Degraded performance means a service is reachable but not operating normally. Pages load slowly, a feature fails for some users, error rates are elevated, or a background process is delayed. Many status pages use it as a state between "operational" and "outage".
Why it matters
From a user's perspective a page that takes 20 seconds to load is nearly as bad as one that is down, yet a simple up/down check calls it healthy. Degradation often appears before a full outage, for instance when a database is nearing its connection limit, so catching it gives time to act. Reporting it honestly on the status page also builds trust.
Example
A monitor sets two thresholds on response time:
warning: response time > 2 s for 5 minutes -> "Degraded performance"
critical: no response or 5xx for 2 checks -> "Major outage"A response time of 3.4 s triggers the warning without paging anyone at night.
Common mistakes
- Using only up/down checks, which cannot see slowness.
- Using averages, which hide a slow minority of requests.
- Not telling users, leaving them to guess whether the problem is on their side.
Related
Get notified when this term updates
Plus occasional practical tips on uptime and monitoring, nothing else. Unsubscribe anytime.
This page is general information written by our editorial team and updated when documentation changes. Servers and providers differ, so test changes safely first. See our editorial policy and disclaimer.