GravityKit
GravityKit ships weekly across a whole plugin suite, with an MCP server now part of the lineup.
Comparison · Infra & APIs
Incus vs Rootly
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Incus and Rootly — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Incus vs Rootly: at a glance
| Feature | Incus | Rootly |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | Infra & APIs | Infra & APIs |
| Velocity score | 5.0 | 6.3 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 1 |
| Top themes | container manager, lts branch, live migration, qemu gating | incident-response, agent-native, service-catalog, on-call |
| Last editorial update | 2h ago | 11h ago |
| Website | Visit → | — |
What is Incus?
Incus settled its 7.0 LTS, then went straight back to a monthly feature cadence.
7.0.0 LTS landed in early May and became the supported baseline, followed by 7.0.1 as its first patch. The feature branch has not paused: 7.1 in May cleaned up the issues the LTS surfaced, 7.2 in June added migration-compatible hypervisor flags for stateful migration and aligned node-specific network configuration, and 7.3 at the end of July added native Windows and macOS installers to the build workflow, a QMP command timeout, and /32 and /128 addresses for OCI containers. Underneath, QEMU capabilities like SPICE, 9p and virtio audio are increasingly gated on runtime detection rather than assumed.
What is Rootly?
Rootly is turning its AI from an incident chat box into an evidence gatherer across the stack
Rootly's last month splits cleanly between AI and the plumbing that makes AI useful. Rootly AI moved from a chat panel sitting on an incident to a system that connects read-only into observability, code, infrastructure, feature flag, ticketing, and documentation tools and gathers evidence itself. Around it, the catalog gained a CLI sync from GitHub and Backstage, onboarding collapsed to a single command, and responders got an on-call widget, a customisable Alerts table, and mobile alert muting.
Incus vs Rootly: editorial side-by-side
Incus
5.0INFRA · APIS
Incus settled its 7.0 LTS, then went straight back to a monthly feature cadence.
◆ Current state
7.0.0 LTS landed in early May and became the supported baseline, followed by 7.0.1 as its first patch. The feature branch has not paused: 7.1 in May cleaned up the issues the LTS surfaced, 7.2 in June added migration-compatible hypervisor flags for stateful migration and aligned node-specific network configuration, and 7.3 at the end of July added native Windows and macOS installers to the build workflow, a QMP command timeout, and /32 and /128 addresses for OCI containers. Underneath, QEMU capabilities like SPICE, 9p and virtio audio are increasingly gated on runtime detection rather than assumed.
◆ Where it's heading
The rhythm is a monthly feature release running alongside a long-term branch, and the recent work leans toward reach rather than new primitives: clients built natively for Windows and macOS, translations updated in nearly every release, feature gating so the same daemon behaves correctly across host configurations. Stateful migration getting migration-compatible CPU flags is the most operationally significant item, since it is what makes live migration work across non-identical hosts.
◆ Prediction
The cadence in this window is a feature release roughly every four to six weeks with LTS patches interleaved, so a 7.4 is the expected next step. The entries give no indication of a headline feature queued for it.
Rootly
6.3INFRA · APIS
Rootly is turning its AI from an incident chat box into an evidence gatherer across the stack
◆ Current state
Rootly's last month splits cleanly between AI and the plumbing that makes AI useful. Rootly AI moved from a chat panel sitting on an incident to a system that connects read-only into observability, code, infrastructure, feature flag, ticketing, and documentation tools and gathers evidence itself. Around it, the catalog gained a CLI sync from GitHub and Backstage, onboarding collapsed to a single command, and responders got an on-call widget, a customisable Alerts table, and mobile alert muting.
◆ Where it's heading
The catalog work and the AI work are the same bet. Rootly is assembling a current, machine-readable picture of services, owners, and tooling so its agent can reason about an incident without a human pasting context into a chat panel. Read-only connections with nothing stored is the trust position it is taking to get access to those systems in the first place, and the retrospective AI blocks that show every prompt and source are the same posture applied to output.
◆ Prediction
The step these entries set up but do not take is the agent acting rather than only gathering — proposing or executing remediation on the evidence it assembles. More catalog sources landing on the new CLI is the safer near-term bet.
Alternatives to Incus and Rootly
Other Infra & APIs products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Incus or Rootly.
LibreSpeed
After a two-year redesign, LibreSpeed is adding tests instead of polishing pixels.
Nautobot
A security advisory cycle forced Nautobot to break its REST API on both supported branches at once.
Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper grew a package manager for policies — and a benchmark to prove they are not too slow.
GoCD
GoCD's changelog is one maintainer keeping a 2010s CI server running on current runtimes.
Firecracker
Firecracker's microVMs can now grow and shrink devices while running.
See all Incus alternatives → · See all Rootly alternatives →
Recent activity from Incus and Rootly
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3d agoRootlySync your catalog, and mute pages during Alert storms.
- 7d agoIncusNative Windows and macOS installers; QMP command timeouts
- 10d agoRootlyRootly AI now gathers incident evidence across your entire stack. ⚡
- 10d agoRootlyRootly AI connects to your observability stack and beyond.
- 15d agoRootlyFrom sign up to incident-ready in minutes.
- 22d agoRootlyThe on-call widget, 24-hour time, and a new Alerts table.
- 27d agoIncusFirst patch release on the 7.0 LTS branch
- 29d agoRootlyRetrospective templates with customizable AI-blocks
- 1mo agoIncusMigration-compatible hypervisor flags for stateful migration
- 2mo agoIncusFixes for issues surfaced by the 7.0 release
- 3mo agoIncusIncus 7.0 LTS, with runtime-detected QEMU feature gating
- 4mo agoIncusVolume snapshots while attached; OVN dhcp gateway option
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Incus and Rootly?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Rootly is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Incus better than Rootly?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Rootly is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Incus?
Top Incus alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Incus alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/incus for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Rootly?
Top Rootly alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Rootly alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rootly for the full list with editorial commentary on each.