10 Best Incident Tracking Software Tools for 2026
When an incident starts, does your team have all the information it needs in one place?
A monitoring tool may send an alert, users may report the same problem, and updates may appear across different chat messages. The team can then lose time figuring out who should handle the next task.
Incident tracking software brings these details into one place. It records the priority, affected service, assigned responder, actions taken, and latest updates.
IT teams can use it to manage employee issues as tickets, while incident response teams can use it to alert on-call engineers and coordinate the response to a live outage.
In this guide, we compare 10 of the best incident tracking software tools for 2026.
You’ll see what each tool tracks, which teams it suits, where it may fall short, and how much it costs.
How We Selected the Incident Tracking Software in 2026
We evaluated each tool based on the following criteria:
Incident tracking: How well it records incidents from the initial report to resolution.
Use case: Whether it suits employee IT support, live outages, major incidents, or on-call teams.
Incident management: How it handles assignment, priority, updates, escalation, and resolution.
Communication: Support for team communication during an incident.
Deployment: Available cloud, on-premises, or other deployment options.
Reporting: Incident reports, reviews, and performance tracking.
Pricing: Official pricing, plans, and available free options.
What Is Incident Tracking Software?
Incident tracking software is a tool that helps teams record, assign, prioritize, and resolve incidents in one place. It keeps details such as the issue, priority, owner, status, updates, and resolution together.
Incident tracking software generally falls into two groups:
IT service desk software: Manages employee issues such as login problems, broken devices, and unavailable applications.
Incident response software: Helps teams respond to live outages by alerting on-call responders and tracking the response.
Some teams use one type of tool, while others use both. The right choice depends on the incidents your team handles.
Read our ITIL incident management guide to learn more.
10 Incident Tracking Software Compared at a Glance
Tool | Best for | Type | Deployment | Starting price |
Motadata ServiceOps | Tracking incidents, assets, changes, and patches together | IT service management | SaaS or on-premises | Custom quote |
Jira Service Management | IT and software teams that already use Jira | IT service management and incident response | Cloud or Data Center | Free plan for three agents |
Freshservice | Cloud IT teams that want public pricing | IT service management | SaaS | Starter plan costs $19 per agent per month |
ServiceNow ITSM | Large companies with complex service processes | Enterprise IT service management | SaaS | Custom quote |
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus | Teams that need cloud or on-premises incident tracking | IT service management | Cloud or on-premises | Free Standard edition for up to five technicians; paid cloud plans start at $13 per technician per month |
SolarWinds Service Desk | Cloud teams that want incident and asset records together | IT service management | SaaS | Essentials plan costs $39 per technician per month |
PagerDuty | On-call alerts and urgent technical incidents | Incident response | SaaS | Free plan for up to five users |
Managing incidents in Slack or Microsoft Teams | Incident response | SaaS | Basic plan is free | |
Rootly | Chat-based incident response and reviews | Incident response | SaaS | Incident Response Essentials plan costs $20 per user per month |
Better Stack | Monitoring, on-call alerts, and status pages | Monitoring and incident response | SaaS | Free plan available; Responder plan starts at $29 per month |
10 Best Incident Tracking Software Tools
1. Motadata ServiceOps
Best for: IT teams that want to track incidents, assets, changes, and service work in one product.
Motadata ServiceOps helps IT teams manage incidents from the initial report to resolution. Agents can assign incidents, set priorities, track service targets, add notes, and maintain a complete incident history.
Teams can link incidents to affected devices, applications, services, or configuration items. Recurring issues can be connected to problem records, while planned fixes can be managed through change management.
ServiceOps also includes IT asset and patch management, allowing teams to manage tickets, assets, software updates, and service records in one platform. It is available as SaaS or can be deployed on-premises in a private data center or private cloud.
Pros
- Incidents, problems, changes, assets, and patches are managed in the same product.
- The team can connect an incident with the device or service behind it.
- On-premises and private cloud options are available.
Cons
- Motadata does not publish fixed prices on its website.
- A team that needs only basic ticket tracking may not use all the service and asset features.
