Cloudflare down: Here's what the company has to say

Cloudflare is experiencing a large-scale outage that has led to disruptions across multiple popular websites and online services. Platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Spotify, and Letterboxd started showing error messages for many users, with pages failing to load and displaying internal server errors tied to Cloudflare’s network. The spike in failures was so widespread that Downdetector itself briefly struggled before recovering and showing a rapid rise in outage reports across dozens of services.

What Cloudflare’s status page says

Cloudflare has acknowledged the ongoing issue through its official status page. In its first update, the company said it had identified a problem affecting “multiple customers” across its network. The alert mentioned widespread 500-series errors and noted that both the Cloudflare Dashboard and the API were also experiencing failures.

The company stated that it is actively investigating the source of the disruption and evaluating the full scope of the impact. Cloudflare’s latest update reiterates that mitigation efforts are underway and more information will be shared as the situation evolves. It also mentions that scheduled maintenance is currently in progress in one of its data centres, though it has not confirmed whether this activity is connected to the outage.

Possible link to scheduled maintenance

Cloudflare previously announced routine maintenance work at its Santiago (SCL) data centre, scheduled for November 18 between 12:00 and 15:00 UTC. The timing overlaps with the period during which the outage began, although the company has not officially stated whether the two events are related. The work involves core infrastructure systems that handle traffic management and security services, both of which are critical to Cloudflare’s global operations.

Widespread impact on users

Visitors affected by the outage reported seeing messages asking them to try again later, with errors pointing back to Cloudflare’s network. The disruption began around 12:00 UTC (5:30 p.m. IST) and continues to cause intermittent issues across several major sites.