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37Signals benchmarks uptime vs five leading webapps

37signals.com

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Re: 37Signals benchmarks uptime vs five leading webapps

#3
Do note that Pingdom, unless specifically configured otherwise, counts a successful HTTP request as uptime. If that HTTP request is returning a page saying "our database servers are down, try again later", it still shows as uptime.

You can configure it to send POST data and expect a particular response, but there's no way of telling (other than "yep, that's what we're doing") whether someone's uptime stats are based on that sort of check.

Re: 37Signals benchmarks uptime vs five leading webapps

#5
post #3

Do note that Pingdom, unless specifically configured otherwise, counts a successful HTTP request as uptime. If that HTTP request is returning a page saying "our database servers are down, try again later", it still shows as uptime. You can configure it to send POST data and expect a particular response, but there's no way of telling (other than "yep, that's what we're doing") whether someone's uptime stats are based…

We configured all the benchmark apps to expect a response. So on Github we go and checkout a repo. On Freshbooks a known invoice. On Assistly the agents index. Etc.

This is "the app is functional" checking. Not just 200 OK.

Re: 37Signals benchmarks uptime vs five leading webapps

#6
Pingdom stats are a bit strange sometimes. For our services (check my profile if you want to know), a normal month is 100% uptime, simple. But sometimes, your website is marked as down because they have an issue. Several times, we had downtime because of errors between their servers in California and us in Europe where I was able to backtrace them as a network issue deep in California.

So, like any stats, take them with a bit of salt.

Re: 37Signals benchmarks uptime vs five leading webapps

#7
One of the comments in the blog is: "Just signed up for pingdom and they sent me my password via email in clear. Great!"

I signed up to check if they really do. What pingdom does upon sign-up with your email id they send a password via email.

I have a high opinion of pingdom & I was expecting them to enforce change of password during first login, but that did not happen!

Re: 37Signals benchmarks uptime vs five leading webapps

#8
post #5
post #3

Do note that Pingdom, unless specifically configured otherwise, counts a successful HTTP request as uptime. If that HTTP request is returning a page saying "our database servers are down, try again later", it still shows as uptime. You can configure it to send POST data and expect a particular response, but there's no way of telling (other than "yep, that's what we're doing") whether someone's uptime stats are based…

We configured all the benchmark apps to expect a response. So on Github we go and checkout a repo. On Freshbooks a known invoice. On Assistly the agents index. Etc. This is "the app is functional" checking. Not just 200 OK.

Great, thanks!

Re: 37Signals benchmarks uptime vs five leading webapps

#10
post #9

The stats are only for a 6-week period which in no way a great indicator of the "uptimes" of a product. Curious to know how they fared the whole of previous year.

We only have stats for third parties for the time period in the article, but for our products they're here:

http://basecamphq.com/uptime

http://highrisehq.com/uptime

http://campfirenow.com/uptime

http://backpackit.com/uptime

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