Pricing
Contact its sales team for a quote based on the modules and deployment you need. A 30-day ServiceOps trial is available without a credit card.
Read our ITSM guide to learn how incident management fits into broader IT service management.
2. Jira Service Management
Best for: IT and software teams that already manage development work in Jira.
Jira Service Management gives employees a portal for reporting incidents and requesting help. Agents can set priorities, assign work, use queues, follow service targets, and keep the full conversation inside the issue.
Its main strength is the connection between support and development work.
An incident can be linked with a software bug, deployment, or engineering task in Jira. This is useful when the service desk finds an issue that needs a code change.
The product also supports on-call schedules, alerts, incident rooms, and post-incident reviews. Advanced incident, problem, and change management features may require a higher plan.
Our Jira Service Management alternatives guide compares other service desk options.
Pros
- Support and development work can stay connected.
- The Free plan supports three agents.
- Employees do not need paid agent seats to submit requests.
Cons
- Advanced incident, problem, and change features may require the Premium plan.
- The interface can become crowded when a company adds many projects, fields, and rules.
- Data Center pricing is separate from the cloud plan prices.
Pricing
Jira Service Management pricing starts with the Free plan for three agents. The Standard plan costs $20 per agent per month. The Premium plan costs $51.42 per agent per month. The Enterprise plan requires a custom quote.
Our Jira Service Management pricing guide explains what each plan includes.
3. Freshservice
Best for: IT teams that want a cloud service desk with published pricing.
Freshservice collects incidents from email, a support portal, chat, phone, and a website widget. Every incident keeps the requester's details, priority, owner, status, messages, and tasks.
The Starter plan covers incident management, knowledge management, task management, and the support portal.
The Growth plan adds service targets, a service catalog, and on-call management. The Pro plan adds major incident, problem, change, and release management.
Freshservice suits teams that want more than basic ticketing but do not want to host the software. It is a cloud service, so it will not suit a company that must run the full service desk on its own servers.
Pros
- Incident management is included in the Starter plan.
- The official pricing page shows the cost of the Starter plan, Growth plan, and Pro plan.
- The service desk supports several reporting channels.
Cons
- Major incident management requires the Pro plan.
- Freshservice does not offer an on-premises version.
- Freddy AI Copilot costs another $29 per agent per month on supported plans.
Our Motadata and Freshworks comparison looks at their IT service management features and deployment options.
Pricing
Freshservice pricing starts at $19 per agent per month for the Starter plan, billed annually. The Growth plan costs $49 per agent per month. The Pro plan costs $99 per agent per month with annual billing. The Enterprise plan requires a custom quote.
4. ServiceNow ITSM
Best for: Large companies that need detailed incident processes across many teams and services.
ServiceNow ITSM gives large IT teams one system for incidents, requests, problems, changes, knowledge, assets, and service records.
An incident can be recorded, placed in a category, given a priority, assigned to a group, escalated, resolved, and reported from the same platform. ServiceNow can also use information from its configuration management database to show which services and systems may be affected.
ServiceNow supports detailed rules and approval steps, but it takes more work to set up than a smaller service desk. Many companies use trained administrators or an implementation partner to manage it.
Our ServiceNow alternatives guide compares tools with simpler setup or lower starting costs.
Pros
- The product can support large IT teams and detailed service processes.
- Incident, problem, change, asset, and configuration records can be connected.
- Major incident and on-call features are available.
Cons
- ServiceNow does not publish fixed prices.
- Setup and ongoing changes often need trained administrators.
- The platform may be more than a small team needs.
Pricing
ServiceNow ITSM pricing requires a custom quote. ServiceNow offers the Foundation plan, Advanced plan, and Prime plan. The final price depends on the selected plan, user roles, added products, and contract terms.
Our ServiceNow pricing guide explains how its quote-based pricing works.
5. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Best for: IT teams that need incident tracking in the cloud or on their own servers.
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus tracks incidents from email, a portal, and other support channels. Agents can set the category, impact, urgency, priority, owner, and due date for each ticket.
The Standard plan focuses on help desk work. It includes incident management, a self-service portal, a knowledge base, service targets, reports, and support for more than one site.
