A widespread internet disruption linked to Cloudflare left several major digital platforms facing temporary outages on Thursday, underscoring the fragility of the internet’s global infrastructure and raising fresh concerns about centralized dependencies on content delivery networks (CDNs). According to a report titled “Cloudflare Down Again: Zerodha, Groww, Canva Among Platforms Hit” published by StartupNews.fyi, the downtime affected a range of services across industries, including financial platforms like Zerodha and Groww, as well as design tool Canva.
Cloudflare, a prominent web infrastructure and security company that powers and protects millions of websites, experienced what it described as “operational instability” earlier in the day. Although service was gradually restored within hours, the incident disrupted access for users across several geographies and further fueled debate about the risks arising from reliance on a small number of firms to support the basic operations of vast portions of the internet.
Startups and established businesses alike felt the impact as user-facing applications stalled and support teams scrambled to manage a surge in complaints. Groww, a popular investment app, acknowledged the service disruption via social media, attributing the temporary unavailability to broader backend issues beyond their immediate control. Similarly, Canva users encountered loading errors and were unable to access their design dashboards during the peak of the outage.
In financial markets, even brief outages can bear consequences. Zerodha, one of India’s leading online brokerage firms, confirmed an interruption in platform availability and cautioned users about potential delays in trade execution. While no substantial financial losses were immediately reported, the incident renewed calls for robust failover systems in the fintech space, especially at a time of increasing retail participation in the stock market.
Cloudflare itself has had a series of service disruptions in recent years, though it maintains that such incidents remain relatively rare given the scale of its global operations. The company characterized Thursday’s problem as a network performance issue related to “configuration anomalies,” though it has not yet released a full root cause analysis.
This latest episode has reignited discussions about the structural vulnerabilities in internet architecture. With organizations heavily reliant on third-party cloud and CDN services for uptime and security, any point of failure in these systems can ripple outward with significant consequences. Experts suggest that while platforms enjoy the scalability and resilience of cloud services under normal conditions, they often underestimate the systemic risks of centralization.
For businesses, the incident serves as yet another cautionary reminder of the importance of redundancy planning. As reliance on web infrastructure providers intensifies, especially in sectors like banking, e-commerce, and public services, ensuring uninterrupted access through contingency strategies will be increasingly paramount.
While services have since returned to normal, Cloudflare indicated it is conducting a thorough internal review to prevent future disruptions. A more detailed post-mortem is expected in the coming days. In the meantime, affected platforms are monitoring systems closely, bracing against the potential erosion of user trust in the event of recurring outages.
