Freedom251 › IT Automation Software
Rundeck
What Rundeck is
Rundeck gives incident response teams a self-service way to run automated workflows to prevent, diagnose, and resolve incidents. Jobs can start automatically when a PagerDuty incident begins or be launched manually from the PagerDuty interface. They can collect logs, service status, and performance checks from affected systems. Rundeck also updates incident timelines with the actions taken and their results, keeping those steps alongside the incident.
Runbook Automation can invoke automation through the web, CLI, APIs, or integrated applications. Certified Enterprise Plugins include ServiceNow, Kubernetes, Ansible, Datadog, VMware, GitHub, AWS SNS, and SQL Runner. Single sign-on is supported with identity providers such as LDAP, Active Directory, or SAML. The managed product includes PagerDuty-handled security patching, protection, monitoring, and compliance. Buyers can use the hosted service or choose self-hosting on-premise or in a private cloud. The hosted Runbook Automation plan costs $125 a month, billed per user plus a platform fee. Rundeck has a free plan and a 14-day full-featured trial that requires no credit card. The self-hosted product requires a license to operate. PagerDuty identifies engineering, IT, customer service, and security teams as frontline incident response users.
Who it suits
Rundeck suits engineering, IT, customer service, and security teams that need to automate incident response workflows. It is especially relevant to teams that want jobs to gather affected-system checks, record actions in incident timelines, and run through web, CLI, API, or integrated applications.
What it does well
- Jobs can trigger automatically at the start of a PagerDuty incident.
- Jobs can gather logs, service status, and performance checks.
- Incident timelines record actions and their results.
- Automation can be invoked through web, CLI, APIs, or integrated applications.
- Supports single sign-on with LDAP, Active Directory, or SAML.
- Offers hosted and self-hosted deployment options.
What to know first
- The hosted plan costs $125 a month per user plus a platform fee.
- Self-hosted operation requires a license.
- Standard Support is listed only during weekday business hours.
- The self-hosted download page lists Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
Limits
The free trial lasts 14 days. The hosted Runbook Automation plan is $125 a month, billed per user plus a platform fee; operating the self-hosted product requires a license.
Plans
| Plan | Billed and limits | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Rundeck Community | Free of charge; registration required to download · Open-source edition · community support · self-hosted | Free |
| Runbook Automation | Per user/month plus platform fee · PagerDuty-hosted SaaS · web, CLI and API invocation · plugins · SSO and cloud secrets · physical and cloud execution | $125 a month |
| Runbook Automation Self-Hosted | Contact sales · On-premises or private-cloud deployment · web, CLI and API invocation · plugins · SSO and cloud secrets · physical and cloud execution | On request |
As pagerduty.com lists them, read 15 Oct 2026. The maker's own page has the final word.
Getting started
- Visit the PagerDuty Rundeck page.
- Choose the hosted Runbook Automation plan or the self-hosted option.
- Start with the free plan or request the 14-day full-featured trial; no credit card is required for the trial.
- For self-hosting, select on-premise or private cloud and use a listed operating system.
- Connect automation through web, CLI, APIs, or integrated applications.
Verdict
Choose Rundeck if incident response teams need automated jobs to collect system information and record response actions. Look elsewhere if the hosted price structure or the self-hosted license requirement does not suit your deployment plans.
Questions
What is Rundeck used for?
It provides incident response teams with self-service automated workflows to prevent, diagnose, and resolve incidents.
How much does Rundeck cost?
The hosted Runbook Automation plan is $125 a month, billed per user plus a platform fee. The self-hosted plan price is listed as Call Us.
Does Rundeck have a free plan or trial?
Yes. Rundeck has a free plan and a full-featured 14-day trial that requires no credit card.
Which platforms are supported?
The listed platforms include API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, web, and Windows. The self-hosted download page lists Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
Can Rundeck be self-hosted?
Yes. It is offered on-premise or in a private cloud, and a license is required to operate the self-hosted product.
What integrations are available?
Certified Enterprise Plugins include ServiceNow, Kubernetes, Ansible, Datadog, VMware, GitHub, AWS SNS, and SQL Runner.
Facts from Rundeck's own pages
- Activity auditing
- Execution history records run time, duration, status and command output for each job. · rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Ansible integration
- Rundeck can run Ansible playbooks as steps alongside other automation. · rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- API availability
- Rundeck publishes a versioned REST API with OpenAPI/Swagger and an API Explorer; the current documented API version is 59 with version 17 as the minimum supported version. · docs.rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- API format and authentication
- The API uses JSON, supports token or username/password authentication, and accepts tokens through a header or URL parameter. · docs.rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- API limitation
- Rundeck 6 and later expose JSON only through the REST API; XML API negotiation was removed. · docs.rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Cloud and infrastructure operations
- Documented use cases include storage, containers, multi-cloud resource management and database administration. · rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Commercial high availability
- Commercial editions add clustered high availability, failover and Enterprise Runners for remote environments. · rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Commercial support
- Professional PagerDuty support is available only with a Runbook Automation subscription. · docs.rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Community plugins
- Featured plugins cover Ansible, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Chef, Puppet, HashiCorp Vault, Azure Storage, Google Cloud and Jira. · rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Company customers
- LinkedIn says more than 34,000 paid and free customers rely on PagerDuty and describes the company as serving nearly half of the Fortune 500. · linkedin.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Company founded
- LinkedIn lists PagerDuty as founded in 2009. · linkedin.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Company founders
- Crunchbase names Alex Solomon, Andrew Miklas and Baskar Puvanathasan as PagerDuty founders. · crunchbase.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Company headquarters
- LinkedIn lists PagerDuty headquarters in San Francisco, California. · linkedin.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Company legal name
- Crunchbase lists the maker as PagerDuty, Inc., an active public company traded as NYSE:PD. · crunchbase.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Company ownership of Rundeck
- Crunchbase lists Rundeck as a PagerDuty subsidiary. · crunchbase.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Company size
- LinkedIn gives PagerDuty a company-size range of 1,001 to 5,000 employees. · linkedin.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Enterprise plugins
- Certified Enterprise Plugins include ServiceNow, Kubernetes, Ansible, Datadog, VMware, GitHub, AWS SNS, and SQL Runner. · pagerduty.com, 7 Oct 2026
- Founded
- 2016 · pagerduty.com, 28 Sept 2026
- Funding record
- Crunchbase shows eight funding rounds and lists investors including Wellington Management and Andreessen Horowitz, but masks the dollar amounts. · crunchbase.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Incident automation
- Rundeck jobs can be triggered automatically at the start of a PagerDuty incident or manually from the PagerDuty interface. · pagerduty.com, 7 Oct 2026
- Incident enrichment
- Rundeck jobs can gather logs, service status, and performance checks from affected systems. · pagerduty.com, 7 Oct 2026
- Incident timeline
- Rundeck automatically updates incident timelines with actions taken and their results. · pagerduty.com, 7 Oct 2026
- Integration options
- Runbook Automation can invoke automation through web, CLI, APIs, or integrated applications. · pagerduty.com, 7 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Official plugin documentation lists AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, Datadog, Jira, PagerDuty and ServiceNow integrations. · docs.rundeck.com, 15 Oct 2026
Where Rundeck stands on Freedom251
- IT Automation Software#7 of 77
- Cloud Automation Software#4 of 32