PagerDuty is $17/user/mo (Professional). Sentinel is a self-hosted alternative at $0.99/mo. Here's when each makes sense.
| Sentinel | PagerDuty | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Self-hosted, your infra | Managed SaaS (cloud only) |
| Data location | Your server, your disk | PagerDuty's cloud |
| Free tier | 3 services, 1 schedule | Paid only |
| Pro pricing | $0.99/mo | $17/user/mo (Professional) |
| Dependencies | None (single binary + SQLite) | N/A (managed) |
| Setup time | ~30 seconds | Account signup |
| Dashboard | Built-in at /ui | Cloud dashboard |
| License | BSL 1.1 | Proprietary SaaS |
Sentinel is a single Go binary with embedded SQLite. Install it with one command, and you are running in under a minute. Your data stays on your server.
curl -fsSL https://stockyard.dev/sentinel/install.sh | sh
Before choosing between Sentinel and PagerDuty, consider what happens when you need to leave. PagerDuty exports vary in completeness — some fields, some history, some metadata may not come with you. Sentinel stores everything in a single SQLite file. Leaving means copying that file. This is not a hypothetical concern: the average team changes tools every 18 to 24 months.
Sentinel runs as a single static binary with an embedded SQLite database. There is no application server, no cache layer, no background worker. One process handles HTTP requests and reads from and writes to the database file directly. This simplicity is the entire point — fewer moving parts means fewer things that can break at 2 AM.
If you are currently using PagerDuty and considering Sentinel, start by running both in parallel. Install Sentinel on a test server, point your workflow at it for a week, and compare the experience. Sentinel's data directory is isolated — running a trial costs nothing beyond the compute. If Sentinel does not fit, delete the binary and the data directory. There is nothing else to clean up.
Single binary. Free to start. $0.99/mo for Pro.