Payment Processors · reliability comparison
PayPal vs Stripe: which is more reliable? (2026)
Stripe is more reliable than PayPal, scoring 89.7 vs 80.0 out of 100. Over the last 90 days PayPal reported 3 incidents and Stripe reported 28, with effective uptime of 99.92% and 99.99% respectively. Stripe resolves incidents faster on average (19m).
Data updated Nov 1, 2026 · How we score
| Metric | PayPal | Stripe |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability score | 80.0 | 89.7 |
| Rank (payment processors) | #7 | #4 |
| Uptime (90 days) | 99.92% | 99.99% |
| Incidents (90 days) | 3 | 28 |
| Partial / major outages | 0 | 1 |
| Avg time to resolve | 3h 3m | 19m |
| Outages we detected | 1 | 0 |
| Transparency score | 50/100 | 100/100 |
Where PayPal and Stripe differ
- Stripe reported 9.3× as many incidents as PayPal over the last 90 days (28 vs 3).
- Stripe had 1 partial or major outage, compared with 0 for PayPal.
- Stripe fixes problems faster: 19m on average, against 3h 3m for PayPal (9.8× quicker).
- PayPal's longest incident on record lasted 4h 20m (Oct 22, 2026); Stripe's lasted 2h 52m (May 16, 2026).
- Our own probes detected 1 outage at PayPal and 0 at Stripe, of which 0 and 0 respectively were acknowledged on their status pages.
90-day uptime
PayPal
Stripe
- No incidents
- Degraded
- Partial outage
- Major outage
- No data
Recent PayPal incidents
- Degraded performanceOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 4h 20m
Detected Resolved: Impact to Online Checkout (PP-LIVE-110330)
Affected: Online Checkout
- MaintenanceOct 16, 2026 · resolved in 3h
Initial Notification: PayPal Live Site Maintenance (PP-LIVE-110012)
Affected: Retail Checkout > Mobile In-Store, Retail Checkout > PayPal Here, Online Checkout > Payments Standard (WPS), Online Checkout > Express Checkout, Enterprise Solutions (Braintree) > Pay with Venmo, Hyperwallet > Payouts Processing and Network +1 more
- Degraded performanceOct 11, 2026 · resolved in 3h 39m
Impact to BNPL (Pay Later) authorizations (PP-LIVE-110179)
Affected: REST APIs > Orders, Online Checkout > PayPal Complete Payments (PPCP) - Payment Service
- MaintenanceOct 9, 2026 · resolved in 3h 30m
Initial Notification: PayPal Live Site Maintenance (PP-LIVE-110005)
Affected: Retail Checkout > Mobile In-Store, Online Checkout > Payments Standard (WPS), Online Checkout > Express Checkout, Enterprise Solutions (Braintree) > Pay with Venmo, Homepage > PayPal Homepage, Account > Seller Onboarding +1 more
- MaintenanceOct 2, 2026 · resolved in 3h 30m
Initial Notification: PayPal Live Site Maintenance (PP-LIVE-109883)
Affected: Retail Checkout > Mobile In-Store, Retail Checkout > PayPal Here, Online Checkout > Payments Standard (WPS), Online Checkout > Express Checkout, Enterprise Solutions (Braintree) > Pay with Venmo, Hyperwallet > Payouts Processing and Network +1 more
- MaintenanceSep 25, 2026 · resolved in 3h 30m
Affected: Retail Checkout > Mobile In-Store, Retail Checkout > PayPal Here, Online Checkout > Payments Standard (WPS), Online Checkout > Express Checkout, Enterprise Solutions (Braintree) > Pay with Venmo, Hyperwallet > Payouts Processing and Network +1 more
Recent Stripe incidents
- InformationalNov 1, 2026 · resolved in 2h 5m
Elevated Instant Payouts failures
Affected: Stripe core components
- InformationalOct 24, 2026 · resolved in 1h
Affected: Acquirers and payment methods
- InformationalOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 3h 36m
Affected: Acquirers and payment methods
- InformationalOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 2h 25m
Affected: Acquirers and payment methods
- InformationalOct 20, 2026 · resolved in 2h 18m
Spike in cancellations and expired errors with PayByBank payments
Affected: Acquirers and payment methods
- InformationalOct 20, 2026 · resolved in 9h 33m
Affected: Acquirers and payment methods