When many popular websites suddenly went down on 18 November 2025 at 11:20 UTC (16:50 IST) because of a Cloudflare outage, it reminded us of one important fact: a large part of the global internet quietly runs on a few key infrastructure companies, and Cloudflare is one of the biggest among them.
What Does Cloudflare Actually Do
Cloudflare provides tools and systems that help websites load faster, stay secure, and handle heavy traffic. It operates hundreds of data centres in more than 100 countries. These centres process traffic close to the user instead of sending everything back to faraway servers. This is known as edge computing.
On an average day, Cloudflare handles around 81 million HTTP requests every second, which shows how deeply its technology is embedded across the internet.
How Many Websites Use Cloudflare
Independent reports say Cloudflare is used by about 20% of all websites worldwide as a reverse proxy.
A reverse proxy sits between the user and the website’s server. It filters requests, improves security, and speeds up loading.
Among websites that use some form of reverse proxy or CDN, Cloudflare’s presence is even stronger over 80% of them using Cloudflare. Major Companies Depending on Cloudflare
Many well-known global platforms rely on Cloudflare’s network. Public data shows this list includes:
- PayPal
- Shopify
- Discord
- Vimeo
- ChatGPT
- X (formerly Twitter)
In India, too, major brands like Titan, Air India, and HDFC use Cloudflare services.
This means Cloudflare is not just supporting small blogs, and it is also powering enterprise-level websites that handle massive daily traffic.
Why Does an Outage Hit So Many Websites at Once
Cloudflare has data centres in over 200 cities. Because so many websites route their traffic through this shared network, any disruption at Cloudflare affects countless unrelated services across the world. This week’s outage clearly showed this. When Cloudflare goes down or misconfigures something, the impact spreads quickly and widely.
This does not mean the entire internet literally runs on Cloudflare. But Cloudflare’s share is large enough that its stability directly affects a big portion of online services.
The Risk of Over-Dependence
The internet is designed to be decentralised. But in recent years, more websites have started depending on a small set of companies for hosting, security, DNS, and CDNs.
Academic studies have highlighted that:
- Only a handful of companies control a major part of the internet infrastructure.
- When one of them faces issues, it creates a ripple effect across the web.
Cloudflare’s huge scale makes it both powerful and risky. Its reliability is now directly tied to the smooth functioning of modern online life.
Thoughts of Praveen Veerapogu
The Cloudflare outage shows how interconnected the internet has become. For regular users, it becomes a reminder that even though the internet feels vast, a few key companies keep it running efficiently. I see personally that most of the content creators were using Cloudflare services for their blogs and websites.
For businesses and engineers, it’s a lesson in building more resilience and reducing over-dependence on single infrastructure providers.
