xMatters Review: Enhance Service Reliability, Slash Incident Costs by 92%

Alert fatigue ruining your team’s focus again?

If you’re researching xMatters, you’re probably grappling with constant disruptions, unreliable alerting, and messy incident coordination. Choosing the right incident management software can feel overwhelming, especially when every minute counts during outages.

The real problem, though, is that critical issues still slip through the cracks, leaving you scrambling and frustrated when systems fail or alerts get missed.

That’s exactly where xMatters steps in with automated on-call management, intelligent incident response, and drag-and-drop workflow automation—all designed to boost service reliability without adding complexity. After testing its features, I found xMatters stands out by truly connecting people, tools, and processes, so incidents get resolved faster and quieter.

In this review, you’ll see how xMatters keeps your services working smoothly while handling incidents proactively.

I’ll break down key features, pricing, integrations, and show exactly what sets xMatters apart in this xMatters review—so you can confidently compare it to alternatives.

You’ll get honest insights and the features you need to make the right call for your team’s needs.

Let’s dive into the analysis.

xMatters Overview

xMatters has a clear focus on service reliability, a mission they’ve pursued since 2000 from their California headquarters. Now an Everbridge company, they help teams stop technology issues from becoming critical business problems.

Their platform is purpose-built for a specific audience: DevOps, SRE, and operations teams. You’ll quickly notice they aren’t a generalist IT tool; this specialization in digital service resilience for highly technical teams is their true strength.

The 2021 acquisition by Everbridge was a pivotal move. Through this xMatters review, you can see how this adds enterprise-grade critical event management muscle to their core incident response platform, expanding their capabilities significantly.

When you compare them to giants like PagerDuty, xMatters competes on deep customization and workflow intelligence. What really differentiates them for me is its codeless workflow builder, letting non-developers automate complex incident response processes.

They work with large-scale operations and DevOps teams in demanding sectors like technology, finance, and e-commerce—any business where application downtime directly hurts revenue and erodes customer trust.

From my analysis, their current strategy is heavily invested in low-code automation to streamline the entire incident lifecycle. This directly addresses your team’s need to eliminate manual toil and resolve critical incidents much faster.

Now let’s examine their core capabilities.

xMatters Features

Incidents causing business nightmares?

xMatters features can help you automate incident management, ensuring your services are always resilient. Here are the five main xMatters features that keep your operations running smoothly.

1. On-Call Management

Struggling to find the right person for an incident?

Manual on-call rotations and unreliable alerts can delay incident resolution. This often leads to extended downtime and frustrated customers.

xMatters provides robust on-call scheduling with rotating shifts and flexible escalation policies that ensure the correct person is always notified. I found that setting up complex on-call schedules was surprisingly intuitive. This feature dynamically targets recipients based on skills and availability.

This means you can ensure faster response times, significantly reducing the impact of critical incidents on your business.

2. Incident Management & Response

Is incident response feeling chaotic and uncoordinated?

Disjointed communication during incidents can lead to missed steps and prolonged resolution times. Your teams need a centralized hub for crisis.

The Incident Console offers a clear view of the entire incident lifecycle, guiding response and fostering collaboration. From my testing, its ability to visualize incident progress and automate actions truly streamlines the process. This feature also creates a detailed timeline for post-incident analysis.

The result is your team can minimize business impact, making incident response far more efficient and transparent.

3. Intelligent Automation & Workflow Automation (Flow Designer)

Tired of repetitive manual tasks slowing down incident resolution?

Manually updating systems and coordinating across tools consumes valuable time during critical incidents. This can hinder rapid problem-solving.

Flow Designer is a codeless workflow builder that automates repetitive tasks and keeps related systems updated. Here’s what I found: its drag-and-drop interface makes automation accessible to everyone, not just developers. This feature allows you to link monitoring tools to ticketing systems automatically.

This means you can significantly reduce manual effort, allowing your teams to focus on resolving complex issues rather than administrative tasks.

4. Integrations

Are your monitoring, security, and DevOps tools siloed?

Disconnected systems prevent a unified view of your IT environment, making incident correlation difficult. This fragmentation slows down your response.

xMatters offers low-to-no-code integrations with hundreds of essential IT management and DevOps tools. This is where xMatters shines: its comprehensive integration ecosystem seamlessly connects your existing solutions. This feature ensures data flows freely between platforms like ServiceNow, Splunk, and Slack.

So you can build powerful, interconnected toolchains, enhancing collaboration and ensuring all relevant systems are updated during an incident.

5. Reporting & Analytics

Can’t identify the root cause of recurring incidents?

Lack of detailed performance data prevents you from pinpointing service architecture hotspots and improving response efficiency. You need actionable insights.

xMatters includes robust reporting and analytics with customizable dashboards for in-depth analysis of incident patterns. From my testing, its ability to track response times and team performance provides invaluable insights. This feature helps you understand incident severity and event trends.