The Professional plan adds asset management. The Enterprise plan adds problem, change, release, project, service catalog, and CMDB features.
ServiceDesk Plus can run in the cloud or on-premises. Buyers should compare the cloud and on-premises plan tables because their prices and licence terms are different.
Our ManageEngine alternatives guide compares other options for IT management and monitoring.
Pros
- Cloud and on-premises options are available.
- The Standard plan covers the main incident tracking features.
- The Enterprise plan adds wider ITIL processes and a CMDB.
Cons
- Asset management is not included in the Standard plan.
- Problem and change management require the Enterprise plan or paid add-ons in some editions.
- The cloud and on-premises prices need to be compared separately.
Our ManageEngine pricing guide explains how its product and licence costs are structured.
Pricing
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers a free on-premises Standard edition for one instance and up to five technicians. Cloud pricing starts at $13 per technician per month for the Standard plan, $27 for the Professional plan, and $67 for the Enterprise plan. On-premises pricing and asset limits are listed separately.
6. SolarWinds Service Desk
Best for: Cloud IT teams that want incident records connected with assets and configuration items.
SolarWinds Service Desk gives employees a portal for reporting issues and requesting services. Agents can assign incidents, set service targets, add tasks, use rules, and keep a record of every update.
The Essentials plan includes incident management, a knowledge base, a service portal, asset management, a service catalog, change management, a CMDB, and service level agreements.
The Advanced plan adds custom forms, more rules, runbooks, scheduled reports, network discovery, and a virtual agent. The Premier plan adds more incident help, a visual CMDB, dependency maps, and a test environment.
Pros
- The Essentials plan includes incident, asset, change, and CMDB features.
- All plans support unlimited requesters.
- A 30-day trial is available.
Cons
- The product is SaaS only.
- Asset pricing is separate and requires a quote.
- The price rises sharply between the Essentials plan and Advanced plan.
Pricing
SolarWinds Service Desk pricing starts at $39 per technician per month for the Essentials plan, billed annually. The Advanced plan starts at $99 per technician per month. The Premier plan starts at $124 per technician per month. Asset pricing requires a separate quote.
7. PagerDuty
Best for: Operations and engineering teams that need to contact the right responder during a live outage.
PagerDuty Incident Management receives alerts from monitoring, security, cloud, and support tools. It uses on-call schedules and escalation rules to contact the person responsible for the affected service.
Responders can acknowledge an incident from the web app, mobile app, Slack, or Microsoft Teams. PagerDuty keeps the alerts, response actions, status changes, and messages linked with the incident.
PagerDuty is made for urgent technical response. It is not a full employee service desk with a service catalog, asset inventory, and request portal. Some companies connect it with an ITSM tool so the service desk record and live response stay linked.
Pros
- The Free plan supports up to five users.
- PagerDuty connects with more than 750 tools.
- Phone, SMS, email, push, Slack, and Microsoft Teams alerts are supported.
Cons
- It does not replace a full IT service desk.
- AIOps, status pages, and other add-ons can increase the price.
- Every person who receives alerts or appears on a schedule needs a paid seat on paid plans.
Pricing
PagerDuty pricing starts with the Free plan for up to five users. The Professional plan costs $21 per user per month with annual billing. The Business plan costs $41 per user per month with annual billing. The Enterprise plan requires a custom quote. A 14-day trial is available.
8. incident.io
Best for: Engineering teams that want to manage incidents from Slack or Microsoft Teams.
incident.io creates an incident record while responders work in Slack or Microsoft Teams. A command can open an incident, create a room, assign roles, start a workflow, and begin the timeline.
The product brings on-call schedules, live response, status pages, and post-incident work into one service. Team members can keep working in chat while incident.io records important actions and updates.
The Basic plan suits a small team that needs one on-call team and a status page. Larger teams will need a paid plan for more workflows, wider on-call use, private incidents, custom dashboards, and more control over reviews.
Pros
- The Basic plan is free.
- Slack and Microsoft Teams are supported.
- Incident response, on-call work, and status pages are available from the same vendor.
