Incident management and on-call · October 2026 Edition
Freshservice vs Squadcast
Six of fourteen models named Freshservice first on the direct prompt; zero named Squadcast. Freshservice was named by ten of the fourteen models and Squadcast by twelve and Freshservice carries 17 labels and Squadcast 25, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in nine categories this edition.
Named in one category this edition.
First-choice share10%8%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate6%4%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#3#4A position in a field of 11; printed, not drawn.
Labels1725A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Freshservice reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.incident.io was named alongside these two in eleven of the fourteen direct answers. incident.io vs Freshservice · incident.io vs Squadcast · PagerDuty vs Freshservice
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the incident management and on-call page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
FreshserviceFirst choices, of fourteen modelsSquadcast
Direct60
Paraphrase02
Comparative001 against Freshservice
Budget-constrained03
Scale-constrained00
Negative001 against Squadcast
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Freshservice and Squadcast stood in it.
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-5.4 mini | ||||||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | |||
| Perplexity Sonar | | | ||||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | | |||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | ||||
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | ||||||
| Kimi K2 | | | ||||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | ||||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | ||||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | |
Freshservice Squadcast first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Freshservice on the left and Squadcast on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Freshservice and Squadcast stood in it.
Freshservice first, Squadcast not the choice
6 of 14 modelsSquadcast was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5Freshservice alternatives: HaloITSM, Hyperping, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, Rootly, Zenduty, ilert, incident.io
Perplexity SonarFreshservice alternatives: PagerDuty, Rootly, incident.io
Grok 4.1 FastFreshservice alternatives: InvGate Service Management, Jira Service Management, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, PagerDuty, incident.io
Mistral SmallFreshservice, PagerDuty alternatives: ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
MiniMax M2.5Freshservice, PagerDuty alternatives: Jira Service Management, incident.io
Muse Glimmer 30BFreshservice alternatives: PagerDuty, Rootly, incident.io
Neither was the first choice, one was named
3 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Gemini 3.5 Flashincident.io alternatives: FireHydrant, Freshservice, Rootly
DeepSeek V4 Flashincident.io alternatives: Freshservice, Jira Service Management
Kimi K2incident.io alternatives: Squadcast
Neither was named
5 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.GPT-5.4 miniincident.io alternatives: PagerDuty, Rootly
Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
Qwen 3.7 FlashPagerDuty alternatives: Datadog Incident Management, FireHydrant, Opsgenie
GLM 4.7 FlashXRootly, incident.io alternatives: Jira Service Management, PagerDuty
GPT-6 Lunaincident.io alternatives: PagerDuty, Rootly
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Squadcast leads by five points.
Squadcast7%#4 of 13Freshservice2%#8 of 13Mid-marketThe figures above
The order flips: Freshservice leads at mid-market.
Freshservice10%#3 of 11Squadcast8%#4 of 11Enterprise
Level: the same share of first choices.
Freshservice0%#– of 9Squadcast0%#– of 9What the models said about Freshservice
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. One of one in this category shown.
“Very slow to deploy, highly complex, and intensely disliked by most modern software engineering/DevOps teams” Gemini 3.5 Flash · comparative prompt · soft negative
What the models said about Squadcast
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Four of five in this category shown.
“Squadcast (now SolarWinds) — Be cautious” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“Squadcast is the cheapest credible option, with a free tier up to 5 users and Pro at $12/user/mo” Claude Haiku 4.5 · budget prompt · first choice
“The best incident management platform for a company with a limited budget is Squadcast” Llama 4 Maverick · budget prompt · first choice
“I'd recommend starting with Squadcast (if you have under 5 team members)” MiniMax M2.5 · budget prompt · first choice
Also compared
incident.io vs Freshserviceincident.io vs SquadcastPagerDuty vs FreshservicePagerDuty vs SquadcastFreshservice vs Grafana IRMFreshservice vs OpsgenieFreshservice vs RootlyFreshservice vs FireHydrantSquadcast vs Grafana IRMSquadcast vs OpsgenieSquadcast vs RootlySquadcast vs FireHydrantAll twenty-eight head-to-head pages and the full incidents standing
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.