it's better to use global exchanges like Binance, huobi, etc. to keep your assets safe. yes, although there is no guarantee that your assets are always safe due to the many hacking threats, at least the big exchanges will be more responsible to their users.
There are so many bad reports about small and medium exchanges because of this I stopped trading on these exchanges and just focus on Binance and Kucoin for centralized and Decentralized exchanges, it's safer to trade on DEX, because it's a smart contract-based but always check liquidity and the token smart contract, that's some of the traps in decentralized exchange.
Binance and Kucoin are really the go-to exchanges of most traders. However, if you have coins or tokens that are not yet listed on them, you can go to these small exchanges but just to trade these coins. After that, you can go back to these top exchanges as their liquidity is really great, you don't need to wait for days to execute your order. A lot of these small-medium exchanges are employing the wash trading strategy in order to appear that their volume is ok. But hopefully, you will not be trapped by this strategy. Stick to top exchanges as much as you can, as you will not be disappointed if you use them.