# SLA vs KPI: Breaking down the differences, and similarities, of these important metrics

DevFeed: [SLA vs KPI: Breaking down the differences, and similarities, of these important metrics](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/sla-vs-kpi-breaking-down-the-differences-and-similarities-of-these-important-metrics-11994.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://incident.io/blog/sla-vs-kpi>)

Author: Luis Gonzalez

Published: 2023-07-03T17:23:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [The incident.io Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-incident-io-blog.md>)

Topics: [incident management](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident-management.md>), [Incident response](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident-response.md>)

Tags: [article](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/article.md>), [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident.md>), [incident-channel](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-channel.md>), [incident-management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-management.md>), [incident-response](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/incident-response.md>), [operational-excellence](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/operational-excellence.md>), [outage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/outage.md>), [post-mortem](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/post-mortem.md>), [slack-incident](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/slack-incident.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains the differences and overlap between service-level agreements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs) in incident management. KPIs measure progress toward business goals, while SLAs define a service provider's contractual commitments, including service standards, expectations, and response times. It also discusses how both can support better incident response, operational decisions, and customer satisfaction.

## Source excerpt

In this article, we'll lay out the differences between SLA and KPI, and explain how they impact performance management.