A significant technical problem at Cloudflare caused parts of the internet to stop working today, leaving users across the UK and beyond unable to access major websites, apps and online services.
Websites such as X (formerly Twitter), ChatGPT, and film-review platform Letterboxd have displayed error messages pointing directly to Cloudflare network issues. Some users are seeing “internal server error” notices, while others report pages loading intermittently or failing altogether.
The disruption began at around 11.30am UK time, with Cloudflare acknowledging the issue shortly afterwards. Like many others, we experienced issues accessing parts of our own site. A reminder of how dependent we all are on the infrastructure working quietly in the background.
Cloudflare confirms widespread technical problems
Cloudflare, which provides essential internet infrastructure to millions of websites, has issued multiple updates confirming an active investigation.
Initial communication stated:
“Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which potentially impacts multiple customers.”
A later update provided more detail:
“Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which impacts multiple customers: Widespread 500 errors, Cloudflare Dashboard and API also failing. We are working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem.”
A domino effect across the internet
Cloudflare powers many of the tools that keep websites online, including security protections, load balancing, and traffic management. When a provider like this experiences an outage, the effects are immediate and wide-ranging.
Today’s incident led to:
- Websites failing to load, timing out, or returning error messages.
- Apps that rely on Cloudflare struggling to connect.
- Dashboard and API failures affecting developers and business users.
- Slower loading, partial outages and intermittent access.
Tracking website Downdetector has showed a dramatic spike in Cloudflare-related issue reports.
This disruption arrives just weeks after an Amazon Web Services (AWS) problem took large parts of the internet offline. Much like AWS, Cloudflare operates “behind the scenes”, powering services that most users never notice — until they stop working. Because Cloudflare supports such a broad range of websites, outages can appear chaotic, taking down platforms that have no obvious connection to one another.
What this means for consumers and businesses
Outages of this scale can disrupt everyday activities, from checking social media or online banking to running small business tools or accessing booking systems. For businesses reliant on cloud-based dashboards or real-time data, even brief interruptions can cause delays.
More updates are expected as the investigation continues.
