Websites, apps go dark over Amazon cloud outage

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing arm of Amazon, experienced a widespread outage on Monday, October 20, 2025, disrupting access to several popular websites and mobile applications across the globe, including Fortnite and Snapchat.

The disruption, which began in the US-EAST-1 region, caused increased error rates and latency across multiple AWS services, the company confirmed in an update on its status page.

AI startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and trading platform Robinhood were among the companies that blamed the disruption on AWS.

“Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it,” Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a post on X.

AWS supplies computing power, cloud storage, and other digital infrastructure to businesses, governments, and individuals. Because so many organisations depend on its systems, even minor disruptions can trigger widespread outages across the internet.

It competes primarily with Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

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According to outage tracking platform Downdetector, Amazon’s own services — including its shopping site, Prime Video, and Alexa — were also affected.

Gaming platforms such as Fortnite, Roblox, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans went offline, while financial services like PayPal, Venmo, and Chime experienced connectivity issues.

Ride-hailing platform Lyft also reported downtime affecting thousands of users in the United States, Reuters reported.

Messaging app Signal’s president, Meredith Whittaker, confirmed on X that their service was impacted by the AWS outage as well.

As of press time, Amazon had not issued a statement addressing the cause or duration of the outage.

The Star