Top 10 Incident Management Software for Quicker Response and Business Resilience

You can’t predict if a fire will break out in your facility, yet fire drills remain critical to preparedness. Now, consider cyberattacks—a certainty in today’s landscape, with one occurring every 39 seconds. While you can’t control when your organization might be targeted, you can control how prepared you are to respond.

A robust incident response plan, regular simulations, and versatile incident management software are no longer optional—they are essential to staying resilient in the face of inevitable threats. Incident management tools enable quick preventive and corrective actions, helping organizations minimize disruption and mitigate risks effectively.

If you’re evaluating your organization’s incident management software, this blog post is for you! We’ll assess our top 10 tools and discuss their features, pros, cons, and costs to help you make an informed decision.

What is an Incident Management Software?

Incident Management Software is a technological solution for identifying, analyzing, reporting, and responding to incidents such as service disruptions, power outages, or unplanned disasters. It also enables IT teams to investigate the root causes to minimize similar incidents in the future.

Incident management tools are widely used across sectors like IT, cybersecurity, healthcare, and finance. They require quick responses to events to minimize downtime, protect sensitive information, and ensure continued business operations.

Top 10 Incident Management Software

Most IMS monitor your environment and send an automated alert when an incident is detected. The automation features help with triage, analysis, and resolution to minimize human workload and error.

1. ServiceNow

ServiceNow is an IT service management platform with robust incident management capabilities to minimize service disruptions and ensure prompt restoration. The tool detects incidents using automated workflows and is powered by AI and machine learning capabilities to prioritize and resolve issues. It also features omni-channel notifications and incident response playbooks for quick and guided action to reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR).

G2 rating: 4.3/5

Key Features

• Features a mobile app to enable incident triage and resolution anytime, anywhere
• Provides a single-pane view of incidents for better context and proactive response
• Offers 24-hour support and virtual agents for any assistance
• Has in-built visual task boards to make it easy for the teams to communicate and collaborate
•  Maintains a centralized repository of incident records, including all change requests

Pros

•  Customers appreciate its integration abilities with a range of tools and systems
• The platform is highly customizable as per the organization’s needs
• The portal’s comprehensive FAQs’ library and other supporting material make self-service easy

Cons

•  It can be expensive for smaller businesses
• The tool can have an initial learning curve for people with non-technical background

Pricing

The essentials plan, suitable for up to 500 employees, starts from $10 per user per month.

2. Opsgenie

Opsgenie, a part of Atlassian’s suite of tools, is an Incident Management Software that makes it easier for Dev and Ops teams to accelerate incident resolution. It communicates about service disruptions or outages through multi-channel and context-rich alerts, making it easier for teams to collaborate during an incident. The on-call schedule management ensures that team members take turns when managing urgent issues and someone is always available if an incident occurs.

G2 rating: 4.2/5

Key Features

• Features incident response templates to create playbooks for different scenarios
• Manages alert lifecycle from when the alert was created and who was notified to whether or not the action was initiated
• Re-routes critical incident alerts when the on-call employee does not respond in 5 minutes
• Enables teams to create a virtual war room where they can collaborate in real-time during critical incidents
• Provides user and team operational efficiency analytics with reports on mean time to acknowledge and mean time to resolve

Pros

• The tool is easy to set up and implement
• Customers appreciate the flexible notification options, including email, SMS, phone calls, etc.
• Comes at a great price compared to similar software

Cons

• Setting up the on-call schedules as per needs can often be confusing and time-consuming
• The tool’s documentation is not detailed enough to help understand the platform

Pricing

You can start with a free plan for up to 5 users. The essentials plan starts at $9.45 per user per month, and the enterprise plan costs $31.90 per user per month.

3. Zendesk

Zendesk is an efficient incident management platform that offers a knowledge management database and AI virtual assistant to resolve issues. It supports numerous integrations, facilitating ticket filing and effortless organization. The software focuses on restoring operations, effective communication, and root cause analysis. It ensures prompt issue detection and simplifies incident tracking through a robust ticketing system and intuitive interface.

