# incident.io API vs PagerDuty MCP Server

> incident.io scores 68.9 (B) to PagerDuty's 48.4 (D) for incidents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-pagerduty-mcp
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-pagerduty-mcp.md (~1,950 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-pagerduty-mcp.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-pagerduty-mcp.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

incident.io API scores 68.9 (B) on agent readiness against PagerDuty MCP Server's 48.4 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do incidents.

- incident.io API: grade B, 68.9/100, rank #204 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/incident-io.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/incident-io.json
- PagerDuty MCP Server: grade D, 48.4/100, rank #815 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pagerduty-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pagerduty-mcp.json
- Best observability and incident tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/observability/index.md
- All 15 observability comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/observability/index.md

## Which one, for what

### incident.io API (B)

Good for: Agents that declare and update incidents, page people, read on-call schedules and post status page incidents in an organisation that already pays for incident.io.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 52
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 49
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 32
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 63

Watch for: The pricing page marks API, webhooks and MCP as not included in the free Basic plan. Team starts at $19 per user a month

### PagerDuty MCP Server (D)

Good for: Incident and on-call agents in PagerDuty shops.

Watch for: No read-only mode on the hosted server, where the local one was read-only by default


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | incident.io API | PagerDuty MCP Server | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 52 | incident.io API +38 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 55 | incident.io API +33 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 49 | incident.io API +26 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 66 | PagerDuty MCP Server +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 10 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 32 | incident.io API +51 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 63 | incident.io API +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68.9 · B** | **48.4 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | incident.io API | PagerDuty MCP Server |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Pineapple Technology Ltd. (incident.io) | PagerDuty |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.incident.io/mcp` | `https://mcp.pagerduty.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP | Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Your plan |
| Price for incidents | $19 per seat per month | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under incident.io's Terms and Conditions. The SDKs, the `inc` CLI and the skills plugin on GitHub are MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-09-04 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-01 | 2023-12-21 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-02-15 | 2025-09-01 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 1.3k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 1.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**incident.io API.** The REST API has a public OpenAPI description with 284 operations, numeric rate limits, `Retry-After` on 429 and required idempotency keys on seven create calls. API and MCP access need the Team plan or higher, so the free Basic plan cannot be used by an agent, and audit logs are Enterprise only.

**PagerDuty MCP Server.** Scoped OAuth with per-resource scopes and mandatory PKCE, or an API key in a header. No read-only mode on the hosted server, where the local one was read-only by default.

## Before you call either

### incident.io API

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer <key>` to https://api.incident.io and call `GET /v1/identity` first to read the key's roles
2. Send a fresh `idempotency_key` with every create call for incidents, incident updates, timeline items, escalations and status page incidents. A repeated key returns the first result
3. Page with `page_size` and `after` until no cursor comes back. Do not stop at a short or empty page
4. Keep `GET /v2/incidents` under 60 requests a minute and wait the seconds in `Retry-After` on 429
5. Incident creation is limited to 10 an hour per key when a Slack or Teams channel is created, 300 an hour otherwise

### PagerDuty MCP Server

1. Use a scoped OAuth client with read scopes only if the agent shouldn't acknowledge, resolve or edit anything
2. Use a user API key or user OAuth for `assigned` or `teams` filters. Account-level keys fail those calls
3. Pass `limit` and a `since` date on incident lists. The default limit is 1,000 records
4. EU accounts must use mcp.eu.pagerduty.com
5. On 429, wait `ratelimit-reset` seconds. There's no Retry-After header

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, incident.io API or PagerDuty MCP Server?

incident.io API scores 68.9 (B) on agent readiness against PagerDuty MCP Server's 48.4 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do incident.io API and PagerDuty MCP Server need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call incident.io API and PagerDuty MCP Server without installing anything?

Yes. incident.io API has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.incident.io/mcp and PagerDuty MCP Server at https://mcp.pagerduty.com/mcp.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-pagerduty-mcp.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-pagerduty-mcp.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "incident-io", "b": "pagerduty-mcp"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare incident-io pagerduty-mcp`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/incident-io.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pagerduty-mcp.json

## Other comparisons with incident.io API or PagerDuty MCP Server

- [Datadog MCP Server vs incident.io API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/datadog-mcp-vs-incident-io.md)
- [Datadog MCP Server vs PagerDuty MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/datadog-mcp-vs-pagerduty-mcp.md)
- [Grafana MCP Server vs incident.io API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-incident-io.md)
- [Grafana MCP Server vs PagerDuty MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-pagerduty-mcp.md)
- [incident.io API vs Rootly MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-rootly-mcp.md)
- [PagerDuty MCP Server vs Rootly MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pagerduty-mcp-vs-rootly-mcp.md)