A widespread outage at Cloudflare briefly disrupted large portions of the internet on Friday, leaving users unable to access popular platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Letterboxd, and even OpenAI’s services.
What Happened
The incident began around 11:30 a.m. UK time and quickly spread across multiple sites that depend on Cloudflare’s infrastructure. Visitors to affected platforms were met with error messages indicating that Cloudflare’s network could not load the requested pages. While some pages reloaded after repeated attempts, most users continued to encounter “internal server error” notices.
Reports on Downdetector suggested that OpenAI’s services were also impacted. Even Downdetector itself struggled to stay online, as it too relies on Cloudflare. Once restored, the site showed a surge in outage reports for platforms including X and Spotify.
Why Cloudflare Matters
Cloudflare underpins a massive portion of today’s internet. Its services handle content delivery, provide security protections, and help websites withstand traffic spikes or cyberattacks. When Cloudflare experiences technical issues, the ripple effects extend far beyond any single platform.
This outage mirrored the scale of last month’s AWS disruption, with numerous unrelated websites going offline simultaneously.
Cloudflare’s Response
In its first update, Cloudflare acknowledged it was “aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers,” but offered no explanation for the cause or timeline for resolution. A follow-up statement 15 minutes later confirmed that investigations were ongoing, though details remained scarce.
The Bigger Picture
With so many major platforms relying on Cloudflare, the outage highlighted once again how dependent the internet has become on a handful of core providers. When one falters, the consequences are felt across the digital ecosystem almost instantly.