadog: 15 days standard
PagerDuty: Incident pattern detection only | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Not authorized | Datadog: N/A
Base Monthly Cost (5 Users, Annual Commitment)
PagerDuty: 5,000+ | Datadog: 600+ pre-built integrations
PagerDuty: ML-driven with event correlation | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: One-way basic plugin sync | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Advanced (rotations, overrides, patterns) | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Basic manual reviews | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Chat integration required | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Alerts: unlimited routing | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Basic correlation & anomaly detection | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: Low (UI-driven workflows) | Datadog: N/A
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Distributed tracing and session replay
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Comprehensive with advanced orchestration
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Native distributed tracing
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Built-in with retention policies
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $32 per host/month
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Most comprehensive with custom parsing
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Advanced features, steeper learning curve
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $0 - limited (3 hosts max)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Advanced with ML insights
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $15 per host minimum
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $180+/month (Standard plan)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Full log aggregation and analytics
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 15+ major frameworks
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 600+ integrations
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Monthly/pay-as-you-go
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $0.05 per metric
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Machine learning-based pattern recognition
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 35% reduction (typical)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $15/month (Standard tier)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 450 days (15 months default)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 500+ auto-instrumented
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Unlimited with tag aggregation
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 800-1200 (with agent)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 24/7 phone, email, chat
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Native support
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Method-level with sampling
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Yes, standard in most plans
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Basic anomaly detection
APM (Application Performance Monitoring)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Advanced APM with distributed tracing
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Advanced session replay with pixel-perfect reproduction
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: SAML, SSO, SOC2 Type II, HIPAA compliance, security monitoring
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: ~600+ integrations
Default Data Retention (included in pricing)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 100% of traces stored
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 0 (add-on only)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 19,000+ (2024)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Limited query builder; UI-driven
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 2/10 - agent-based, minimal config
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Infrastructure, APM, logs, metrics, synthetics, RUM
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: SaaS, full on-premise, hybrid
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Available with RUM plan
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Basic container metrics and logs
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Yes, with distributed tracing
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Yes (anomaly detection, AI Advisor)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP, HIPAA
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $28,200-38,400
Base Monthly Pricing (1GB/day ingestion)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 50+ security rules
Maximum Data Ingestion Per Day (Enterprise)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Unlimited (licensing dependent)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 450 days (15 months)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Datadog Query Language (DQL) + PromQL support
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 99.99% guaranteed SLA
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 24/7 dedicated support with SLA
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $15-20 per host (estimated)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 3 hops (with manual configuration)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 3+ agents (APM, Infrastructure, Logs)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 4.6/5.0 (2,100+ reviews)
Typical Enterprise Annual Cost (1000 hosts)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $180K-240K (with logs)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 32% faster than legacy APM
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: iOS, Android, React Native
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Hosts, containers, Kubernetes, cloud services, databases
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: $360 (~$15/host × 24 hosts typical)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 15 (upgradeable to 400+)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: Included in all plans
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: 0-1 (for integrations only)
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: DQL, limited SQL
PagerDuty: N/A | Datadog: No (proprietary SaaS)
How to choose between PagerDuty and Datadog
PagerDuty vs Datadog — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for PagerDuty vs Datadog. Contains 195 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
PagerDuty vs Datadog — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for PagerDuty vs Datadog.
Can I use PagerDuty without another monitoring tool?
Not effectively. PagerDuty is an incident response platform that requires data sources (alerts) from monitoring tools like Datadog, Prometheus, or New Relic. While it can receive webhooks, it lacks native infrastructure monitoring and observability features. You must integrate it with a separate monitoring solution to send alerts.
Does Datadog replace PagerDuty for incident management?
Datadog includes basic incident management features triggered from alerts, but it lacks PagerDuty's specialized incident response capabilities like multi-level escalation policies, sophisticated on-call scheduling, and war room collaboration tools. For simple, small-scale incident response, Datadog may suffice; for complex incident orchestration, PagerDuty is superior.
What's cheaper at enterprise scale: PagerDuty + Datadog or just Datadog?
At enterprise scale (1,000+ hosts), using just Datadog typically costs less. PagerDuty charges $9/user minimum, and large on-call teams easily exceed $50K/year. Datadog's per-host pricing (~$15-30/host depending on plan) can be cheaper when combined for observability. However, if you have complex multi-team incident workflows, PagerDuty's specialization often justifies the cost.
Can PagerDuty and Datadog integrate together?
Yes, they integrate bidirectionally. Datadog can send alerts to PagerDuty for incident creation and triggering, and PagerDuty can send incident status updates back to Datadog. This is a common enterprise setup where Datadog provides observability and PagerDuty handles incident response workflows. The integration is native and well-maintained.
Which platform is better for small startups (under 20 people)?
PagerDuty is more cost-effective for small teams. Starting at $9/user/month, a 5-person team pays only $45/month. However, you'll need a separate monitoring tool. If you're starting from scratch with zero tools, Datadog's unified platform may be simpler despite higher per-host costs, as it eliminates tool sprawl and onboarding complexity for early-stage teams.
How to Choose Between PagerDuty and Datadog
Primary Function: PagerDuty has Incident response & on-call management, while Datadog has Full-stack observability & monitoring.
Log Management: PagerDuty has Limited (basic event logs only), while Datadog has Full log aggregation with 15+ GB/day free tier.
Consider: APM (Application Performance Monitoring)
APM (Application Performance Monitoring): PagerDuty has Not included, while Datadog has Native APM with 100+ framework support.
Starting Price (Monthly): PagerDuty has $9/user for on-call management, while Datadog has $15/host or $0.05/GB logs.
Integrations: PagerDuty has 600+ integrations with incident tools, while Datadog has 450+ integrations across monitoring/logging/APM.
Incident Response Workflow: PagerDuty has Advanced routing, escalation policies, war rooms, while Datadog has Basic incident creation from alerts.
Infrastructure Monitoring: PagerDuty has Via integrations only, while Datadog has Native agent with 200+ metrics per host.