Cons
- On-call costs extra on the Team plan and Pro plan.
- It is not a full IT service desk.
- Advanced access controls require the Enterprise plan.
Pricing
incident.io pricing starts with the free Basic plan. The Team plan costs $15 per user per month with annual billing or $19 with monthly billing. On-call costs another $10 per user per month on the Team plan.
The Pro plan costs $25 per user per month for incident response. Its on-call add-on costs $20 per user per month. The Enterprise plan requires a custom quote.
9. Rootly
Best for: Engineering teams that want structured incident response and reviews in Slack or Microsoft Teams.
Rootly helps teams manage a live incident without losing the record of what happened. Responders can work from Slack or Microsoft Teams while Rootly assigns roles, records actions, tracks follow-up work, and keeps the timeline.
The Incident Response Essentials plan includes chat-based response, incident roles, action tracking, reminders, reviews, a mobile app, and status pages.
Rootly sells on-call management separately. A team can buy incident response, on-call management, or both. It is made for technical outages rather than everyday employee IT requests.
Pros
- Incident response and on-call management can be purchased separately.
- The Incident Response Essentials plan includes SSO and SAML.
- Slack and Microsoft Teams are supported.
Cons
- A team that needs incident response and on-call management may pay for two products.
- Rootly does not provide a full employee service desk.
- Private incidents and advanced workflows require the Enterprise plan.
Pricing
Rootly pricing lists the Incident Response Essentials plan at $20 per user per month. The On-Call Essentials plan also costs $20 per user per month. The Enterprise plan for either product requires a custom quote. Rootly usually offers a two-week trial.
10. Better Stack
Best for: Small engineering teams that want monitoring, on-call alerts, incident response, and status pages in one service.
Better Stack can create an incident when an uptime check, heartbeat, or connected monitoring tool reports a failure. It then alerts the on-call responder through phone, SMS, email, push notification, Slack, or Microsoft Teams.
The incident record includes the timeline, responders, alerts, messages, and resolution. Teams can update a public status page from the same service.
Better Stack also offers logs, traces, metrics, error tracking, and real user monitoring. These products have their own usage charges.
Pros
- Monitoring, on-call work, incident response, and status pages are available together.
- Unlimited team members can view the account without a responder licence.
- A Free plan is available for personal projects.
Cons
- Better Stack does not include a full IT service desk or asset management.
- Logs, traces, metrics, and extra status pages have separate charges.
- Buyers need to count the usage charges when working out the full monthly price.
Pricing
Better Stack pricing includes a Free plan for personal projects. The Responder plan costs $29 per licence per month with annual billing or $34 with monthly billing. It includes on-call management, incident response, uptime monitoring, and one status page.
Advanced Slack and Microsoft Teams incident workflows cost another $9 per responder licence per month.
If employee support is your main concern, our service desk software guide compares more tools made for that work.
What Should Incident Tracking Software Include?
Every team handles incidents differently, but a useful tool should cover the work below.
Easy incident reporting: Employees and monitoring tools should be able to report an issue without using several systems.
Priority and ownership: The incident record should show how serious the issue is and who is responsible for the next action.
Rules and routing: The tool should send incidents to the right team based on the service, location, issue type, or priority.
Service targets: IT teams need warnings before a response or resolution deadline is missed.
On-call alerts: Teams that support live services need schedules, escalation rules, and phone, SMS, email, or mobile alerts.
A full incident history: The record should show status changes, messages, decisions, and actions in the order they happened.
Team communication: Responders should be able to work together in the tool or through Slack or Microsoft Teams.
Asset and service details: Agents should see which device, application, or business service is affected.
Reports: Managers need reports for incident numbers, response times, resolution times, missed targets, and repeat issues.
Reviews and follow-up work: The team should be able to record what caused the incident and what needs to change.
How to Choose Incident Tracking Software
Use an IT Service Desk for Employee Issues
Choose an IT service desk when your team mainly handles employee issues such as failed logins, broken laptops, missing access, or unavailable business applications.
