October 20, 2025, 1:26 pm | Read time: 2 minutes
On October 20, 2025, massive issues occurred worldwide with numerous web services, triggered by disruptions at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Affected were Amazon, Prime Video, the voice assistant Alexa, and the payment service Venmo, among others. Users reported loading errors, interrupted streams, and unresponsive voice commands.
As reported by “Golem,” the disruption impacted many other online services that operate their infrastructure via AWS. Particularly in North America, there were outages and long loading times. Amazon has since announced that most systems are running stably again and the issues have largely been resolved.
Numerous Services Affected
According to “Bild,” the effects extended far beyond Amazon: Other major tech companies also felt the impact. The AI start-up Perplexity and the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported temporary outages and blamed AWS for the problems. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Perplexity is currently unavailable. The cause is an issue with AWS. We are working to resolve it.”
Even the encrypted messenger Signal was temporarily offline. Snapchat was also affected, with users in Germany unable to properly access the popular app.
Cause and Current Status
According to a status update on the AWS website, there were increased error rates and long loading times in the US-EAST-1 region. The company has since identified the cause and initiated initial countermeasures. These have already shown effects, AWS stated, so most services are running stably again.
The disruption once again highlights how heavily the global internet infrastructure depends on the cloud services of a few providers—and how far-reaching the consequences are when one of them falters.