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BigPanda vs Splunk On-Call vs xMatters comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the IT Alerting and Incident Management category, the mindshare of BigPanda is 4.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Splunk On-Call is 4.6%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of xMatters is 7.1%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Alerting and Incident Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BigPanda4.7%
xMatters7.1%
Splunk On-Call4.6%
Other83.6%
IT Alerting and Incident Management
 

Featured Reviews

Michael Wenn - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience boosts operational efficiency while requiring smoother setup and cost adjustments
I am a customer and end user of the BigPanda solution. My role is CEO/co-founder at AI Ops Limited, and I can be reached at mike.van@aiops.co.uk. I have opted to receive email notifications relevant to my review, which I can opt out of at any time. If I don't already have an account on peerspot.com, PeerSpot will create an account and email me login credentials.
Wojtek Witowski - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to create flexible schedules for on-call rotations
For alerts, we could choose to get a text message, app notification, or a phone call. The phone calls were very unusable, because it just read a bunch of numbers, like an ID of the alert. If there was a way to customize the phone call message, that would be great. Later, we would try to read the message, but it wasn't great at reading that. They had some sort of internal chat functionality where if we got an alert, we could write to somebody else and ask them for help, but that was super cumbersome. There could be improvements with communicating an incident or alert. Imagine you call the help desk and you say that your computer is broken and then they say, "Actually, the internet is broken, so let us forward your alerts to the network people." And the network people say, "Actually, the electricity is the problem, so let us forward it to the electricity people." Basically, you could send the alert between the support teams inside the company.
Dean-Robinson - PeerSpot reviewer
A versatile solution with excellent logging capabilities that reduced our time to resolve
The reporting functionality could be improved, though I know that's something xMatters, inc. is working on. For example, sometimes I need to go into the platform and find users who aren't in groups that have been created recently, haven't logged in and so on. Previously, this was hard work, but they added loads of filters, making it more accessible. Still, the ability to create custom-designated reports that I could run and schedule would be fantastic for me. It would be good if they keep improving the reporting functionality, as it can be somewhat restrictive sometimes. There are a couple of improvements that xMatters could make to the incident hub, where we can manage high-priority incidents. More sharing capability between collaborating incident managers would be good to see, including the ability to whiteboard. That would allow them to share and sketch out ideas while looking for a solution. Those two features are essential, and that's why we want to use the solution in conjunction with Everbridge because xMatters doesn't have them.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Alert deduplication and correlation - In an environment like the NOC where you're ingesting hundreds and thousands of alerts from various monitoring sources, it's time consuming and difficult to go through individual alerts and also difficult to spot critical issues. It's been great to have BigPanda not only deduplicate alerts but also correlate alerts that are seemingly unrelated, to create a clearer picture."
"One of the most valuable features of BigPanda is its user-friendly interface."
"BigPanda integrates well with other solutions, such as WatchGuard,"
"BigPanda simplifies the process by consolidating multiple monitoring platforms into a single console where I can view all issues."
"The main thing that we like about BigPanda is the user interface."
"The program is very stable."
"The most valuable features of BigPanda are the API integration was good. It enables us to do faster onboarding."
"I would definitely recommend BigPanda for its time-saving features, root cause analysis, topology overview, and visual event representation capabilities."
"Transmogrifier and automatic solution report gives me a report with the solution and the way to solve issues when an error occurred."
"The flexible schedule is the most valuable feature. It was very easy to set out a rotation."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is helpdesk escalation."
"The alert calling feature is the best because notifications are delivered via phone messages."
"VictorOps has been good enough for us and it's effective for our needs in case of an on-call escalation process."
"We're able to communicate better with specific groups or offices. We didn't have that capability or granularity before. It has helped in that regard."
"The most valuable features are the ability to have groups and then have an on-call rotation in the groups. Outlook lacks both these features. Outlook gives you the ability to contact an individual or groups, but you can't contact them based on an on-call rotation, and you can't have built-in timing escalations inside of that. xMatters gives you the ability to do that, which is important when you have 50 or so people in the team, but you only want to contact the person who is on-call. You don't create any unnecessary noise. xMatters allows you to page the right person who is on-call versus just creating excessive noise."
"The feature that I have found to be most valuable is the entire alert notification configuration, having an external system to trigger events that will process the alert to the supporting team. If a system is down, then you need to get it attention. Sometimes, it cannot wait until the next day. Therefore, how xMatters provides this type of integration is critical."
"The customer service is quite responsive. They are quick to answer your calls or emails."
"xMatters stood out to us during our research because of the versatility of its rotas, how we could set up various group rotas, different shift patterns, the ability to order devices and add personal devices etc. It's a much more flexible solution than ServiceNow, the in-house tool we also evaluated."
"For our organization, sending notifications out via subscriptions for outages."
"Simple features create flow sets and build APIs for integrations."
"It reduces the mean time to restore a service. Before, it would probably take an hour to get everybody settled down. With the integrations right now, if somebody flags a major incident, then everyone is on a call in the next 15 minutes."
 

