API Status Check vs PagerDuty: Detect Dependencies & Respond to Incidents
These tools solve different but complementary problems. PagerDuty handles incident RESPONSE (on-call, escalation, runbooks). API Status Check handles dependency DETECTION (is Stripe/AWS/GitHub down?). Best practice: use BOTH — ASC detects issues, PagerDuty orchestrates your response.
Quick Comparison: API Status Check vs PagerDuty
These tools complement each other. PagerDuty orchestrates incident response, API Status Check detects third-party API dependency issues. Here's a side-by-side breakdown.
| Feature | API Status Check | PagerDuty |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | DETECT third-party API dependency issues | RESPOND to incidents with on-call & escalation |
| Problem solved | Is Stripe/AWS/GitHub down? | Who should respond to this incident? |
| Coverage | 114+ pre-configured third-party APIs | Any incident source (700+ integrations) |
| Configuration | Zero-config for 114+ APIs | Manual setup for integrations + escalation |
| Core features | MCP server, status badges, per-API RSS | On-call scheduling, escalation, runbooks |
| Free tier | Unlimited status viewing, badges, RSS | Free (up to 5 users, basic alerting) |
| Paid pricing | $9/$29/$49/mo flat (Alert Pro/Team/Developer) | $21/user/mo (Pro), $41/user/mo (Business) |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly rate (not per-user) | Per-user pricing (scales with team size) |
| Best for | Detecting when dependencies are down | Orchestrating incident response workflows |
| Market position | Indie/bootstrapped, developer-focused | Public company (IPO, $2B+ market cap) |
Detailed Feature Comparison
Understanding the difference between PagerDuty and API Status Check comes down to purpose: incident response orchestration vs dependency detection. Here's a deeper breakdown.
Core focus: detection vs response (complementary, not competing)
API Status Check: DETECT third-party API dependency issues
API Status Check solves the detection problem: knowing when the third-party APIs your application depends on are experiencing issues. When Stripe payments fail, OpenAI requests timeout, or GitHub Actions stall, you need to know whether the problem is on your end or theirs. ASC monitors 114+ APIs across 18 categories (payments, AI, cloud, CI/CD) with independent endpoint checks every 5 minutes, plus official status page integration. This gives you early warning when dependencies are degraded — before your users notice. ASC is an INPUT to your incident response process, not the response itself.
PagerDuty: RESPOND to incidents with on-call orchestration
PagerDuty is an incident management and on-call platform focused on RESPONSE orchestration. Once you detect an incident (from any source — your own monitoring, third-party status, customer reports), PagerDuty handles who gets notified, when they escalate, and how incidents are tracked and resolved. On-call scheduling, escalation policies, incident runbooks, and integrations with 700+ tools make PagerDuty the central hub for incident response workflows. PagerDuty doesn't monitor third-party APIs for you — it receives alerts from monitoring tools and orchestrates your team's response.
The complementary approach: ASC as input, PagerDuty as orchestrator
ASC detects dependency issues, triggers alerts
API Status Check continuously monitors 114+ third-party APIs your application depends on. When AWS S3 goes down, Stripe has payment delays, or OpenAI experiences degraded performance, ASC detects these issues through independent endpoint checks and official status page integration. ASC can then send alerts to PagerDuty via webhooks, creating incidents in your on-call workflow. This integration means your on-call team gets paged when critical dependencies fail — not just when your own infrastructure has issues. ASC provides the "what's broken" signal; PagerDuty handles the "who responds" workflow.
PagerDuty receives alerts, orchestrates response
PagerDuty excels at receiving alerts from ANY source (your monitoring tools, third-party APIs like ASC, customer support tickets, manual triggers) and routing them to the right people at the right time. On-call schedules ensure someone is always available. Escalation policies automatically escalate unacknowledged incidents. Runbooks provide context and remediation steps. Integrations with Slack, Zoom, StatusPage, and 700+ other tools keep your response coordinated. PagerDuty doesn't replace monitoring — it makes your monitoring actionable by ensuring alerts reach the people who can fix them.
Coverage & service selection
Curated third-party API coverage (114+ pre-configured)
API Status Check focuses on 114+ developer tools and infrastructure APIs that engineering teams rely on: Stripe, PayPal, Plaid (payments); OpenAI, Anthropic, Replicate (AI); AWS, Azure, GCP, Vercel (cloud); GitHub, GitLab, CircleCI (CI/CD); and many more. This curated approach means you get relevant, actionable data about the services your application actually depends on. You don't configure these monitors — they're already running, and you just subscribe to the ones you care about. This zero-config experience is ideal for dependency monitoring.
Any incident source (700+ integrations, manual setup)
PagerDuty integrates with 700+ monitoring, logging, APM, and support tools — from Datadog, New Relic, and Prometheus to Zendesk, Jira, and custom webhooks. You configure integrations for each alert source (your own infrastructure monitoring, APM tools, third-party status feeds like ASC), and PagerDuty routes alerts through on-call schedules and escalation policies. This flexibility means PagerDuty works with any monitoring stack, but you have to set up and maintain each integration. PagerDuty is incident orchestration, not the monitoring itself.
