Click to watchA massive outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) has knocked several major platforms offline, including Snapchat, Amazon.com, and McDonald’s online ordering systems, in what has become one of the most disruptive cloud service incidents of 2025.
The outage, which began in the US-East-1 region, triggered widespread connectivity failures across multiple continents, including Africa. AWS confirmed it was experiencing “increased error rates and latency” across several of its core services, with the issue traced to its DynamoDB APIs. The company said it had “identified a potential root cause” and was working on parallel recovery paths to restore stability.
Social media platform Snapchat was among the most visible casualties, with millions of users unable to send or receive messages globally. Reports from Downdetector showed a surge in complaints from South Africa, the U.S., and Europe.
Amazon’s retail site, Prime Video, and Alexa voice assistant also faced major disruptions, while McDonald’s digital ordering services, which rely on AWS-hosted cloud infrastructure for mobile and kiosk transactions, went offline in several regions, temporarily halting online orders and app-based promotions.
The ripple effect extended to other global platforms such as Fortnite, Roblox, Zoom, Canva, Robinhood, Venmo, and Chime, highlighting the heavy reliance of modern internet services on AWS.
AWS powers thousands of companies worldwide, offering cloud computing, storage, and database infrastructure. The outage increases growing concerns over the internet’s dependence on a handful of cloud providers, namely Amazon, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
In South Africa, users reported interruptions on Slack, Trello, and Duolingo, disrupting business operations and online learning. BBC reports also noted that some international banks experienced temporary system failures tied to the same AWS incident.
Technology analysts say the event mirrors the CrowdStrike-Microsoft crash of 2024, which brought down millions of PCs globally and cost businesses an estimated $6 billion in losses. Monday’s AWS outage has revived calls for greater cloud diversity and infrastructure resilience in an increasingly centralised internet ecosystem.
As of now, AWS said it was continuing recovery efforts and “closely monitoring the health of affected systems.”
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