No service has 100% uptime, so it's fair to ask: what happens to your open position if NoVo has an outage mid-trade? The honest answer depends on your broker. On Tradier, NoVo rests the protective stop at the broker/exchange, so your downside stays capped even if NoVo itself goes offline. On Alpaca — which doesn't support broker-side stops for options — NoVo enforces the same −15% stop in software (its exit engine), so a full NoVo outage is a genuine gap. For fully hands-off live trading, Tradier's broker-side stop is the sturdier choice.
The key design choice
On Tradier this is why NoVo places the stop at the broker, not just inside the app: it's live at the exchange, independent of NoVo's uptime — so if NoVo's server has an outage while you're in a position, the stop is still resting at the broker, ready to protect you. On Alpaca (no broker stops for options) the stop is software-enforced and does depend on NoVo running — so size for the chance an outage catches you before it fires. It's deliberate defense in depth where the broker allows it, and an honest limit where it doesn't.
What an outage would and wouldn't affect
Honestly: during an outage you might lose the cockpit temporarily — the live map, new one-click entries, the in-app view. That's a real inconvenience. On Tradier your open position's protection (the broker-side stop) persists; on Alpaca the software stop pauses with NoVo, so you'd manage from your broker app. Either way your money stays safe in your broker. You can also always go directly to your broker's own app to manage or close a position if needed — because it's your account, you're never locked out of it by a NoVo outage.
On Tradier, an outage can take the cockpit offline but not your stop — it lives at the broker. On Alpaca the stop is software-enforced, so size for the chance an outage catches you before it fires.
The honest fail-safe posture
NoVo doesn't claim it can never go down — nobody honest does. Instead it's architected so an outage can't leave you unprotected: broker-side stops that survive independently, your money in your own account, and direct broker access as a fallback. The design assumes things can fail and makes sure the important thing — your downside protection and your capital — doesn't fail with it. That's what fail-safe honesty looks like: not a promise of perfection, but protection that holds when imperfection happens.