Pricing & free tier
Free status viewing + flat paid plans ($9-$49/mo)
API Status Check has a genuinely free tier: browse all status data, use RSS feeds per API, and embed status badges in docs without creating an account. Paid plans start at $9/mo (Alert Pro) for email/Slack/Discord/webhook alerts on your watched APIs, $29/mo (Team) for team alerting and priority support, and $49/mo (Developer) for advanced integrations and API access. Pricing is FLAT — not per-user. A 10-person team pays the same $9/$29/$49 as a solo developer. No per-service limits — you can monitor as many APIs as you need within your plan.
Free tier (5 users) + per-user pricing ($21-$41/user/mo)
PagerDuty offers a Free tier (up to 5 users, basic alerting, no on-call scheduling), Professional at $21/user/mo (full on-call, escalation, mobile app, 10 integrations), Business at $41/user/mo (advanced analytics, stakeholder licenses, unlimited integrations), and Enterprise (custom pricing, advanced security, SLAs). Pricing scales PER USER — a 10-person on-call team on Professional pays $210/mo, on Business $410/mo. For small teams, this can add up quickly. For larger organizations with complex on-call needs, PagerDuty's enterprise features justify the investment.
Developer integrations & tooling
MCP server, per-API RSS feeds, status badges
API Status Check provides unique developer-focused integrations: a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets AI coding assistants (Claude, Cursor) check API status in real-time during development, per-API RSS feeds for automation and dashboard integration, and embeddable status badges for docs and READMEs. These tools are designed to surface API status signals where developers already work, without requiring manual checks or custom integrations. Webhooks can trigger PagerDuty incidents when dependencies fail, creating a seamless detection → response workflow.
On-call scheduling, escalation policies, runbooks, 700+ integrations
PagerDuty provides enterprise-grade incident management features: on-call scheduling (rotations, overrides, time zones), escalation policies (auto-escalate unacknowledged incidents), runbooks (context and remediation steps), incident timelines, postmortem templates, and integrations with 700+ tools (Slack, Zoom, Jira, StatusPage, monitoring tools, ticketing systems). Mobile apps ensure on-call engineers can respond from anywhere. Advanced analytics track MTTA (mean time to acknowledge) and MTTR (mean time to resolve). These are mature, battle-tested features for teams that need reliable incident orchestration.
Alerts & notifications
Email, Slack, Discord, webhooks for dependency outages
API Status Check alerts you when the third-party APIs you depend on experience issues. Get notified via email, Slack, Discord, or webhooks (including PagerDuty) when Stripe, AWS, or OpenAI report incidents or fail endpoint checks. This proactive alerting means you can inform users, pause affected workflows, or trigger incident response (via PagerDuty) before your support channels explode. Alerts are contextual — you only get notified about the services you actively use. ASC is the "early warning system" for dependency issues.
Multi-channel alerts with on-call orchestration
PagerDuty alerts on-call responders via push notifications (mobile app), SMS, phone calls (escalation), email, and integrations with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. The key difference: PagerDuty routes alerts through on-call schedules and escalation policies. If the first responder doesn't acknowledge within X minutes, PagerDuty automatically escalates to the next person. This orchestration ensures incidents never fall through the cracks, even if the primary on-call is unavailable. PagerDuty is designed for high-stakes incident response where reliability is critical.
Market maturity & ownership
Newer, developer-focused, indie-built
API Status Check is a newer entrant (launched 2024-2025) built specifically for developers who need visibility into third-party API dependencies. It's indie/bootstrapped, which means rapid iteration, developer-friendly design, and transparent pricing. The focus is on solving a specific problem that larger monitoring tools overlook: tracking the health of APIs you depend on but don't control. The trade-off is less brand recognition compared to established players like PagerDuty. For teams that need dependency monitoring, ASC provides better value and a more focused solution.
Public company (IPO, $2B+ market cap), enterprise-focused
PagerDuty went public in 2019 (NYSE: PD) and has a market cap over $2 billion. It's a mature, enterprise-grade platform used by thousands of companies (including Fortune 500 enterprises) for mission-critical incident response. PagerDuty offers enterprise features like SSO, advanced security controls, compliance certifications, dedicated support, and SLAs. The trade-off is higher pricing (per-user model) and enterprise positioning. For organizations that need battle-tested, reliable incident orchestration at scale, PagerDuty is the industry standard.
🚨When to Use PagerDuty
PagerDuty is the industry-standard incident management platform for teams that need on-call scheduling, escalation policies, and centralized incident orchestration. If you need to manage who responds to incidents and ensure critical alerts never fall through the cracks, PagerDuty is purpose-built for this.
On-call scheduling & rotation management
If you need to manage on-call rotations, schedule overrides, handle time zones, and ensure someone is always available to respond to incidents, PagerDuty is purpose-built for this. Its scheduling features are robust and battle-tested.
Escalation policies for critical incidents
PagerDuty automatically escalates unacknowledged incidents to the next responder. If your primary on-call doesn't respond within 5 minutes, PagerDuty pages the backup. This reliability is critical for high-stakes incident response.
