ChangeNOW vs SideShift: how the two instant exchangers compare on open data

• Status transparency: 1.10 points. ChangeNOW runs a statuspage site, so anyone can read its incident history in a standard format. SideShift has a status page that responds, but it offers no feed on the three platforms the collector reads. That scores 5 ("readable, not auditable") rather than 10. The site notes this may be partly a blind spot in its own collector, which is why it scores 5 rather than the 2 given when no page exists at all.
• Latency: 0.24 points. ChangeNOW's site answered in a median 80 ms and SideShift's in 390 ms. The category median is 107.5 ms. SideShift's reading falls one band lower (9/10). This is the time to first byte from one probe location. It is not the time a swap takes to complete.
• Track record and security record: no difference. Both are well past the point where the track-record criterion maxes out, and neither appears in DefiLlama's hack database (1,307 incidents on October 19, 2026).

A perfect score means ChangeNOW cleared every bar the rubric sets. It does not mean the service had no problems. The status archive that earns its transparency points also shows 15.67 incidents logged per 30 days over the 90-day window, a median repair time of 100 minutes, and a "major outage" showing when the data was collected. These figures are shown for context and not scored, because services log incidents at different levels of detail. SideShift publishes no feed, so there is no comparable figure for it. Fewer visible incidents is not evidence of fewer actual incidents.

Both services are fully measured on the four criteria, so neither score was propped up by reweighting. Neither score covers:

• exchange rates, spreads and network fees
• when either service may ask for identity checks or hold a swap
• which countries each service restricts in its terms
• support quality and app experience

Check these directly with each provider before you send funds.

• If you want a service whose downtime you can verify from outside, ChangeNOW is the only one of the two, and the only one in the category, with a public machine-readable incident archive. Check that archive for recent incidents before a large swap.
• If you are looking for a ChangeNOW alternative with the same clean hack record and a similar time in operation, SideShift is the next-highest scored service. Expect less outside visibility into its outages.
• If rate or fee is your deciding factor, this comparison cannot settle it. Get live quotes for your pair and amount from both.