In an era where the internet feels as essential as air, a single point of failure can bring the digital world to its knees. On Tuesday, November 18, 2025, that’s exactly what happened when Cloudflare, a powerhouse behind roughly 20% of global web traffic, suffered a major internal service degradation. What started as a routine morning for millions turned into a cascade of errors, timeouts, and frustration, affecting everything from social media scrolls to AI chats and online shopping carts.
The Spark: What Went Wrong?
The outage kicked off around 11:48 UTC (6:48 a.m. ET / 11:48 a.m. GMT), when Cloudflare’s status page lit up with alerts of an “internal service degradation.” Engineers quickly mobilized, pinpointing the issue within about 90 minutes, but the ripple effects were immediate and widespread. At its core, the problem stemmed from failures in key infrastructure components: the Cloudflare Dashboard, API endpoints, Bot Management, Workers (edge computing platform), and core network services like CDN caching and DNS resolution.
Cloudflare’s vast network, spanning over 300 cities worldwide, handles traffic routing, DDoS protection, and performance optimization for millions of websites. When it faltered, it wasn’t just Cloudflare customers feeling the pinch downstream services crumbled too. The company attributed the trigger to an “unusually high volume of traffic” that overwhelmed systems, though specifics remain under wraps as a post-mortem investigation unfolds. Coincidentally, scheduled maintenance in datacenters like Santiago (SCL) and Los Angeles (LAX) overlapped with the incident, potentially exacerbating latency spikes in Latin America and North America.
By 12:21 UTC, error rates were spiking globally, with partial outages reported across continents: Africa (e.g., Dar Es Salaam, Ouagadougou), Asia (e.g., Chittagong), Europe (e.g., Izmir), and beyond. Users in London faced temporary WARP (VPN-like service) blackouts during remediation, adding insult to injury.
The Domino Effect: Services That Fell Victim
No one outage tells the full story without naming names. Here’s a snapshot of the chaos:
| Affected Service | Impact Description | Peak Reports (Downdetector) |
|---|---|---|
| X (formerly Twitter) | Slow loading, login failures, and tweet timeouts worldwide. Users couldn’t post or scroll reliably. | Over 10,000 in the US alone |
| ChatGPT / OpenAI | Intermittent 502/504 errors; users hit “try again later” loops during queries. | 5,000+ globally |
| Spotify | Streaming interruptions and app crashes, especially on web players. | 2,500+ |
| Amazon | Checkout delays and page loads failing for Cloudflare-dependent sellers. | 1,800+ |
| Grindr | Login and messaging outages, hitting users hard during peak hours. | 900+ |
| League of Legends | Multiplayer matchmaking and server connections disrupted, frustrating gamers. | N/A (forum spikes) |
| Canva | Design tool lags and export failures for creative professionals. | 700+ |
| Downdetector | Ironically, the outage tracker itself went dark, skewing real-time data. | Self-reported outage |
Even niche sites like Vinted (shopping) and bet365 (betting) joined the fray, underscoring how Cloudflare’s invisible hand touches nearly every corner of the web. On X, the irony wasn’t lost: one user quipped, “Can’t find out if Cloudflare is down because Cloudflare being down has taken out DownDetector, along with half the internet.” Another turned lemons into lemonade: “Due to the global @Cloudflare outage, nothing worked this morning. So, after a morning at the Midnight Summit, I went and met one of my oldest irl friends… Time to swim after a banger lunch.”
Timeline: From Panic to Partial Peace
- 11:48 UTC: Outage declared; investigation begins.
- 12:03–12:53 UTC: Error rates climb; support portal glitches hit case management.
- 13:09–13:13 UTC: Root cause identified; Access and WARP recover. London WARP briefly disabled.
- 13:35–14:34 UTC: Application services restoration underway; dashboard fix deployed.
- 14:42 UTC: Incident resolved; monitoring kicks in.
- 14:57–15:23 UTC: Lingering dashboard login issues for some; full monitoring continues.
By late afternoon ET (around 15:00 UTC), Cloudflare reported “improvement as we bring affected services back online,” with most platforms stabilizing. Shares in Cloudflare ($NET) dipped about 5% in premarket trading, a reminder that even tech titans aren’t immune to market jitters.
The Bigger Picture: Why This Matters
This wasn’t Cloudflare’s first rodeo recall the 2022 “Great Internet Crash” or last month’s AWS turmoil, but it drives home a sobering truth: our hyper-connected world runs on a few massive pillars. Cloudflare’s role in shielding against cyber threats and speeding up loads makes it indispensable, but that centrality breeds vulnerability. As one expert noted, “When a single provider faces disruptions, it can have far-reaching effects across the web.”
For businesses, the lesson is clear: diversify providers, beef up retry logic in APIs, and have offline fallbacks ready. Users? Clear your cache, switch networks, or gasp step away from the screen. In a post-outage X thread, one dev lamented, “X is down for many users after a major Cloudflare outage. Not just X… ChatGPT, transit systems, and several big platforms took a hit. Wild how one internet backbone sneezes and half the web catches a cold.”
Looking Ahead: Recovery and Resilience
As of 9:00 p.m. ET, Cloudflare’s status page shows all major services operational, with only isolated dashboard hiccups lingering. The company promises a deep dive into the “why” soon, likely via their community forums or a blog post. For now, the web hums on faster, perhaps, in gratitude.
Outages like this aren’t just technical footnotes; they’re wake-up calls. In a world where AI, social feeds, and e-commerce define daily life, building a more robust internet isn’t optional, it’s urgent. Until next time, keep your connections strong, and remember: even the cloud can rain.
