Cloudflare, one of the largest web infrastructure and security companies, witnessed widespread outage, impacting numerous sites across the internet.
Users reported seeing 500 Internal Server Error messages when trying to access both high-profile and personal websites, including X and smaller blogs.
Ironically, even DownDetector, the top outage tracking website, was unreachable due to its reliance on Cloudflare for protection. This created a feedback loop where users were unable to confirm whether the issue was isolated or widespread.
As of now, Websites protected with Cloudflare began throwing HTTP 500 errors. Cloudflare’s Turnstile, the CAPTCHA replacement system, failed globally, preventing login or challenge verification on third-party websites.
Sites using traditional Cloudflare challenges (“I’m not a Robot”) displayed exceptions instructing users to “Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com,” despite simply returning a 500 error.
Users reported that logging into the Cloudflare Dashboard was impossible, further preventing website owners from checking or mitigating issues.
Multiple personal blogs and other landing pages also went offline.
Cloudflare has not issued a detailed explanation, some speculation points to scheduled maintenance or disruptions in their edge or authentication infrastructure. Users noted that websites proxied through Cloudflare were failing, whereas non-proxied sites sometimes continued to function.
This outage highlights how centralized web infrastructure has become. Many websites, including major social media platforms and personal blogs, rely on Cloudflare’s network for security, caching, and content delivery. A single failure can, therefore, ripple across the web, affecting countless services.
