A new study conducted by TRG Datacenters has identified the work-related platforms and services that experienced the least number of major crashes over the past 12 months. The study assessed the performance and reliability of 30 platforms, focusing on factors such as the number of outages, average outage duration, and the total number of affected users.

Dropbox Leads in Reliability

Dropbox emerged as the most reliable platform, with only two major outages over the last year. These crashes lasted 45 minutes each and affected a staggering 700 million users worldwide. Despite the large user base, Dropbox was able to quickly resolve issues, earning a reliability score of 69.2, the highest among the platforms surveyed. This exceptional performance under significant pressure highlights Dropbox’s robustness in managing large-scale disruptions efficiently.

High-Performing Platforms with Minimal Outages

Asana and Airtable topped the list as the most reliable work platforms, with only one major outage each over the last year. Both platforms had outage durations of just 45 minutes. Asana, with over 1.3 million users, has a significantly larger user base compared to Airtable’s 250,000, demonstrating its ability to maintain stability despite serving a broader audience. Both platforms received a reliability score of 61.5, reflecting their commitment to consistent service delivery.

Several other platforms, including Yammer, Miro, and Basecamp, experienced only two major crashes each. However, Yammer, a Microsoft-owned platform with 345 million users, had a longer average crash duration of 1.5 hours, resulting in a lower reliability score of 58.8. Miro and Basecamp, with 25 million and 3.3 million users respectively, also managed to keep their outages brief, with each crash lasting only 45 minutes. Basecamp received a reliability score of 57.6, slightly lower than Miro’s 57.9, mainly due to its smaller user base.

Webex, Evernote, SharePoint, and Trello Face More Challenges

Platforms such as Webex, Evernote, SharePoint, and Trello had slightly more frequent outages, each experiencing three major crashes over the last 12 months. For Webex, these outages lasted an average of 90 minutes and affected around 500 million users globally. Despite its large user base, Webex received a reliability score of 57.3, indicating room for improvement.

Evernote, which shares the same outage duration as Webex but has a smaller user base of 225 million, also earned a reliability score of 57.3. The study notes that the size of the user base did not have a significant impact on reliability for these platforms, as their scores remained comparable.

SharePoint, another Microsoft-owned platform with 345 million users, had an average outage duration of 90 minutes. Trello, on the other hand, had a shorter average outage time of 45 minutes but served a much smaller user base of 50 million. Both platforms scored similarly in reliability, with Trello receiving a slightly lower score of 54.3 compared to SharePoint’s 54.8. This suggests that while Trello was able to resolve issues faster, its smaller user base may not fully reflect the same operational pressures faced by SharePoint.

Key Insights from TRG Datacenters’ Study

TRG Datacenters’ study offers a clear insight into the complexities of managing platform reliability at scale. According to a spokesperson from TRG, “The reliability of a platform is easier to maintain when the user base is smaller. The challenges become much greater when a single mistake affects millions or even billions of users, even if the outage is short. When enterprises rely on these platforms to deliver critical services, reliability becomes paramount.”

The study also highlights that global platforms with users in different time zones may not see the full impact of an outage at any one time, as not all users will be affected simultaneously.

The Importance of Reliability in Enterprise Platforms

As businesses increasingly rely on cloud-based platforms for collaboration and workflow management, the reliability of these platforms becomes crucial. Outages, even if brief, can have a significant impact on productivity and operations, particularly for companies with distributed teams and global operations.

Dropbox’s ability to maintain minimal outages despite its massive user base underscores its value as a reliable platform for enterprises. Similarly, platforms like Asana and Airtable, with their low outage counts and short durations, demonstrate that smaller, focused platforms can deliver high levels of reliability for their users.

However, platforms like Webex, Evernote, SharePoint, and Trello, which serve larger user bases and experienced more frequent outages, may need to focus on improving their infrastructure and response times to remain competitive in the reliability stakes.

Methodology Behind the Study

The research, conducted by TRG Datacenters, analyzed the top 30 work-related platforms based on data from outage reporting services like Downdetector, Statusgator, and Outage Report. The study considered reported outages from the past 12 months, taking into account the duration of each outage and the total number of users affected. A reliability score was assigned to each platform, with major outages defined as incidents where the platform was unavailable with all of its functions.

This comprehensive approach provided a detailed ranking of the platforms’ reliability, offering valuable insights for businesses and users seeking stable services to support their operations.

In a digital world where uptime is critical, platforms like Dropbox, Asana, and Airtable stand out for their ability to maintain high levels of reliability. With enterprises depending on these services to manage workflows, communicate, and collaborate, the importance of a strong, dependable platform cannot be overstated. As the study shows, while some platforms face challenges in maintaining reliability under pressure, others have set a high standard for performance in the face of disruptions.

For enterprises and users alike, understanding the reliability of the platforms they depend on is essential for minimizing downtime and maximizing productivity.