Reddit Hit by Global Outage as AWS Disruption Sends Shockwaves Across the Internet

Reddit Down: The Anatomy of a Massive Outage

On October 20, 2025, millions of internet users woke up to find Reddit and dozens of other popular platforms suddenly inaccessible. The culprit? A sweeping outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the backbone of much of today’s online infrastructure. What started as a technical hiccup in one of AWS’s core systems quickly became a global crisis, rippling across apps, websites, and even essential services.

How AWS Became the Web’s Achilles’ Heel

AWS isn’t just another cloud provider—it’s the digital engine room powering platforms from Reddit to Ring, Starbucks to Snapchat. Early that morning, AWS’s DynamoDB, a critical database service often described as the “digital phonebook” of the internet, began to falter. Tom’s Guide reports that this issue led to error rates spiking and data requests stalling, leaving users unable to load pages or log in to their favorite services.

As the outage unfolded, Down Detector—a website tracking real-time outages—logged a tidal wave of complaints. At its peak, Reddit alone saw over 9,000 outage reports, with users split between app failures and website crashes. The effects weren’t limited to entertainment: banking apps, payment systems, and even government services in the UK struggled, as AWS’s tentacles reach far beyond social media.

The Domino Effect: Reddit’s Struggle and Recovery

Reddit’s troubles began around 5am EST, right as AWS engineers were scrambling to identify and resolve the underlying issues. Initial attempts to fix the problem targeted the DNS system—the digital address book that helps route traffic across the internet. Once Amazon deployed a fix, some services began to recover, but Reddit remained stubbornly unreliable. According to its own status page, the platform was suffering from “degraded performance,” with many users unable to access posts, comments, or even the homepage.

Other platforms, from Wordle to Snapchat, experienced similar instability. For some, the fix applied by AWS worked like a light switch—services snapped back online. For Reddit, however, the recovery was more like a slow sunrise, with lingering glitches and intermittent outages continuing for hours.

Inside the Numbers: Who Was Affected?

The scale of the outage was staggering. BBC cited over 1,000 companies affected globally, with Down Detector recording 6.5 million outage reports. Services hit included:

• Reddit (both app and website)
• Snapchat, Venmo, Ring, Starbucks
• Gaming platforms like Fortnite, Roblox, Epic Games Store
• Streaming services: Disney+, Prime Video, Hulu
• Financial services: Coinbase, Square, online banking
• Government portals and telecoms in the UK

For Reddit users, the outage was especially frustrating. Some could access the desktop website, but the mobile app remained down. Others faced error messages, slow loading times, or failed logins. The disruption wasn’t just a momentary inconvenience—it highlighted just how dependent the internet has become on a few critical infrastructure providers.

Why Did AWS Fail—and How Was It Fixed?

The core issue lay in AWS’s DynamoDB and related DNS services. When these systems hiccuped, it was as if someone had scrambled the internet’s map, sending data packets down the wrong roads or stalling them entirely. Engineers quickly diagnosed the problem and began deploying fixes region by region, focusing on North Virginia (US-EAST-1), which serves as a hub for countless global services.

As AWS rolled out repairs, the situation improved. Outage reports dropped, first for some services, then for others. Reddit’s own status page marked progress, but not a full recovery. The technical challenge wasn’t just fixing a broken server—it was clearing a backlog of delayed requests and ensuring all dependent services could safely reconnect.

What This Means for Users and Businesses

For everyday users, the outage was a reminder of how fragile digital life can be. A single point of failure in a vast network can cascade into hours of downtime, missed connections, and lost productivity. For businesses, the stakes are even higher. Payment systems were disrupted, causing duplicate charges and failed transactions. As Monica Eaton, CEO of Chargebacks911, noted, “When AWS sneezes, half the internet catches the flu.” The fallout from failed payments and broken confirmation pages will be felt for weeks, as merchants scramble to resolve disputes and reassure customers.

Is Reddit Back? The Latest Status

By midday, Reddit’s status page signaled a tentative recovery. The website became operational, though some users still reported slowdowns and intermittent errors. The mobile app lagged behind, but signs of improvement appeared as AWS continued to apply fixes. Meanwhile, other platforms—Ring, Chime, Zoom, Apple Music—followed a similar trajectory, slowly returning to normal as engineers worked through the backlog.

For now, most of Reddit’s core functionality is restored, but the episode serves as a cautionary tale. Outages at cloud giants like AWS don’t just knock out one site—they can send shockwaves across the entire digital ecosystem.

The Big Picture: Lessons from the Outage

This incident underscores the internet’s increasing centralization. When a platform as critical as AWS stumbles, the effects are felt everywhere—from casual gaming to financial transactions and even government portals. The outage also highlights the need for robust backup systems, better transparency from service providers, and more resilient architectures. As the digital world grows more interconnected, the risks of widespread outages rise in tandem.

For Reddit users, today’s outage was disruptive but not catastrophic. For businesses and engineers, it’s a prompt to reconsider how services are built, hosted, and protected. The question isn’t whether outages will happen again—but how prepared we’ll be when they do.

Today’s outage revealed both the power and the vulnerability of centralized cloud infrastructure. As AWS engineers raced against the clock, millions felt the impact in real time. While most services—including Reddit—are now back online, this event is a wake-up call for the entire digital world: resilience, transparency, and contingency planning aren’t optional—they’re essential.