Legal Practice Management Software · reliability comparison
Clio vs Smokeball: which is more reliable? (2026)
Clio is more reliable than Smokeball, scoring 87.0 vs 80.2 out of 100. Over the last 90 days Clio reported 5 incidents and Smokeball reported 7, with effective uptime of 99.88% and 99.76% respectively. Smokeball resolves incidents faster on average (1h 4m).
Data updated Nov 1, 2026 · How we score
| Metric | Clio | Smokeball |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability score | 87.0 | 80.2 |
| Rank (legal practice management platforms) | #2 | #4 |
| Uptime (90 days) | 99.88% | 99.76% |
| Incidents (90 days) | 5 | 7 |
| Partial / major outages | 2 | 7 |
| Avg time to resolve | 2h 10m | 1h 4m |
| Outages we detected | 0 | 0 |
| Transparency score | 100/100 | 100/100 |
Where Clio and Smokeball differ
- Smokeball reported 40% more incidents than Clio over the last 90 days (7 vs 5).
- Smokeball had 7 partial or major outages, compared with 2 for Clio.
- Smokeball fixes problems faster: 1h 4m on average, against 2h 10m for Clio (2.0× quicker).
- Clio's longest outage on record lasted 3h (Jan 27, 2026); Smokeball's lasted 8h 20m (Apr 16, 2026).
90-day uptime
Clio
Smokeball
- No incidents
- Degraded
- Partial outage
- Major outage
- No data
Recent Clio incidents
- Degraded performanceSep 17, 2026 · resolved in 1h 30m
Affected: Clio Manage, Clio Grow
- Major outageSep 11, 2026 · resolved in 53m
Service Availability Issuesofficial update ↗
Affected: Clio Manage, Clio Work
- Degraded performanceSep 2, 2026 · resolved in <1m
Connection with Intuit Quickbooks
Affected: Clio Accounting
- Degraded performanceAug 23, 2026 · resolved in 8h 6m
Performance Issues in Document Processing
Affected: Clio Manage
- Partial outageAug 3, 2026 · resolved in 23m
Affected: Clio Work
Recent Smokeball incidents
- Major outageOct 15, 2026 · resolved in 24m
Reports not loading in desktop app and some reports not loading in web app
Affected: Reports
- Major outageSep 25, 2026 · resolved in 42m
Multiple delays with billing platformofficial update ↗
Affected: Smokeball Billing
- Partial outageSep 15, 2026 · resolved in 8m
Affected: Smokeball Billing, Reports
- Partial outageSep 14, 2026 · resolved in 38m
Affected: Smokeball Billing
- Partial outageSep 8, 2026 · resolved in 3h 11m
Delays with matter creation, finalizing invoices, calendar syncing, and file syncingofficial update ↗
Affected: File Syncing, Matter Syncing, Smokeball Billing, Calendar Syncing
- Major outageAug 19, 2026 · resolved in 1h 26m
Slowness in Smokeballofficial update ↗
Affected: General Use
Other legal practice management platforms to consider
- MyCase · #1 · 99.97% uptime
- Actionstep · #3 · 99.88% uptime
- Litify · #5 · 98.87% uptime
See the full most reliable legal practice management software ranking →