Is Cloudflare down? On 18 November 2025, a significant outage at Cloudflare disrupted a large part of the internet. If you tried to access certain websites today and saw pages failing to load, error messages, or services that were simply unavailable, you were not alone.
Cloudflare quickly confirmed that a major issue was affecting several of its services. Here is a clear summary of what we know so far.
Is Cloudflare Down? What happened
According to Cloudflare’s initial statements, the company was hit by an unusual spike in traffic. This sudden surge created overloads in parts of their global network, leading to widespread service errors.
Users around the world reported error 500 messages, inaccessible websites, and severe slowdowns. Even Cloudflare’s own dashboard and API were difficult to reach, which complicated recovery efforts.
There is no indication of a cyberattack at this stage. All signs point towards an internal technical problem that was serious enough to have global consequences.
Who was affected
The outage impacted a large number of platforms, including:
- ChatGPT
- X (formerly Twitter)
- Various online gaming platforms
- E-commerce sites
- SaaS applications
- And, more generally, any site relying on Cloudflare for DNS, CDN, or security services
Because part of Cloudflare’s internal infrastructure was also affected, identifying and resolving the issue took longer than usual.
Why the impact was so widespread
Cloudflare plays a central role in the modern internet. It handles an enormous amount of global traffic, accelerating websites, protecting them from attacks, and helping them stay reachable.
When a provider of this scale experiences a failure, the ripple effect is immediate and worldwide. Many companies rely on Cloudflare without fully realising how essential it is to their online services.
Impact on businesses
The outage triggered several issues for organisations of all sizes:
- Websites became unavailable for several hours
- Users were unable to log in or complete online actions
- API integrations temporarily failed
- Businesses potentially lost traffic or revenue
- Support teams faced a sudden increase in enquiries
Even a short outage can create significant disruption during the working day.
How businesses can prepare for similar incidents
To reduce the impact of future outages, companies can consider several measures:
- Set up a secondary DNS provider alongside Cloudflare
- Build a more resilient architecture with redundancy
- Establish a clear business continuity plan
- Monitor Cloudflare’s service status regularly:
https://www.cloudflarestatus.com
These steps help ensure that an external failure does not completely halt business operations.
Conclusion
Today’s Cloudflare outage is a reminder that even the most reliable services can face unexpected problems. In a world that relies heavily on cloud infrastructure, preparing for these scenarios is essential.
Businesses that anticipate such incidents are the ones that remain operational, even when a major part of the internet slows down or goes offline.