Cloudflare: Connect, protect, and build everywhere (except when it’s down).
Described by the Independent as the ‘invisible service’ that holds up much of today’s internet, ensuring that websites are fast, secure, and resilient against attacks. It is without doubt one of the world’s largest networks, serving data from 330+ cities in over 125 countries, processing 81 million HTTP requests per second on average and supporting 20% of all websites, including major platforms like X, Spotify, Canva, and ChatGPT.
Cloudflare sits between millions of websites and their users, acting as a shield and accelerator. Its global network handles billions of requests every day, powering everything from social media platforms to e-commerce stores and even government services.
Today, Cloudflare became very visible. When its stumbles, the internet feels it.
The reason for a Cloudflare outage being so disruptive is simple: Cloudflare isn’t just a single service, it’s a backbone. Websites rely on its Content Delivery Network (CDN) to load quickly across the globe, its Web Application Firewall (WAF) to block malicious traffic, and its DDoS protection to stay online during attacks. When Cloudflare fails, those protections vanish, and sites can slow to a crawl or disappear entirely.
The result is usually highly impactful. Users suddenly find themselves unable to access banking apps, streaming platforms, or even productivity tools. Again, today’s outage is a stark reminder of how centralised our digital world has become.
And Cloudflare has outage history.
In June 2020, a major Cloudflare outage rippled across the web, knocking popular platforms like Discord, Shopify, and gaming services offline for hours, leaving millions of users frustrated. Two years later, in June 2022, another widespread disruption struck when a backbone network configuration error caused downtime for cryptocurrency exchanges, social media sites, and other global services.
Together, these incidents underscore the scale of Cloudflare’s influence: when its systems falter, the effects are felt across industries worldwide, from e-commerce and entertainment to finance and communications. It doesn’t just inconvenience, it exposes the fragility of the internet itself. While Cloudflare makes the web faster and safer, its dominance means that when it fails, the consequences are massive.
In our previous post “Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket: What AWS Outage Taught Us Today”, we clearly highlighted that building resilience requires diversification, whether through secondary providers such as vXtream, spreading workloads across multiple regions, or using containerisation and orchestration tools to make failover seamless.
Redundancy isn’t optional; it’s the difference between a temporary hiccup and a full‑scale shutdown.
Preparation is just as vital as architecture. Continuously monitor performance for early warning signs, regularly test failover plans, and understand the interdependencies that can turn a small fault into a cascading failure.
vXtream brings over 20 years of experience to the table, making us more agile, faster to recover, and closer to our clients through streamlined support and strong relationships. That’s why we’re a valuable ally in any multi‑provider strategy.
The takeaway is simple: no single platform, however robust, should carry the weight of your entire digital presence. By combining scale with diversity, you protect customers, partners, and operations from the ripple effects of inevitable outages.
So, here’s the rallying cry, start planning your multi‑cloud strategy with vXtream today.
Don’t wait for the next outage (which could be next week), get in touch – we’d love to hear from you.
Image of Cloudflare Website November 2025
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