AWS down, many websites and services not working: what's happening?

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's most widely used cloud platform, is facing a major outage causing widespread disruptions globally. Since the early hours of today, Monday, October 20, 2025, thousands of websites and applications – including Snapchat, Fortnite, Coinbase, Canva, Duolingo, Robinhood, McDonald’s, Venmo, Perplexity AI, and even some internal Amazon services like Alexa and Prime Video – have been inaccessible or experiencing significant slowdowns.

AWS down: an outage affecting “half the Internet”

AWS forms the backbone of a huge part of the web. Millions of companies and digital services, from social networks to gaming platforms to productivity tools, rely daily on its infrastructure to manage traffic, data, and content. For this reason, any outage can have global scale effects.

According to Downdetector data, the peak of reports occurred around 10:33 AM, with thousands of reports for AWS alone. Users complained of connection errors, blank pages, and “site unreachable” messages on platforms that are usually stable and reliable.

The origin of the AWS problem: it all starts in the United States

The malfunction appears to originate in the US-EAST-1 region, located in Northern Virginia, one of the most critical areas of Amazon Web Services' global infrastructure. This is the same region that has previously caused large-scale outages, particularly in 2021 and 2023.

In an update published on the official support portal, AWS stated that it had “identified a potential cause” and was working on “multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery.”

According to initial analyses, the outage could be attributed to a failure of the DynamoDB service's DNS system, which would have triggered a chain reaction on other network components.

Chain reactions: apps, sites, and services down

Outage reports are coming in from all over the world. Many users report being unable to make payments on Venmo, difficulty accessing Coinbase for cryptocurrency transactions, and malfunctions with Alexa, which in some cases does not respond to voice commands or ignores preset routines.

The list of affected services is long and continuously expanding. Among the most notable are Snapchat, Fortnite, Roblox, Canva, Duolingo, Ring, Hulu, Apple TV, Robinhood, Wordle, and Crunchyroll, all experiencing slowdowns or temporary blackouts related to the AWS outage.

Amazon working on resolution

Amazon Web Services has communicated that its technicians are “actively engaged in mitigating the impact and identifying the root cause” of the outage. At present, however, no precise timeline has been provided for the full restoration of services, indicating that the situation remains fluid.