Motadata ServiceOps, Jira Service Management, Freshservice, ServiceNow ITSM, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, and SolarWinds Service Desk are designed for this type of support. They keep incidents alongside service requests, knowledge articles, service targets, problems, changes, and asset records.
Our best ITSM tools guide compares more products for managing incidents, requests, problems, changes, and service records.
Use an Incident Response Tool for Live Outages
Choose an incident response tool when your team needs to respond to live outages and contact an engineer as soon as an issue occurs.
PagerDuty, incident.io, Rootly, and Better Stack can receive alerts, identify the on-call responder, contact the right person, and keep the response organized. These tools work well for failed websites, applications, APIs, cloud services, and other production systems.
They can work alongside an IT service desk, but they do not provide every service desk feature.
Our incident management tools guide compares more tools for alerting, on-call management, and live incident response.
Check How Incidents Enter the Tool
Start by listing every channel where incidents are reported today. This may include email, support portals, monitoring alerts, Slack, Microsoft Teams, phone calls, and customer support tickets.
The tool should bring these reports into one place without forcing your team to enter the same information more than once. Test its integrations with the monitoring, chat, identity, and development tools your team already uses.
Check What the Starting Plan Leaves Out
A low starting price does not always include every feature your team needs. Major incident management, on-call schedules, problem management, SSO, status pages, and longer report history may require a higher plan or an additional charge.
Before choosing a tool, write down the plan and features your team needs. Then calculate the total cost based on agent seats, responder seats, asset charges, monitoring usage, add-ons, and billing terms.
Test One Real Incident
Use a trial to run one real incident through the complete process. Report an issue, assign it, raise its priority, involve another team, send updates, resolve the incident, and complete the post-incident review.
Include both the people who report incidents and the people who respond to them. Their feedback can show whether the right information is easy to find and whether the workflow works when the team is under pressure.
Conclusion
The right incident tracking software depends on what happens after an issue is reported.
IT service desk tools are better for employee issues, service targets, assets, problems, and changes. Incident response tools are better for on-call alerts and urgent production outages.
Motadata ServiceOps is a strong option when the IT team wants incident records connected with assets, changes, service targets, and patching. Jira Service Management and Freshservice suit teams that want a cloud service desk with published entry prices. ServiceNow suits large companies with detailed processes.
PagerDuty, incident.io, Rootly, and Better Stack suit engineering teams that need to contact responders and manage a live outage. Before buying, run one real incident through the full process and check the final price for every seat and add-on.
FAQs
What is the best incident tracking software?
The best tool depends on the incidents your team handles. Motadata ServiceOps, Jira Service Management, Freshservice, ServiceNow ITSM, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, and SolarWinds Service Desk suit employee IT support. PagerDuty, incident.io, Rootly, and Better Stack suit teams that manage live outages.
What is the difference between incident tracking software and a help desk?
A help desk manages employee questions, issues, and service requests. Incident tracking software can also refer to tools that manage urgent production outages, contact on-call engineers, and keep a live response timeline.
What information should an incident record include?
An incident record should include a title, description, priority, owner, status, affected service, timestamps, messages, actions, and resolution. A major incident record should also include the response timeline, customer impact, cause, and follow-up work.
Is there free incident tracking software?
Yes. Jira Service Management has a Free plan for three agents. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has a free on-premises Standard edition for up to five technicians. PagerDuty has a Free plan for up to five users. incident.io has a free Basic plan, and Better Stack has a Free plan for personal projects. Free plans usually limit users, schedules, rules, reports, or other features.
Can incident tracking software run on-premises?
Yes, some products can run on-premises. Motadata ServiceOps and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus provide on-premises options. Jira Service Management also offers a Data Center version. Freshservice, SolarWinds Service Desk, PagerDuty, incident.io, Rootly, and Better Stack are cloud services.
Author
Ramya Shah
Technical Writer
Ramya Shah is a technical content writer with a computer engineering background and roots in automotive journalism. He covers IT Service Management, observability, IT operations, and AI-driven automation. An early adopter of AI-assisted writing workflows, he turns complex IT processes into clear, engaging content optimized for search and answer engines (AEO), lifting content output and organic visibility.


