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Incident management and on-call · November 2026 Edition

PagerDuty vs FireHydrant

Two of fourteen models named PagerDuty first on the direct prompt; zero named FireHydrant. PagerDuty was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and FireHydrant by thirteen and PagerDuty carries 70 labels and FireHydrant 34, so the shares are not directly comparable.

PagerDuty

accepted challenger

Named in four categories this edition.

FireHydrant

accepted challenger

Named in three categories this edition.

First-choice share25%4%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate21%9%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#2#4A position in a field of 13; printed, not drawn.
Labels7034A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, PagerDuty reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.incident.io was named alongside these two in twelve of the fourteen direct answers. incident.io vs PagerDuty · incident.io vs FireHydrant · PagerDuty vs Rootly

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the incident management and on-call page.

By framing

How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
PagerDutyFirst choices, of fourteen modelsFireHydrant
Direct202 against PagerDuty
Paraphrase602 against PagerDuty
Comparative100
Budget-constrained413 against PagerDuty · 1 against FireHydrant
Scale-constrained211 against PagerDuty
Negative007 against PagerDuty · 2 against FireHydrant
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.

Across every category in the November 2026 Edition, PagerDuty and FireHydrant were named in the same answer seventy-three times, of the 229 answers naming PagerDuty and the 80 naming FireHydrant. In those answers FireHydrant took the first choice one time and PagerDuty twenty-one.

Every model, every framing

The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where PagerDuty and FireHydrant stood in it.
ModelDirectParaphraseComparativeBudget-constrainedScale-constrainedNegative
Claude Haiku 4.5
GPT-5.4 mini
Gemini 3.5 Flash
Perplexity Sonar
Grok 4.20
Mistral Small
DeepSeek V4 Flash
Llama 4 Maverick
Qwen 3.7 Flash
Kimi K2
GLM 4.7 FlashX
MiniMax M2.5
GPT-6 Luna
Muse Glimmer 30B
PagerDuty FireHydrant first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, PagerDuty on the left and FireHydrant on the right.

The direct prompt

The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where PagerDuty and FireHydrant stood in it.

PagerDuty first, FireHydrant an alternative

2 of 14 modelsFireHydrant was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.
GPT-5.4 miniPagerDuty alternatives: FireHydrant, Jira Service Management, Rootly, xMatters
Perplexity SonarPagerDuty alternatives: Better Stack, Freshservice, Jira Service Management, Squadcast, incident.io

Neither was the first choice, one was named

10 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.
Gemini 3.5 Flashincident.io alternatives: FireHydrant, Jira Service Management, Rootly
Grok 4.20Rootly, incident.io alternatives: Freshservice, Jira Service Management, PagerDuty
DeepSeek V4 Flashincident.io alternatives: FireHydrant, PagerDuty, Rootly, Squadcast
Llama 4 Maverickincident.io alternatives: Freshservice, PagerDuty, Squadcast
Qwen 3.7 Flashincident.io alternatives: Opsgenie, PagerDuty
Kimi K2incident.io alternatives: FireHydrant, PagerDuty, Rootly
GLM 4.7 FlashXincident.io alternatives: Jira Service Management, PagerDuty, ServiceNow ITSM
MiniMax M2.5incident.io alternatives: FireHydrant, Rootly
GPT-6 Lunaincident.io alternatives: PagerDuty, Rootly
Muse Glimmer 30Bincident.io alternatives: All Quiet, FireHydrant, OnPage, PagerDuty, Rootly, SolarWinds IT Incident Response, formerly Squadcast, Zenduty

Neither was named

2 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.
Claude Haiku 4.5Zenduty alternatives: Freshservice, Jira Service Management, Rootly, Squadcast
Mistral Smallincident.io

Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
PagerDuty leads by sixteen points.
PagerDuty18%#2 of 14
FireHydrant2%#7 of 14
The full small business standing →
Mid-marketThe figures above
PagerDuty leads by twenty-one points.
PagerDuty25%#2 of 13
FireHydrant4%#4 of 13
The full mid-market standing →
Enterprise
PagerDuty leads by fifty-one points.
PagerDuty53%#1 of 12
FireHydrant2%#8 of 12
The full enterprise standing →

What the models said about PagerDuty

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.

“Avoid or be very cautious with: Opsgenie (end-of-life), PagerDuty (cost/complexity issues)” Kimi K2 · negative prompt · hard negative
“PagerDuty can get expensive quickly for mid-market budgets... many mid-market teams end up layering incident.io on top of PagerDuty, paying twice.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · soft negative
“PagerDuty's current pricing lists separate plans and paid-ons; get a quote based on your real seat, event, and feature needs before committing.” GPT-6 Luna · negative prompt · soft negative
“Choose PagerDuty if your culture is highly operational, you have distinct IT and Engineering teams, and you need rigorous compliance and audit trails.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“PagerDuty is widely considered the industry leader in on-call management. It is the go-to tool for alerting, scheduling, and escalation.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · comparative prompt · first choice
“PagerDuty (free plan available) and All Quiet ($4.99/user/month) are the top recommendations for companies with limited budgets” Mistral Small · budget prompt · first choice

What the models said about FireHydrant

Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.

“Pilot any tool with realistic incident creation time, alert routing accuracy and on-call fatigue impact before committing, especially FireHydrant” Muse Glimmer 30B · negative prompt · soft negative
“FireHydrant starts at $9,600/year, making it unsuitable for tight budgets” DeepSeek V4 Flash · budget prompt · soft negative
“some users report it's *too Prescriptive* about incident processes” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“incident.io or FireHydrant are both solid starting points that won't cost you anything until you're ready to pay.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · budget prompt · first choice
“Choose Incident.io / Rootly / FireHydrant if you are an engineering-first culture” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“Strong automation and Slack integration, but less comprehensive than incident.io for end-to-end management.” Mistral Small · comparative prompt · alternative
Also compared

Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.