# incident.io API vs Rootly MCP Server

> incident.io scores 68.9 (B) to Rootly's 59.7 (C) for incidents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-rootly-mcp
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-rootly-mcp.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-rootly-mcp.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-rootly-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 Rootly MCP Server's 59.7 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Rootly MCP Server leads on payments & pricing. 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
- Rootly MCP Server: grade C, 59.7/100, rank #541 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/rootly-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/rootly-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 48
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 78

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

### Rootly MCP Server (C)

Good for: Incident and on-call agents in teams that already run Rootly.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 10

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: Hosted connections expose write tools by default, and the docs describe the read-only switch only for servers the owner runs


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | incident.io API | Rootly MCP Server | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 48 | incident.io API +42 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 78 | incident.io API +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 77 | Rootly MCP Server +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 65 | Rootly MCP Server +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 20 | Rootly MCP Server +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 81 | incident.io API +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 80 | Rootly MCP Server +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **68.9 · B** | **59.7 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | incident.io API | Rootly MCP Server |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Pineapple Technology Ltd. (incident.io) | Rootly Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.incident.io/mcp` | `https://mcp.rootly.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP | Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy), stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| Price for incidents | $19 per seat per month | $20 per seat per month |
| 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 for the server. The hosted service runs under Rootly's Terms of Use |
| Tools exposed | none | 218 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `com.rootly/mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-01 | 2026-07-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-02-15 | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 1.3k npm/wk | none |

## 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.

**Rootly MCP Server.** The server is open source under Apache-2.0, ships a dated release about every two weeks, and has a slim profile and a Code Mode endpoint that cut the 218-tool list. Hosted connections expose write tools by default, and the 2.3.21 changelog records telemetry changes that broke tool calls for clients with cached schemas in late September 2026.

## 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

### Rootly MCP Server

1. Connect to `https://mcp.rootly.com/mcp-codemode` or add `?tool_profile=slim` to `/mcp`. The default endpoint loads about 218 tool definitions
2. Connect Code Mode in place of the classic endpoint, not beside it. The docs say models skip `execute` when both are present
3. Use a Global API key for `get_oncall_handoff_summary` and `get_oncall_shift_metrics`. Team and personal keys return partial results
4. Refetch the tool list after a server release. Curated tools reject undeclared arguments, which failed calls from cached schemas in September 2026
5. Treat a 404 from a generated tool as a possible plan limit or missing parent record, and read the hint in the response

## Questions

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

incident.io API scores 68.9 (B) on agent readiness against Rootly MCP Server's 59.7 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Rootly MCP Server leads on payments & pricing.

### Which is cheaper for incidents, incident.io API or Rootly MCP Server?

They cost about the same, $19 per seat per month for incident.io API and $20 per seat per month for Rootly MCP Server. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

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

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

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

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

### Are incident.io API and Rootly MCP Server open source?

No open-source release is listed for incident.io API. Rootly MCP Server is open source (Apache-2.0 for the server. The hosted service runs under Rootly's Terms of Use).


## For agents

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

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

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