AWS outages takes most of the internet with it — Zoom, Slack, and even Fortnite go down

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Many popular online services, including Slack, Zoom, and even Wordle, are currently experiencing outages. The problem stems from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the server platform that powers a large portion of the internet. AWS is reporting higher than usual error rates, causing widespread disruptions for users.

As an analyst, I’ve been monitoring the situation, and tools like Downdetector are reflecting the same issues we’re seeing. Interestingly, we’re starting to see potential signs of recovery – either because the problems are actually resolving, or because fewer people are reporting them. The drop in ‘pings’ on these dashboards could indicate either scenario, so we’re continuing to investigate.

Even popular apps and games, like Snapchat and Fortnite, can unexpectedly stop working when Amazon Web Services (AWS) has problems. This highlights how dependent many of the world’s most-used apps are on AWS, revealing a potential weakness in their reliability.

It’s a bit ironic that even Reddit, a massive social media site, relies on AWS, meaning searches for “why is [service] down reddit” often reveal the same problems. However, Amazon’s engineers quickly responded and are working to fix the issue and find out what caused it, so the outages are expected to be resolved within a few hours.

Fortnite players are currently having trouble logging in due to a widespread internet outage. Our team is looking into the issue and will share updates as soon as we have them. (October 20, 2025)

How long will AWS be down?

Amazon says they’ll keep providing updates on this issue until they have more details, or by 2:00 AM Eastern Time. This timeframe applies specifically to the US-East-1 region.

Are any Microsoft services affected?

Microsoft’s services – like Microsoft 365, Copilot, and apps for Windows 11 – mostly operate on Microsoft’s own Azure servers. Because these servers use a separate network from Amazon Web Services (AWS), any outages on AWS wouldn’t affect Microsoft’s services. Currently, everything is functioning as expected.

As a tech person, I’m happy to say that most of what we do at Windows Central hasn’t been impacted by the recent AWS issues – just a few tools that help us work faster. Right now, it seems like the biggest effect is for folks in the US who are up late, or those in Europe who connect to our US-based servers. Things might feel a little slower for you if that’s the case.

Besides Slack, Grammarly – a helpful spelling and grammar tool for computers and phones – is also currently unavailable. I only rely on it occasionally while writing, but like other AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, the problems with Amazon Web Services (AWS) made it unusable this morning.

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2025-10-20 12:11