Grafana OnCall alternative: Uptimely vs Grafana OnCall
Grafana OnCall OSS entered maintenance mode on March 11, 2025 and was archived on March 24, 2026, and after that date the Cloud Connection that delivered its SMS, phone calls and mobile push is no longer supported. Grafana's own path is Grafana Cloud IRM, which is free for 3 active IRM users. So anyone looking for a Grafana OnCall alternative has an obvious first stop, and it is not us. Uptimely is the other shape: a hosted product that runs the checks itself, declares incidents, pages whoever is on call and publishes the status page, on one plan. It does not receive alerts from Grafana, and this page says where that matters.
Where Grafana Cloud IRM is strong
If your alerts already start in Grafana, Grafana Cloud IRM is the natural successor and Uptimely is not trying to replace it there. It routes alerts from Grafana Alerting and the tools you connect, it sits beside the metrics, logs, traces and dashboards you already use, and Grafana publishes a migration path from OnCall OSS. Its free tier covers 3 active IRM users a month, and Grafana Cloud also sells synthetic monitoring: 100k API test executions and 10k browser test executions a month on the free tier, with browser checks that Uptimely does not have at all. For a team that is already a Grafana shop, one vendor is a real advantage.
Where Uptimely differs
The pricing model is the first difference. Grafana Cloud IRM is billed per active IRM user, and Grafana counts anyone in a schedule or escalation chain as active: Pro is a $19/month platform fee including 3 active IRM users, then from $20 per active IRM user, with synthetic checks metered by execution. Uptimely's Pro is a flat $29/month for 25 members with unlimited monitors, and Free includes on-call escalation with 10 monitors checked every minute. By our arithmetic, one check every minute from one location is 43,200 executions a month, so Grafana's free 100k API executions cover about two such checks. The second difference is scope. Uptimely pages only for what its own monitors detect, and it is hosted only, so a team that self-hosted OnCall to keep everything in-house will not get that here.
| Feature | Uptimely | Grafana OnCall |
|---|---|---|
| Product status | Actively developed (SaaS) | OSS in maintenance mode since March 11, 2025; archived March 24, 2026 |
| SMS, calls and push | Email and web push; SMS and voice calls where the project turns them on | OSS Cloud Connection for SMS, phone and mobile push unsupported after March 24, 2026 |
| What it does | Monitoring, incidents, on-call and status pages in one | On-call for alerts from Grafana and the tools you connect; now Grafana Cloud IRM |
| Where alerts come from | Its own monitors; not an alert-routing hub | Grafana Alerting and the tools you connect |
| Free tier | $0 — 10 monitors, 1 status page, 3 members | Grafana Cloud Free: 3 active IRM users a month |
| Entry paid plan | Pro $29/mo — unlimited monitors & status pages, 25 members | Grafana Cloud Pro: $19/mo platform fee incl. 3 active IRM users, then from $20 per active IRM user |
| Uptime checks | Included — 1-minute checks on every plan | Grafana Cloud Synthetic Monitoring: 100k API executions/mo free, then from $5 per 10k |
| Telemetry / APM | OTLP logs, traces & metrics; Prometheus /metrics | Grafana Cloud's core: metrics, logs, traces and dashboards |
| Self-hosting | No (SaaS) | OSS archived March 24, 2026; Grafana Cloud IRM is hosted |
The Grafana OnCall OSS timeline and the Cloud Connection change are quoted from Grafana's own documentation, read 2026-09-27: https://grafana.com/docs/oncall/latest/set-up/open-source/. Grafana Cloud IRM and Synthetic Monitoring prices, free-tier allowances and the definition of an active IRM user are quoted from https://grafana.com/pricing, read 2026-09-27. The 43,200-executions and about-two-checks figures are our arithmetic on Grafana's published allowance, not numbers Grafana quotes. Uptimely figures reflect its current plans.
Uptimely's Free plan has 10 monitors, 1 status page and 1-minute checks, with no credit card. Pro comes with a 14-day free trial.
Start free →What is the best Grafana OnCall alternative?
If you run Grafana, Grafana Cloud IRM is OnCall's direct successor and the shortest move: it is free for 3 active IRM users a month and keeps your alerts where they already are. Uptimely is a Grafana OnCall alternative for a different case: a small team whose pages come from the websites and APIs it monitors, who would rather have the checks, on-call escalation and status page in one hosted product on a flat $29/month than pay per active user. It does not receive Grafana alerts, so it is not a like-for-like swap.
What happened to Grafana OnCall OSS?
Grafana put OnCall OSS into maintenance mode on March 11, 2025 and archived the project on March 24, 2026. Grafana's documentation says the Cloud Connection that OSS installs used for SMS, phone calls and mobile app push notifications is no longer supported after March 24, 2026, so a self-hosted OnCall now needs another way to reach people. Grafana publishes a migration guide from OnCall OSS to Grafana Cloud IRM.
How much does Grafana Cloud IRM cost?
Grafana's pricing page lists IRM free for 3 active IRM users a month. On Pro there is a $19/month platform fee that includes 3 active IRM users, then pricing starts at $20 per active IRM user. Grafana counts a user as active if they are in an on-call schedule or escalation chain, or if they change an alert group, receive or send a page, or create or edit an incident in the month.
Can I self-host Uptimely instead of Grafana OnCall?
No. Uptimely is a hosted service only, so if running on-call inside your own infrastructure was the reason you chose OnCall OSS, Uptimely does not meet that requirement. What it offers instead is that nothing needs to be run: checks, incidents, on-call escalation and status pages work without a server of your own.
Does Uptimely receive alerts from Grafana Alerting or Alertmanager?
No. Uptimely pages on-call for incidents its own monitors declare and does not ingest alerts from Grafana, Alertmanager or other monitoring tools. It does ingest OpenTelemetry logs, traces and metrics and exposes a Prometheus /metrics endpoint, and it sends signed outbound webhooks, but if your pages are Grafana alert rules today, Grafana Cloud IRM or another alert-routing product is the right home for them.