At 8:30 AM today (Nov 18, 2025), ChatGPT stopped working.
So did Auth0 and SendGrid and so many others.
Here's the weird part: None of them run on Cloudflare.
So why did Cloudflare's outage take them all down?
The Hidden Dependency Problem
Think about your tech stack for a second.
You use Auth0 for authentication, right? Or Okta FGA? Or some other auth provider?
Here's what you might not know:
Your app → Auth0 → Cloudflare (for DDoS protection)
When Cloudflare went down for 3.5 hours today, Auth0 couldn't serve authentication requests reliably.
Which means your users couldn't log in.
Which means your app was effectively offline.
You never signed a contract with Cloudflare. You probably didn't even know Auth0 used them.
But you were completely dependent on them anyway.
That's a hidden dependency.
Your Tech Stack is an Iceberg
You see the 10% above water:
But 90% is underwater:
- Auth0 uses Cloudflare for DDoS protection
- Stripe runs on AWS infrastructure
- SendGrid routes through Google Cloud Platform
- Your CDN caches content on Cloudflare's network
- Your analytics tool depends on Google Cloud Platform
One provider fails. Everything cascades.
The Debug Mode Time Sink
Here's what actually happens when your service goes down:
Users start complaining. Your team jumps into debug mode.
2–3 engineers spend 15–20 minutes digging:
"Is it our servers?" → Nope, all green
"Is it the database?" → Running fine
"Is it our code?" → Lets look at the recent deploys
"Nothing seems to pop." → Code looks ok normal
"What about Auth0?" → Hmm, looks like there are issues
"Hold on, I just read on X that Cloudflare is having issues" → There it is.
15–20 minutes wasted hunting for the problem in a part of your stack that had no problem
Now imagine getting a notification the moment Cloudflare went down: "Cloudflare has a major outage."
Problem identified in 5 seconds.
That's what Statusfield does. The issue is presented to you - not buried in a haystack.
How to Protect Yourself (Takes 3 Minutes)
Step 1: List Your Critical Services
Write down your 5–10 most important services:
- Payment processor (Stripe)
- Auth provider (Auth0, Okta)
- Email service (SendGrid, Mailgun, Resend)
- SMS provider (Twilio)
- Infrastructure (AWS, Vercel)
Step 2: Monitor the Infrastructure
Don't just monitor your services. Monitor the providers that your services depend on:
When they go down, you'll know immediately - not 20 minutes later when your users start complaining.
Proactive vs Reactive: The Reality Check
Here's how different teams found out about today's outage:
👎 Customer complaints - 15–30 minutes (already behind, customers angry)
👎 Twitter/Downdetector - 10–20 minutes (chaotic, unreliable)
👎 Manual status checks - 20–45 minutes (way too slow)
🎉 Proactive monitoring - 1–2 minutes (in control, ready to respond)
Teams with proactive monitoring knew at 8:31 AM and posted status updates by 8:35 AM.
Their teams never panicked because they knew exactly what was happening.
Everyone else? Still investigating at 9:00 AM, wondering why the support queue was exploding.
The Pattern You Need to See
June 2025: Google Cloud Platform goes down → 100+ services offline
October 2025: AWS us-east-1 goes down → 100+ services offline
November 2025: Cloudflare goes down → 100+ services offline
Notice a pattern?
The services that went down weren't the ones having the problem.
They were just dependent on the ones that were.
What to Do Right Now
Don't wait for the next outage to catch you off guard.
Action items (do these today):
Map your dependencies
List critical services → Check their infrastructure → Document itMonitor the providers with Statusfield
Monitor all the important services you use to operate your businessSet up instant alerts
Whatever gets your attention in under 2 minutesBuild a response playbook
What do you do when you get the alert? Post status update? Notify support team? Have a plan.
You can't prevent AWS or Cloudflare from going down, but you can know about it before your customers start complaining.
That's the difference between proactive and reactive.
The Bottom Line
Infrastructure will fail. It's not if, but when.
You can't control Cloudflare's uptime. You can't control AWS's reliability, but you can control how fast you know about it. And in a world where customer trust is everything, being first to know matters.
Your customers will forgive an outage.
They'll be less forgiving if they find out from Twitter while you're still "investigating."
Ready to Stop Flying Blind?
Statusfield monitors 2,000+ services and sends you instant alerts when outages happen. Monitored services include:
- Cloudflare, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Stripe, Auth0, Twilio, SendGrid + 1000 more. All the important dependencies your business relies on.
👉 Start monitoring your dependencies now
Have questions? Connect with us at support@statusfield.com
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