A major Cloudflare outage on Tuesday caused widespread disruptions across the internet, temporarily knocking several global websites and online platforms offline. The incident, which began early in the day, left millions of users unable to access services that rely on Cloudflare’s network infrastructure for security and performance.
According to early reports, the outage triggered a wave of “500 Internal Server Error” messages across multiple platforms. Popular services such as X (formerly Twitter), ChatGPT, Canva, Zoom, Spotify, and numerous e-commerce and financial websites were affected. The disruption also hit smaller businesses and content platforms dependent on Cloudflare’s content delivery and security systems.
Cloudflare later confirmed that the downtime was caused by an internal network issue linked to a configuration error, not a cyberattack. Engineers deployed a fix within hours, and services gradually began returning to normal. The company said it is monitoring the platform to prevent a recurrence.
The incident underscores Cloudflare’s central role in global internet infrastructure, with the company powering a significant portion of the world’s websites. The outage briefly triggered concerns among users and businesses, highlighting how a single service provider’s failure can ripple across the entire digital ecosystem.
Cloudflare has apologized for the disruption and assured customers that a full technical report will be released once investigations are complete.
