Amazon Outage Today, October 20, 2025
Today, October 20, 2025, a major outage hit Amazon Web Services (AWS), disrupting thousands of websites, apps, and services globally. This is one of the most significant AWS incidents in recent years, causing widespread issues due to the heavy reliance on AWS infrastructure. The outage began around 3:00 AM EDT (11:00 AM MSK) and lasted several hours, with most services starting to recover by noon UTC.
Cause of the Outage
- Primary Issue: The outage originated in the US-EAST-1 region (Northern Virginia, USA) due to network issues in EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) and DynamoDB, critical AWS services for computing and databases. This led to DNS errors, preventing sites and apps from connecting to servers.
- Impact: Over 6.5 million user complaints were reported on Downdetector. More than 1,000 companies, including banks, airlines, and gaming platforms, were affected. AWS holds about 30% of the global cloud market, amplifying the outage’s impact.
- No evidence of a cyberattack—Amazon confirmed it was an internal technical failure.
Affected Services
The outage impacted numerous popular platforms. Here’s a summary based on Downdetector and news reports:
| Service/App | Issue Description | Status as of Evening Oct 20 (UTC) |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon (site & app) | Unable to access, shop, or track deliveries | Restored, but delays possible |
| Snapchat | Feeds, chats, and stories not loading | Fully restored |
| Roblox | Game servers down | Restored |
| Fortnite (Epic Games) | Online gameplay and store issues | Restored |
| Zoom | Video calls and meetings disrupted | Restored, some delays |
| Duolingo | Lessons and streaks inaccessible (progress saved) | Restored |
| Signal | Messages not sending | Restored |
| Coinbase / Robinhood | Crypto/stock trading halted | Restored |
| Alexa / Ring | Voice assistant and cameras offline | Partially restored |
| United / Delta Airlines | Apps and check-in systems down | Restored, airport queues (e.g., LaGuardia, Newark) |
| McDonald’s app | Ordering and payments | Restored |
| Canva / Reddit / Hulu | Editing, posting, streaming issues | Restored |
| ChatGPT / Perplexity | AI responses delayed | Restored |
- In Russia and CIS: Complaints about Snapchat, Zoom, Fortnite, and banking apps (e.g., via Verizon-like services). Users in Moscow and St. Petersburg reported issues starting at 11:00 AM MSK.
Consequences
- Economic Impact: Losses estimated in billions of dollars. Airlines canceled flights, banks paused transactions, and gamers lost sessions.
- Reactions: Elon Musk highlighted X’s stability, as it doesn’t rely on AWS. EU regulators called for “digital sovereignty” to reduce dependence on giants like Amazon.
- Comparison: Similar to the 2024 CrowdStrike outage but shorter (7–8 hours vs. a full day). The last major AWS outage was in 2021.
What Users Can Do
- Check the status on AWS Status Page or Downdetector.
- If issues persist, try clearing app cache or switching networks.
- For critical services (e.g., banking, travel), contact providers directly for updates.
