A massive outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) disrupted much of the internet on Monday, temporarily taking down Snapchat, Canva, Alexa, Robinhood, and Fortnite, among other popular platforms.
Millions of users across the US, UK, and Europe reported connection issues, login errors, and app failures — highlighting how dependent global online services have become on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure.
What Happened
The disruption began early Monday morning in AWS’s US-East-1 region, one of Amazon’s largest and most widely used data hubs. According to AWS, the issue was caused by a fault in its Domain Name System (DNS), which led to elevated error rates and downtime across major cloud services, including DynamoDB, EC2, and Lambda.
Within minutes, user complaints surged across platforms like Downdetector, as websites and apps slowed to a crawl or went completely offline. By midday, AWS engineers said the root cause had been “mitigated,” and most affected services were gradually restored.
Snapchat Among the Hardest Hit
For millions of Snapchat users, the outage meant blank chats, failed message sends, and frozen Stories. The company confirmed that “a third-party service issue” — widely believed to be AWS — had caused the disruption.
The downtime lasted several hours in some regions, prompting frustrated users to flood social media with hashtags like #SnapchatDown and #AWSOutage, both of which trended globally on X (formerly Twitter).
Canva Users Locked Out of Designs
The outage also impacted Canva, the popular online graphic-design platform used by creators, students, and businesses worldwide. Users were unable to load projects, export designs, or access their brand kits during the downtime.
Canva’s status page confirmed that the issue stemmed from external infrastructure failures, and that its engineering teams were “monitoring recovery closely.” The disruption served as a reminder of how reliant creative professionals have become on cloud-based design tools.
Other Platforms Impacted
The ripple effects extended across industries:
- Amazon Alexa and Ring devices lost connectivity.
- Fortnite, Roblox, and several online gaming platforms went down.
- Robinhood, Coinbase, and Venmo users faced transaction errors.
- Duolingo, Perplexity AI, and Canva experienced significant slowdowns.
Even Amazon’s retail website briefly displayed checkout and sign-in issues, showing how deeply the outage affected Amazon’s own ecosystem.
AWS Responds
In a statement, AWS confirmed: “We experienced increased error rates in our US-East-1 Region due to DNS resolution issues. The problem has been fully resolved, and all systems are operating normally.”
The company added that a full post-incident report will be published soon, detailing what went wrong and how similar disruptions will be prevented in the future.
Monday’s AWS outage was a stark reminder that even the world’s most powerful cloud network isn’t immune to failure. From Snapchat users unable to chat to Canva designers unable to work, the incident proved that the modern web stands on fragile foundations — and that cloud resilience is no longer optional, it’s essential.
