Cloudflare experienced a major disruption today that affected large sections of the internet and interrupted access to many widely used platforms. Since Cloudflare manages DNS lookups, routing performance, content delivery, and protective layers for millions of websites, even a single fault can create a wave of outages across unrelated services. This incident quickly grew into one of the most disruptive events of the year, and users everywhere repeated the same question: Is Cloudflare down?
Cloudflare Down?
The answer is yes. The disturbance was real, global, and strong enough to interrupt access to social platforms, AI tools, gaming services, news outlets, educational portals, and even the usual outage trackers people rely on.
What Happened to Cloudflare Today
The trouble began early on November 18, 2025, with initial reports appearing around 6:00 to 6:30 AM ET. Cloudflare explained that the starting point was an issue with a third party that supports a portion of its customer portal system. Although the disruption began in one controlled area, it expanded into wider network instability because Cloudflare depends on a combined set of internal systems and external partners.
The support portal became unreachable, and other parts of Cloudflare’s network began returning errors or slowing traffic. Since Cloudflare controls so many essential layers, even partial instability created trouble for millions of users around the world. While Cloudflare’s emergency contact lines remained active, the broader public internet still felt the slowdown.
Some locations recovered more quickly once mitigation steps were applied, but several regions experienced extended trouble during the morning hours.
Is ChatGPT Down?
ChatGPT experienced difficulty during this incident because user traffic travels through Cloudflare supported DNS and routing paths. Many users faced login trouble, slow loading, or a complete inability to begin sessions. These symptoms reflected unstable network paths rather than trouble inside the AI platform itself.
As Cloudflare restored normal routing, access to ChatGPT improved across multiple regions. Users in some areas saw short periods of continued delay while DNS paths stabilized, which is common after a large scale network issue.
Is X Down?
X, formerly Twitter, showed significant trouble during the height of the outage. Many timelines refused to refresh, media elements failed to appear, and errors about unavailable posts circulated widely. Because portions of X’s infrastructure depend on Cloudflare to direct traffic efficiently, unstable routing created noticeable failures in the user experience.
As Cloudflare recovered, X gradually returned to normal for many users. Some regions experienced slow feed updates until their routes settled, but the trouble was tied directly to Cloudflare’s network behavior rather than X’s own systems.
Why the Impact Spread so Far
Cloudflare supports countless organizations across tech, commerce, education, gaming, media, and government sectors. This means that when Cloudflare faces trouble, entire categories of websites can appear offline even when their internal servers are functioning perfectly.
DNS delays prevent browsers from locating servers. Routing instability forces connection paths to fail. Protective services may block or drop incomplete requests. All of this occurred in overlapping waves during today’s event, which explains why so many unrelated platforms malfunctioned simultaneously.
Many websites that remained internally healthy appeared offline simply because the traffic meant to reach them could not pass through Cloudflare.
Services Affected by the Cloudflare Outage
The outage influenced a wide range of high profile services. Users across the globe reported trouble across several categories.
X showed feed failures and repeated loading trouble within minutes of the disruption.
ChatGPT access slowed or stopped completely for many people.
Downdetector struggled to load, making it difficult for users to verify what was broken.
Popular online games saw connection failures, lobby trouble, and increased latency.
News platforms, productivity tools, and personal sites all saw interruptions depending on how their traffic flowed through Cloudflare.
Reports surfaced from the United States, Europe, Asia, and India, confirming that this was a global incident.
How Long the Cloudflare Outage Lasted
According to available information, the most intense period lasted through the morning and gradually eased by late morning or early afternoon UTC. Recovery happened unevenly because DNS synchronization and routing adjustments spread at different speeds across regions.
Some services came back quickly, while others continued to load slowly until their network paths settled. Short periods of delay are common after a major DNS related event, and users in affected regions continued to see minor trouble until routes fully normalized.
Why This Outage Felt So Big
Cloudflare manages a large share of global internet traffic. Even a short malfunction affects a remarkable amount of online activity because so many platforms depend directly on Cloudflare’s routing and delivery layers.
Similar patterns have occurred in past Cloudflare incidents, where a single network disturbance created trouble across gaming platforms, social networks, media companies, and business tools all at once. The size of Cloudflare’s footprint magnifies the impact of even small issues.
Education Platforms and Learning Sites Affected
Many learners experienced trouble reaching their online education tools during the outage. People studying through Tech certification programs offered by the Global Tech Council reported slow pages and login trouble, since these platforms depend on Cloudflare supported account and content delivery.
Those pursuing Marketing and Business Certification through the Universal Business Council experienced similar access issues, as lessons, dashboards, and assessment tools rely on Cloudflare powered DNS and routing.
Students exploring programs in advanced topics also faced delays reaching deep tech learning portals. Many visited the Blockchain Council for Deep tech certification, only to find slow or unreachable pages during the peak of the outage.
What Users Should Do Next
If you continue to experience trouble reaching a site, wait briefly or clear your DNS cache. Many issues resolve themselves as Cloudflare completes recovery. Switching to a different network for a short time can also help reestablish working routes.
Site owners should verify that their internal systems are running normally. In most cases, the problem is external and will correct itself once Cloudflare stabilizes all paths.
The Current State of Cloudflare
Cloudflare has restored most of its affected systems and continues monitoring routing and DNS behavior worldwide. The customer portal is improving and traffic flow is returning to normal conditions in many regions. Some slowdowns may continue temporarily as routes settle and DNS propagation completes.