G2 rating: 4.3/5

Key Features

• Seamless integration with multiple channels of communication for diverse user needs
• Features a live dashboard for real-time updates on incident tickets and other information
• Offers self-service options and FAQ tools to enable users to solve common issues themselves
• Provides customizable dashboards to monitor performance and trends and enhance productivity
• Provides mobile-friendly access to enable agents to manage incidents on the go

Pros

• Helps track time taken by agents on each ticket
• Integrates with several tools such as JIRA and Sales Force and also with AI tools
• Suitable for global companies and are also subject to cross-border compliance

Cons

• The platform experiences slow loading time that can hinder productivity and cause delays
• The reporting is fundamental and lacks advanced analytics

Pricing

Zendesk has a suite plan starts at $55 per agent per month.

4. Better Stack

Better Stack is an observability and incident management tool that continuously monitors your infrastructure and notifies you of suspicious events. It customizes incident escalations and sets up on-call rotations to inform appropriate people based on severity, impact, and employee availability. The platform also provides an incident audit timeline with comprehensive details such as the reason for the incident, who got notified, and what the actions were.

G2 rating: 4.8/5

Key Features

• Provides screenshots and error logs to give you detailed context of what went wrong
• Features smart incident merging that allows you to acknowledge similar incidents at the same time
• Sends notifications and alerts when the database backups are not running
• Comes with built-in monitoring tools that do not even require manual installation
• Allows you to configure a status page on your sub-domain to keep the customers informed

Pros

• The tool can run in minutes and has a super-intuitive UI
• Offers a free plan with a generous number of features
• The customer support team is highly responsive

Cons

• Requires frequent log-in to the site to maintain monitors
• The customization on status pages is limited

 Pricing

Paid plan starts at $29 per month for 1 responder license.

5. SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk is an IT Service Management (ITSM) solution with powerful incident management capabilities. It leverages automation to reduce redundant tasks, simplify ticket creation, route tickets to the right teams, and ensure quick issue resolution. The platform also includes an AI-powered knowledge base, enabling end-users to find solutions and minimize the need to raise a ticket.

G2 rating: 4.3/5

Key Features

• Provides customizable screens to agents to view and prioritize incidents
•  Enables real-time collaboration on incident tickets for faster resolution
• Powers IT teams to create playbook-style rules for managing incidents and enhancing efficiency
• Helps employees visualize the entire incident lifecycle for a deeper understanding
• Makes it more accessible to follow and adopt ITIL framework guidelines

Pros

•  Affordable as compared to competitors
• Tracks software and hardware installations and has robust IT asset management features
•  Includes customer satisfaction surveys after incident resolution for feedback and improvements

Cons

•  When seeking help, users are often directed to their knowledge base instead of assigning a live representative
• Third-party integrations are limited

Pricing

The essentials plan starts at $39 per technician per month.

6. Big Panda

Big Panda is an AI-augmented incident management tool that centralizes security event management after collecting information from various sources for comprehensive and actionable insights. It supports both on-premise and cloud-based setups and integrates with different monitoring and observability tools. The tool sends actionable alerts for enhanced situational awareness across teams and offers a visual incident timeline for root cause analysis.

G2 rating: 4.5/5

Key Features

• Provides a quick summary of all ongoing incidents on the active IT incident feed
• Enables IT teams to view recent changes that could have caused the incident and roll them back if required
• Features real-time view of entire IT stack to enable timely resolution of any troubleshooting issues
• Helps correlate events to understand the underlying cause
• Has a reporting and analytics dashboard to understand system and resource performance

Pros

• The AI-powered event correlation enhances efficiency by cutting down alert fatigue
• The recently launched smart search helps you look for incidents that are specific to a service or application and even based on dates
•  Minimizes alert duplication to reduce noise.

Cons

• Support for low- or medium-priority issues takes 3-5 days to respond, which can be frustrating.
• Most product reviews on G2 are from 2022 or earlier, raising concerns about the current relevance and reliability of the feedback.

Pricing

Costs $6000 per year for a user.