This means you can drive continuous improvement, identify areas for optimization, and ultimately enhance your digital service reliability over time.

These xMatters features work together to create a cohesive incident management platform that ensures your critical services remain resilient. You’ll appreciate how tightly everything integrates.

xMatters Pricing

What will xMatters pricing cost you?

xMatters pricing offers a mix of transparent plans, including a free tier, and custom enterprise options, ensuring flexibility for different team sizes and operational needs.

Plan	Price & Features
Free Plan	$0 • Up to 10 users • Basic on-call management • Unlimited mobile push & email notifications • Unlimited integrations
Starter Plan	$9/user/month (billed annually) or $10/user/month (billed monthly) • Scalable incident management • Reporting & analytics • 50 SMS & 10 voice notifications per user/month • Single Sign-On (SSO)
Base Plan	$39/user/month • Enhanced incident management • Unlimited integrations • All Starter features • In-depth classroom training available
Advanced Plan	Contact sales for custom pricing • Unlimited features • Enterprise-grade scalability • Designed for global enterprises • Dedicated support options

1. Value Assessment

Value for your budget.

From my cost analysis, xMatters provides clear value across its tiers, allowing you to scale up as your needs grow without massive jumps in expense. The flexible pricing scales with your team size, ensuring you only pay for the capacity you actually use, especially with their notification allowances.

This means your monthly costs stay predictable, helping your finance team budget effectively for service reliability tools.

2. Trial/Demo Options

Try before you commit.

xMatters offers a free plan that functions as an ongoing trial, letting you experience basic on-call and incident management features. What I found particularly useful is how this free tier supports up to 10 users, providing a genuine test drive for smaller teams.

This lets you evaluate the platform’s core capabilities before investing in a paid plan, reducing your financial risk.

3. Plan Comparison

Matching features to your needs.

The Free plan is excellent for small teams, while the Starter plan introduces scalable incident management and essential notifications for growing businesses. What stands out is how the Base plan enhances incident capabilities for complex environments, making it suitable for larger operations with deep integration needs.

This tiered structure helps you match xMatters pricing to your specific operational requirements, ensuring optimal value for your investment.

My Take: xMatters’ pricing strategy offers excellent transparency and scalability, making it a strong contender for businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises.

The overall xMatters pricing reflects predictable costs and scalable value for service reliability.

xMatters Reviews

What do customers really think about xMatters?

My analysis of xMatters reviews dives into real user feedback to understand what actual customers experience. I’ve compiled insights to give you a balanced view.

1. Overall User Satisfaction

Most users report high satisfaction.

From my review analysis, xMatters consistently garners strong approval, with G2 reviewers noting 93% find it easy to do business with. What impressed me about user feedback is how positive sentiment frequently highlights reliability and efficiency, indicating a robust incident management solution for users.

This suggests you can expect a reliable and effective platform for your incident response needs.

2. Common Praise Points

Its integration capabilities truly shine.

Users consistently highlight xMatters’ seamless integration with existing tools, especially ITSM solutions like ServiceNow. What stood out in customer feedback is how automated alerts ensure the right teams are notified instantly, significantly reducing resolution times and minimizing downtime for your business.

This means you can expect smoother workflows and faster incident resolution with your current tech stack.

3. Frequent Complaints

Some UI/UX challenges emerge.

While generally user-friendly, some xMatters reviews mention a slightly outdated user interface compared to competitors. From my review analysis, mobile app features are sometimes seen as less advanced, with users desiring more customization options for alert sounds and advanced features.

These limitations might require a slight adjustment period but don’t typically impede core functionality.

Overall, xMatters reviews reveal strong performance and user satisfaction, with minor areas for refinement often mentioned.

Best xMatters Alternatives

Considering xMatters? Explore these other options.

The best xMatters alternatives include several strong options, each better suited for different business situations and priorities regarding incident management and on-call scheduling.

1. PagerDuty

Prioritizing AI-driven automation for smarter operations?

PagerDuty emphasizes its AI and automation for smarter operations and scalability, especially when you need to handle high alert volumes efficiently. From my competitive analysis, PagerDuty offers superior workload processing and timely alerts, which can significantly reduce noise and speed up incident resolution.

Choose PagerDuty when advanced AI/ML capabilities and scalable alert processing are your top priorities over xMatters’ customization.

2. Opsgenie (Atlassian)

Integrated with the Atlassian suite?

Opsgenie is known for robust alert management and on-call scheduling, with strong integration into the Atlassian ecosystem. What I found comparing options is that Opsgenie offers comprehensive integration capabilities and flexible, customizable escalation policies, making it ideal for teams already using Atlassian products.

Consider this alternative when you prioritize seamless integration with your existing Atlassian tools and a user-friendly mobile app.