Centralized incident orchestration (700+ integrations)
PagerDuty integrates with 700+ monitoring, logging, APM, and support tools. If you have a complex monitoring stack (Datadog, New Relic, Prometheus, custom tools) and need a central hub to route alerts to the right people, PagerDuty excels here.
Enterprise-grade incident management
PagerDuty is a public company with enterprise features, compliance certifications, dedicated support, and SLAs. If you need a battle-tested, enterprise-backed solution for mission-critical incident response, PagerDuty provides that level of maturity and support.
✅When to Use API Status Check
API Status Check solves the dependency detection problem: knowing when the third-party APIs your application depends on are experiencing issues. When Stripe, AWS, GitHub, or OpenAI have outages, you need to know immediately — and you can trigger PagerDuty incidents automatically via webhooks.
Monitor third-party APIs you depend on
If your application relies on Stripe, Twilio, OpenAI, AWS, GitHub, or any of 114+ APIs, API Status Check gives you visibility into whether those services are experiencing issues. This is critical for distinguishing "us vs them" problems and communicating accurately with users.
Zero-config monitoring (pre-built for 114+ APIs)
API Status Check requires zero configuration — the monitors are already running for 114+ popular APIs. You just subscribe to the ones you care about. PagerDuty requires you to set up integrations and configure escalation policies manually.
Flat pricing (not per-user) for small teams
ASC pricing is flat ($9/$29/$49/mo) regardless of team size. A 10-person team pays the same as a solo developer. PagerDuty charges per-user ($21-$41/user/mo), which can add up quickly for small teams with multiple on-call engineers.
MCP integration for AI coding assistants
API Status Check provides an MCP server that lets AI assistants (Claude, Cursor) check API status in real-time during development. This unique integration surfaces dependency health directly in your coding workflow — something PagerDuty doesn't offer.
🎯The Complete Incident Response Stack
Most engineering teams need BOTH detection and response. Here's the ideal setup:
API Status Check
DETECT dependency issues:
- →Monitor 114+ third-party APIs (Stripe, AWS, GitHub...)
- →Independent endpoint checks every 5 minutes
- →Zero-config (pre-built monitors)
- →Trigger PagerDuty incidents via webhooks
PagerDuty
RESPOND to incidents:
- →On-call scheduling & rotations
- →Escalation policies (auto-escalate unacked incidents)
- →Runbooks & incident timelines
- →700+ integrations (Slack, Jira, monitoring tools)
= Complete incident visibility: detect issues + orchestrate response
Ready to Detect Dependency Issues?
API Status Check gives you real-time visibility into 114+ third-party APIs your application depends on. Independent endpoint checks every 5 minutes, webhook integration with PagerDuty, MCP server, per-API RSS feeds, and embeddable status badges — all starting free.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about using PagerDuty and API Status Check together for complete incident visibility.
1.Is API Status Check a replacement for PagerDuty?
No, they're complementary. PagerDuty handles incident RESPONSE (who gets paged, escalation, on-call schedules). API Status Check handles dependency DETECTION (is Stripe/AWS/GitHub down?). Best practice: use BOTH. ASC detects dependency issues and triggers PagerDuty incidents, PagerDuty orchestrates your team's response.
2.Can I use PagerDuty to monitor third-party APIs like Stripe or AWS?
PagerDuty doesn't monitor APIs directly — it receives alerts from monitoring tools. You could set up external monitoring (e.g., Pingdom, Datadog) to check Stripe/AWS and send alerts to PagerDuty, but you'd have to configure and maintain those monitors yourself. API Status Check does this automatically for 114+ APIs with zero configuration, plus contextual status page data and developer integrations (MCP, RSS, badges).
3.What's the biggest difference between PagerDuty vs API Status Check?
Purpose. PagerDuty is an incident orchestration platform — it routes alerts to the right people via on-call schedules and escalation policies. API Status Check is a dependency monitoring tool — it detects when third-party APIs are down and alerts you. They solve different problems: "Who should respond to this incident?" (PagerDuty) vs "Is this API dependency down?" (API Status Check).
4.Which one should I choose?
Use both! API Status Check for detecting third-party API issues, PagerDuty for orchestrating incident response. Together they give you complete incident visibility. If you can only choose one: pick PagerDuty if your main concern is on-call management and incident orchestration, pick API Status Check if your main concern is detecting when third-party APIs go down.
5.How does pricing compare?
PagerDuty: Free (5 users, basic), $21/user/mo (Professional), $41/user/mo (Business) — per-user pricing scales with team size. API Status Check: Free (all status data, badges, RSS), $9/mo Alert Pro, $29/mo Team, $49/mo Developer — flat pricing regardless of team size. For small teams, ASC is significantly more affordable. For large enterprises with complex on-call needs, PagerDuty's per-user model provides advanced features.
6.Can API Status Check trigger PagerDuty incidents?
Yes! API Status Check supports webhook alerts, which can trigger PagerDuty incidents when dependencies fail. This integration means your on-call team gets paged when Stripe, AWS, or GitHub go down — not just when your own infrastructure has issues. ASC provides the detection signal, PagerDuty handles the response workflow. This is the recommended best practice.
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