7. Splunk On-call

Splunk On-call is yet another observability and automated incident management solution that aims to reduce manual tasks associated with incident handling. It has intelligent alert routing, meta-data-rich notifications, and time-sensitive escalations to contain the spread and minimize downtime. The platform leverages AI capabilities and integrates with a range of tools to make it easy to resolve faster.

G2 rating: 4.6/5

Key Features

• Smoothly manages on-call scheduling to ensure tasks are assigned based on employee rotation and availability
• Supports mobile functionality to enable the teams to work on incidents on the go
• Maintains audit trails for incident correlation and root cause analysis
• Automates issue escalation and creation of virtual war rooms to expedite response
• Provides comprehensive reports on metrics such as mean time to acknowledge and mean time to respond

Pros

• Since it’s part of the Splunk toolset, you get access to some other products as well
• The system can handle increased demand or capability without requiring extended downtime
• Well-suited for enterprise-scale businesses

Cons

• Scheduling shifts for multiple users and teams can be complicated if they haven’t been defined beforehand
• The licensing for user management is limited, which could hinder scalability or flexibility in managing users

Pricing

The observability stack starts at $15 per host per month and $75 per host monthly for end-to-end coverage.

8. xMatters

xMatters is an incident management software that ensures your services are always up and running by continuously monitoring the environment and notifying you of events. It also provides point-in-time reports of incidents across their lifecycle and highlights which teams are the most impacted. The tool automates incident escalation and allows you to manage alerts, issue assignments, and more from anywhere using your mobile device.

G2 rating: 4.5/5

Key Features

• Features a unified incident console for enhanced collaboration across teams
• Supports incident triage and prioritization
• Provides detailed incident analytics and exportable post-incident analysis reports
• Enables teams to drag and drop their preferred communication channels into customized workflows
•  Helps you align specific roles to members during incidents and dismiss people who have played their part

Pros

• The platform is quite versatile and helps with a variety of areas, such as task management, ticket management, and project planning
• Customers find the video tutorials helpful in understanding the platform
• The support team is available 24/7

Cons

•  Integrating xMatters with your existing tool is time-intensive and requires ongoing maintenance
•  It does not support rotating on-call members on a set schedule, so users have to manage subgroups manually

Pricing

The essential plan starts at $9 per month per user for up to 100 users.

9. PagerDuty

PagerDuty is advanced incident-tracking software that utilizes machine learning and data science to resolve issues proactively. It employs robust tracking and reporting tools to support this approach. Its standout attribute is its extensive integration capabilities with third-party service providers and APIs, enhancing functionality across diverse IT environments.

G2 rating: 4.5/5

Key features

• Uses AI and machine learning to correlate events and present meaningful insights
• Features a bot for Slack that updates relevant stakeholders at the time of events and manages reminders and to-dos
• Provides guided remediation across the incident lifecycle.
• Includes predefined incident response playbooks for specific incidents
• Features an incident management app to manage incidents from anywhere

Pros

•  Offers 700+ native integrations to enable you to connect it with almost any given monitoring tool
• Visualization features on the reporting dashboard are appreciated by customers
• On-call scheduling is quite reliable and ensures round-the-clock security

Cons

• Since it is well-suited for enterprise-grade businesses, the pricing is higher for small and medium businesses
• For non-technical users, the UI has a learning curve attached to it

Pricing

The professional plan starts at $21 per user per month.

10. Freshservice

Freshservice is a cloud-based IT service management tool offering comprehensive incident management capabilities. It allows you to create special tickets for major incidents with custom rules, such as SLAs and other particular fields, to prioritize them better. The platform features several drag-and-drop automation and AI assistance to expedite service restoration.

