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Airbrake vs PagerDuty

Airbrake logo

Airbrake

Logging

Error Tracking and Performance Monitoring

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
PagerDuty logo

PagerDuty

Technology

Real-time operations for real-time business

From
$21/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Airbrake has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Airbrake data retention is 30 days on every plan, including the $799 a month Business tier; PagerDuty aIOps, status pages, and live call routing are expensive add-ons not included in base plans, significantly increasing total cost
  • They diverge on capability: Airbrake covers Error tracking, PagerDuty covers Incident response.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Airbrake and PagerDuty actually diverge.

Attributes where Airbrake and PagerDuty differ
AttributeAirbrakePagerDuty
Starting priceFree$21/month
Pricing modelsubscriptionUnknown
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, ApiWeb, Ios, Android, Api
CategoryLoggingTechnology
Founded20082009

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Airbrake

  • Error tracking
  • Performance monitoring
  • Deploy tracking
  • Custom notifications
  • API
  • Webhooks
  • REST
  • Web support

Only in PagerDuty

  • Incident response
  • On-call management
  • Alert grouping
  • Escalation policies
  • Mobile incident management
  • Postmortems
  • Status pages
  • Event intelligence

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Airbrake

  • Error and exception monitoring for web applicationsnot PagerDuty
  • Performance monitoring alongside error trackingnot PagerDuty
  • Alerting a team when a deploy introduces a spike in errorsnot PagerDuty
  • Tracking errors across multiple projects in one accountnot PagerDuty

PagerDuty

  • Incident managementnot Airbrake
  • On-call schedulingnot Airbrake
  • Real-time alertingnot Airbrake
  • Service reliabilitynot Airbrake
  • Digital operationsnot Airbrake

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Airbrake

  • Data retention is 30 days on every plan, including the $799 a month Business tier
  • The entry plan at $19 a month covers 25,000 errors and 7,500 events
  • Errors beyond the plan quota are billed on demand
  • Audit logs and spike forgiveness require the Pro tier
  • The lowest tier is limited to 1 user and 1 team

PagerDuty

  • AIOps, status pages, and live call routing are expensive add-ons not included in base plans, significantly increasing total cost
  • Complex escalation policies require workarounds for scheduling patterns beyond basic weekly rotations
  • 5-user minimum requirement forces costs even for small teams, with forced Business tier upgrades adding $12,000+ annually for larger teams

Pricing, plan by plan

Airbrake

Free
  • Tier 1 (Dev + errors)$19/month
    • 25,000 errors per month
    • 1 user
    • 1 team
  • Tier 2 (Basic + errors)$38/month
    • 100,000 errors per month
    • Unlimited users
    • 3 teams
  • Pro$76/month
    • Unlimited users
    • Unlimited teams
    • Unlimited projects
  • Tier 5 (Growth)$299/month
    • 1 million errors per month

PagerDuty

$21/month

No published plan breakdown. See the PagerDuty review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Airbrake if

  • You need error tracking.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Api.
  • You also want performance monitoring.
Airbrake review

Choose PagerDuty if

  • You need incident response.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android, Api.
  • You also want on-call management.
PagerDuty review

Questions people ask

Is Airbrake or PagerDuty better?
Neither clearly leads. Airbrake starts at Free and PagerDuty at $21/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Airbrake or PagerDuty?
Airbrake has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Airbrake and $21/month for PagerDuty.
Does Airbrake or PagerDuty run on more platforms?
Airbrake runs on Web, Api. PagerDuty runs on Web, Ios, Android, Api.
Can I use Airbrake for free?
Yes. Airbrake has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. PagerDuty starts at $21/month.
What is Airbrake best used for?
Airbrake is most often used for error and exception monitoring for web applications, performance monitoring alongside error tracking, alerting a team when a deploy introduces a spike in errors, tracking errors across multiple projects in one account. Of those, error and exception monitoring for web applications and performance monitoring alongside error tracking are not what PagerDuty is typically brought in for.
What can Airbrake do that PagerDuty cannot?
Airbrake covers Error tracking, Performance monitoring, Deploy tracking, Custom notifications. PagerDuty covers Incident response, On-call management, Alert grouping, Escalation policies.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Airbrake: What is the lowest-cost Airbrake plan and what does it include?

Tier 1 costs $19 per month and includes 25,000 errors per month, 1 user seat, 1 team, and unlimited projects. This plan targets individual developers. A 10% discount applies when paying annually ($17.10 per month).

Source
PagerDuty: What is the minimum cost to use PagerDuty?

PagerDuty requires a minimum of 5 users per account. The Professional plan starts at $21 per user per month ($105/month minimum), with annual billing providing 16% discount.

Source
Airbrake: Which Airbrake plan is marked as the best value?

The Pro plan at $76 per month is marked as Best Value. It includes unlimited users, unlimited teams, unlimited projects, audit logs, and spike forgiveness. Annual billing provides a 10% discount ($68 per month).

Source
PagerDuty: What integrations does PagerDuty support?

PagerDuty integrates with 750+ monitoring, ticketing, and collaboration tools including Datadog, Slack, Jira, ServiceNow, New Relic, and Nagios.

Source
Airbrake: How many errors per month does each Airbrake tier allow?

Tier 1 allows 25,000 errors per month at $19/month. Tier 2 allows 100,000 errors at $38/month. Tier 4 allows 300,000 errors at $129/month. Tier 5 allows 1 million errors at $299/month. Tier 6 allows 5 million errors at $799/month.

Source
PagerDuty: How much does AIOps cost in PagerDuty?

AIOps Intelligence is sold separately as an add-on starting at $699 per month, and is not included in any of the base plans.

Source
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