3. Splunk On-Call (formerly VictorOps)

Focusing on real-time incident management and collaboration?

Splunk On-Call excels in real-time incident management, combining people and data to help DevOps teams handle incidents with ease. From my analysis, Splunk On-Call provides excellent ease of setup and support quality, alongside machine learning-based suggestions to enhance collaboration during incidents.

Choose Splunk On-Call when ease of setup, quality support, and robust real-time collaboration tools are more critical for your team.

4. Squadcast

Seeking a comprehensive solution with competitive pricing?

Squadcast is a strong alternative with competitive pricing and comprehensive incident management features, making migration easy. Alternative-wise, Squadcast offers AI/ML-powered automation to minimize alert noise with a simple pricing model, which can be appealing if budget and a clear feature lineup are key.

Choose Squadcast if you need a cost-effective, full-featured incident management solution with clear pricing and AI/ML automation.

The best xMatters alternatives depend on your specific business scenarios and budget constraints for incident management.

xMatters Setup

Is xMatters implementation truly straightforward?

Successfully deploying xMatters involves configuring on-call teams and integrating with existing IT tools. This xMatters review analyzes the practicalities of implementation, helping you set realistic expectations for your organization.

1. Setup Complexity & Timeline

Expect a user-friendly, but thorough, setup.

While xMatters generally offers an easy-to-navigate interface, initial setup can be slightly more involved than some competitors. From my implementation analysis, getting all your alert flows and teams optimized takes focused effort, not just a quick flick of a switch.

You’ll want to plan for dedicated time to configure your specific incident response workflows and team structures upfront.

2. Technical Requirements & Integration

Cloud-based, low-to-no-code integrations are a huge plus.

xMatters is a cloud-native platform, meaning you won’t need new hardware, but you will focus on integrating it with your existing ITSM tools and other applications. What I found about deployment is that its low-to-no-code integration capabilities significantly ease the burden on your technical team, making it accessible.

Your IT team will need to map out your integration points to ensure seamless data flow and automated workflows from day one.

3. Training & Change Management

Adoption relies on leveraging comprehensive training.

While basic usage is intuitive, getting the most out of xMatters for advanced features or complex configurations requires some training. From my analysis, their extensive self-service and instructor-led options are crucial for ensuring your team maximizes the platform’s potential and embraces new workflows.

Invest time in available training resources to empower your users and drive successful adoption, preventing potential resistance.

4. Support & Success Factors

Vendor support can be a key differentiator.

xMatters receives high praise for its support quality, which is a major advantage during the implementation phase and beyond. What I found about deployment is that responsive and helpful vendor support can significantly smooth out any bumps during configuration and integration, making your journey easier.

Plan to leverage their support team actively; their guidance is a critical factor for a successful and efficient xMatters setup and ongoing success.

Overall, your xMatters setup journey is manageable and rewarding, especially with clear planning and active team involvement for optimal incident response.

Bottom Line

Is xMatters the right choice for your incident management?

This xMatters review synthesizes its strengths and limitations, helping you understand its ideal audience and overall value proposition for critical operations.

1. Who This Works Best For

For DevOps, SREs, and operations teams prioritizing digital service resilience.

xMatters excels for organizations, particularly larger enterprises, that need robust incident management, on-call scheduling, and advanced workflow automation. From my user analysis, businesses with multiple on-call rotations needing flexible, independent management will find it ideal for streamlining their response.

You’ll see strong success if your goal is preventing technology issues from impacting customers through rapid incident resolution.

2. Overall Strengths

Unmatched automation and integration capabilities stand out.

The software shines with its codeless Flow Designer, enabling advanced workflow automation and extensive integrations with diverse IT management and DevOps tools. From my comprehensive analysis, its broad integration ecosystem reduces resolution times by connecting seamlessly with your existing ITSM solutions like ServiceNow.

These strengths provide significant value by ensuring efficient incident response, minimizing downtime, and enhancing overall service reliability for your business.

3. Key Limitations

Mobile experience and reporting details could improve.

While powerful, some users note the mobile app lacks advanced features present in the web version, making remote incident management less efficient. Based on this review, system error reports sometimes lack granular detail, which can hinder deeper root cause analysis for specific incidents.

I find these limitations are generally manageable trade-offs for the comprehensive functionality, rather than deal-breakers, especially for larger teams.

4. Final Recommendation

xMatters earns a strong recommendation for complex operations.

You should choose this software if your organization needs a highly customizable, automated, and integrated solution for digital service resilience. From my analysis, your business will benefit from its adaptive incident management and robust reporting, empowering continuous improvement in critical operations.

My confidence level is high for enterprises seeking advanced capabilities, but consider alternatives if your needs are simpler or budget-constrained.

This xMatters review provides clear guidance for complex incident management needs, balancing its powerful capabilities against minor areas for improvement, helping you decide with confidence.