G2 rating: 4.6/5

Key Features

• Offers a single pane view to track, prioritize, and respond to incident tickets
• Integrates with popular communication apps such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom and features email templates to inform internal stakeholders
• Generates post-incident reports for root-cause analysis
• Offers a 14-day free trial without any credit card information requirements
•  Allows you to create a status page to minimize customer inquiry tickets

Pros

• Offers built-in IT asset management, making it a comprehensive and well-rounded tool
• The platform releases monthly updates with a mix of features and enhancements
• Customers also appreciate the no-code customizations and flexibility of the tool

Cons

• The mobile app functionalities are limited as compared to the desktop
• Some customers find the reporting too complex to understand

Pricing

About $17 per agent per month

Key considerations for choosing an Incident Management Software

Look for the following when selecting the right incident management tool:

Automation features

The software’s automation capabilities should make your lives easier and minimize redundant activities. When making a deal, look for real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities, automated task assignment to the right teams, incident prioritization, and forensic analysis as non-negotiables.

Integrations

Necessary integrations to look for include communication tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams, ticketing systems, monitoring tools, identity and access management systems, logging tools, threat intelligence tools, and GRC platforms. An open API is also valuable for greater flexibility and custom integrations.

Flexibility, adaptability & scalability

As incidents vary across organizations and even departments, flexibility and customizable workflows become crucial factors to consider. The software must handle diverse incident types and adapt to the organization’s needs. Next, evaluate if the software can handle increased data volume and incidents or can only be a short-term companion for the organization.

Reporting and analytics

Some critical reporting and analytics features to look for include real-time dashboards, customizable reports, response time metrics such as MTTD (mean time to detect) and MTTR (mean time to respond), and severity and impact analysis. Visualization features simplify understanding, and the data should be easily exported to share internally or externally (if required).

Compliance support

If the organization is subject to regulations such as HIPAA or GDPR, the software must also be able to support compliance activities. Features like audit trails, activity logs, and access controls become more than necessary here to ensure the organization’s audit readiness.

Cost and Return

Identify the costs of purchasing the software—whether one-time or subscription-based—and expenses for training and maintenance. Compare these costs with the benefits, such as reduced downtime, enhanced incident response time, efficiency gains, and reduced compliance costs, to build an ROI case for the tool and present it to senior management to decide if it’s a worthwhile investment.

Company credibility

While the company would present its testimonials and case studies, it’s also advisable to do your research and understand the tool’s market credibility. Check reviews on trusted sources like G2 and Capterra and understand customers’ positive and negative sentiments.

Take the broader approach with Sprinto

An efficient incident management software helps you transition from reactive fixes to a dependable system of continuously tracking and managing incidents. But while these systems excel in various parts of incident management, the digital world is much more complex. You must handle compliance, SLAs, business outcomes, and building operational resilience. That is why forward-thinking businesses are taking a broader and integration-led approach, turning to modern GRC tools for a comprehensive picture. And Sprinto is a category favorite.

Sprinto helps with vulnerability policing and integrates with various incident management tools to log tickets immediately and track them until closure. It also unlocks efficiencies to build risk resilience while getting compliant across frameworks.

The integrated risk dashboard provides a connected view of risk and controls and shows IT leaders where the security gaps are. Sprinto also triages remediation to relieve the burden of manual coordination and ensures risk readiness and compliance 24/7. Features like training modules, in-built policy templates, role-based access controls, automated evidence collection, and continuous monitoring help expand the scope of your GRC program while giving you maximum output with minimum input.

Take the platform tour and build a smart and scalable architecture with Sprinto.

FAQS

What are some open-source incident management tools?

Some open-source incident management tools are TheHive, OSSEC, Icinga, and Zabbix. However, open-source tools do not provide official support and implementation guidance, and their functionality can be limited.

How does incident management software handle SLAs?

SLAs, or Service Level Agreements, define the expected resolution time for incidents. Incident management software allows you to select the applicable SLAs and track compliance. It also sends you notifications and alerts when the SLA is at risk of being breached.

What types of incidents can be managed by incident management software?

Incident management software can manage IT incidents such as system failures and network outages, security incidents such as data breaches and attacks, and service disruptions.

What is ITIL incident management? 

ITIL incident management process identifies, records, and resolves IT service disruptions, aiming to restore normal operations swiftly. It focuses on minimizing impact, managing incidents through a defined workflow, and improving service quality by learning from and efficiently mitigating future disruptions.