The First Annual StatusGator Status Page Awards

StatusGator monitors 411 different status pages, amassing a mountain of data about each. From when they are down and for how long, to what they post, to which pages people monitor the most and everything in between. Using that data, we are proud to present the first of an annual reflection on the past year. The First Annual StatusGator Status Page Awards seeks to applaud (and perhaps gently shame) a number of cloud services that stood out to us among our massive trove of status page data.

Each of the companies below is eligible to receive one free year of service from StatusGator on our Incubator plan which allows monitoring up to 30 status pages and includes notifications to email, Slack, web hook, and more. If you work for any of these companies, please contact us.

The StatusGator Status Page AwardMost Watched Status Page

Winner: Amazon Web Services

StatusGator is a status page aggregator, monitoring more than 400 status pages and unifying them into a dashboard of all your dependencies. The most popular status page monitored is Amazon Web Services, a service many people depend on. It’s no surprise that the cloud provider with the largest market share is the status page most of the tech world is interested in. In fact, more than 32% of all of StatusGator users subscribe to Amazon Web Services status page changes. Of those subscribers, 64% choose to receive email notifications when Amazon posts downtime on their status page, and 34% of them have enabled notifications to Slack.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Most Granular Status Page

Winner: Azure

Many status pages contain a lot of detailed information on a single page, often with service level detail divided into regions. StatusGator parses and logs this component level status data and makes it available to Enterprise customers who need more granular status page tracking. (Interested? Email us!) The Microsoft Azure  status page covers more than 2,800 individual data points. It includes 149 different services spread out over 43 different regions and zones making it the most granular status page we monitor.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Most Popular Status Page Service

Winner: Atlassian Statuspage

Among the more than 400 status pages monitored by StatusGator, 85% of them use some kind of status page hosting service. The rest have a bespoke status page unique for their needs. The most popular status page hosting service is that of the aptly named Statuspage, which was acquired by Australian enterprise SaaS company, Atlassian in 2016. By our measure, Statuspage has the largest marketshare by far among a crowded field that includes Status.io, StatusHub, Hund, Sorry, Runstatus, and more.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Best Designed Status Page

Winner: Slack

Arguably the most subjective of our Status Page Awards, the 2019 award for Best Designed Status Page goes to Slack’s status page. Slack’s status page checks all the boxes for a great status page. It has a unique, but easy to read design. There are granular details about each of the major components of their service. Each component has a clear status and includes both warn and down levels plus maintenance and informational notice status. And a detailed calendar of past events allows Slack’s users to see back into the past.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Quietest Status Page

Winner: CallFire

There are a number of status pages monitored by StatusGator that very rarely, if ever post any issues. Perhaps they have very stable services. Perhaps they resolve their issues before they get a chance to update their status page. Or maybe they’ve just forgotten they even have a status page. But among the quietest status pages, one stands out as both popular and quiet and that is enterprise call and SMS platform CallFire. StatusGator has recorded no events on their status page since we began monitoring it in 2016.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Most Popular Open Source Status Page Software

Winner: Cachet

Although many cloud services choose to use a hosted status page, there are numerous open source, self-hosted options available. Battle Stations! has a unique approach of hosting the status page data on Github. Stashboard was created by Twilio and open sourced for all to use for free. But the most popular open source status page software is Cachet. The PHP app is easy to get up and running and very customizable. Its status pages closely resemble the most popular hosted status page SaaS product, Statuspage but at the low price of free as in beer, and with the added benefit of being free as in speech.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Nicest Status Page API

Winner: Google Cloud

Many status pages make machine readable versions of their status available for those that want to build integrations to it. StatusGator normalizes all of that data into a single unified API, eliminating the hard work of integrating with individual APIs. However, one of the best and easiest to use status APIs is that of Google Cloud.  Google providers a simple JSON feed that has details of each component and their recent history. It providers a break down of incident severity and provides updates and timing. It has a documented schema and is reliable enough to poll regularly. Special thanks to the Google team for making such an easy to use format.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Most Frequently Updated Status Page

Winner: Litmus

Transparency is paramount when it comes to status pages. We try hard to encourage services to publish reliable and transparent information about their service. StatusGator isn’t about judging services or proclaiming reliability, it’s about making service status more accessible and easier to integrate. Some cloud services offer more details and update more frequently than others. One status page that offers a high degree of specificity is that of Litmus, the email preview service. Litmus updates their status page at least 5 times a day, presumably with automated monitoring. Since StatusGator began monitoring Litmus’ status page in January of 2016, we have recorded more than 30,000 changes.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Least Reliable Status Page

Winner: Microsoft 365

Since StatusGator is constantly checking and monitoring status pages, we have a close pulse on the status of the status pages themselves. We try to quickly alert a company via Twitter if their status page goes down. Objectively speaking, the least reliable status page of them all is that of Microsoft’s 365 Service Status. Although this page is on the office.com domain, it doesn’t actually contain any service health for Office 365. Rather, the page contains an odd assortment of Microsoft cloud service statuses including Outlook.com, OneDrive, Yammer.com, Microsoft To-Do, and Skype. Unfortunately, the page is frequently inaccessible or simply displays a large yellow caution symbol, making it mostly useless.

The StatusGator Status Page Award

Most Requested Status Page

Winner: Alibaba Cloud

We pride ourselves on being able to quickly start monitoring just about any status page around in a short period of time. Every week, StatusGator users from around the globe request new services be added. Our automated processes make it quick and painless. Sometimes, services are requested for which no status page exists and we are therefore powerless.  One such status page frequently requested is that of Alibaba Cloud. Although they offer a blog-like list of past events, Alibaba sadly offers no public status page with service and region detail like that of Azure, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and all other major cloud providers. Hopefully with enough public pressure, Alibaba will one day offer a public status page.