Cons

"BigPanda can improve the correlations. We didn't see any big value. It is still good at the same event deduplication, event processing, and ticket creation, but I was more looking at event analysis and event correlation. In that area, it is still no big difference between the other solutions on the market. All of them, are in the same immature stage."
"The usability needs to improve, because it is a pure code environment."
"The cost of this product is too high compared to New Relic."
"The UI for this solution could be improved. It is very hard to find what you are looking for."
"The solution could improve by having better integration."
"The observability can be enriched with regards to infrastructure and the application-integrated environment. The dashboard and reports could be improved."
"The solutions were quite useful but not completely stable."
"Analytics is an area for improvement, being able to break down the actions that are being taken by users of BigPanda, as well as the auto-magical work that is being done by BigPanda."
"The solution can be improved by including a wider list of permissions."
"At that stage, all our needs are fulfilled, but at the beginning, we had some feature requests and they were deployed during their roadmap."
"Should have more YouTube webinars."
"The third-party configuration tool could be easier to use."
"There could be improvements with communicating an incident or alert."
"An additional knowledge-sharing program could be helpful and part of the demo workshops (right now, these only provide partial information)."
"The reporting functionality could be improved, though I know that's something xMatters, inc. is working on. For example, sometimes I need to go into the platform and find users who aren't in groups that have been created recently, haven't logged in and so on. Previously, this was hard work, but they added loads of filters, making it more accessible. Still, the ability to create custom-designated reports that I could run and schedule would be fantastic for me. It would be good if they keep improving the reporting functionality, as it can be somewhat restrictive sometimes."
"When you are not using the conference bridge from xMatters and you are using an external one, it is a little bit hard to get the person whom xMatters calls to jump directly to the external bridge. They need to hang up the phone and then get to the email to get the URL so that they can jump on the bridge. There is no direct connection from xMatters to that external bridge, but I understand that part of the business."
"They could make the product more customizable."
"What I would like it to do is tell me anytime there is a P1 incident, except when the ticket is assigned to this team or when this word is in the summary, but there is no exclusion option. I have been complaining about this for a couple years. At one point, we created a ticket for this with the developers to review. I assume that once enough people complain about it, they will bump it up in priority to work on. However, if not enough people think it is an issue, then they prioritize their work and work on other features and functionality. However, this is something that has been challenging for us because we have needed to find ways to work around it or just deal with it. So, I would love to see an exclusion option."
"In terms of intuitiveness and flexibility of xMatters when it comes to customizing on-call schedules, rotations, and escalations, for me, as an IT professional, setting it up isn't that big of a deal, but I understand that some people struggle with it because when you get wrapped up into it. You can get lost. It's not super complex, but it's complicated enough to the point where you can say that you should have done it another way. The shift part can be confusing for some people. In that respect, one of the shortcomings my team has found is when we have to add another person, such as a new hire, to xMatters, we can't add them to a group within xMatters without having to put them on a shift. If we put them in a group, they have to be on-call. We can create their account, and then they're just out there in limbo until their team says, "You have to be on this shift." One piece of feedback for xMatters is to figure out how to have manageable groups so that they're contactable from xMatters. They do not necessarily have to be on a shift right from the start or at all for that matter."
"We would like to see the ability to support custom devices. We have a lot of users who use Slack, which is another tool for communication. xMatters currently does not support Slack as a communication method. It can't send events to Slack and respond to them."
"On-call management scheduling is difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BigPanda is cheaper than the competitors."
"The price of BigPanda is in the middle compared to other solutions."
"We pay $200,000 USD per year."
"They were great to work with on pricing/licensing. Given we are a high-growth company, we needed a flexible site license."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive."
"The features they provide, versus the cost, are pretty good."
"I don't make the decisions on the cost aspect. We haven't had any complaints. I think it has a reasonable price."
"The only potential concern is professional services. They are capable, but like to bill on an hourly basis."
"I am not really privy to how much my client is paying for this service. They just tell me the number of licenses that they have. Every time that I say, "I need extra licenses to make sure that all Level 1 and 2s have their own xMatters account," they keep telling me that it is too expensive. If the only purpose is to call people, it doesn't justify the cost of paying more than the number of licenses that they already have."
"I would definitely say it's worth the value. I wouldn't say it's expensive, but most people who pick xMatters are not going to select xMatters based on price. There are other lower-priced competitors that are out there. But I would say for what we're getting, it's worth the money."
"If you are willing to pay for the licensing of it, it is able to scale out.​"
"We're currently per license. We're paying around $44,000 per year for 80 full users and 300 standard users. For a new implementation, we also need to pay for an expert."
"I'm not really involved with the cost standpoint. I've only heard rumors of how much it costs, and if it costs what I think it costs, its cost is very high as compared to a lot of other tools that we're using here. It seems on the higher end from a cost standpoint."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
30%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Computer Software Company
29%
Performing Arts
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems,...
What do you like most about BigPanda?
One of the most valuable features of BigPanda is its user-friendly interface.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigPanda?
The pricing of BigPanda includes considerations for pricing, licensing, and setup costs of the solution.
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Also Known As

No data available
VictorOps
xMatters IT Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios, ServiceNow, ITSM, NOC, CMDB Evolved, RemedyIncident Management Process
NVIDIA, Cisco, NBC, Rackspace, Intuit, DirectTV, NASCAR, Arrow Electronics, Alliance Health, NetApp, Edmunds, New York Times, Return Path, Sony Playstation, CA Technologies, Sphero, Symantic, HBO, Weatherford, Blackboard, Epic Games
Over 2.7 million users trust xMatters daily at successful startups and global giants including athenahealth, BMC Software, Box, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank, Experian, NVIDIA, ViaSat and Vodafone. xMatters is headquartered in San Ramon, California and has offices worldwide.  Visit our website to see how business like yours found solutions with xMatters.
Find out what your peers are saying about PagerDuty, Splunk, Atlassian and others in IT Alerting and Incident Management. Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.