this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2025
103 points (99.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

35719 readers
1362 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

We seriously need to differentiate servers, otherwise the decentralization is useless.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] reallyzen@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Cloudflare outage. A few hours ago.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Someone in another post showed a decent site that shows cloudflare dependency, so I threw the top 35 actives from observer into it. It's honestly not as bad as I expected it would be, but it is concerning.

Lemmylemmy.world(Active Users: 14512): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

sh.itjust.works(Active Users: 2509): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

lemmy.ml(Active Users: 2087): Cloudflare? No

lemmy.zip(Active Users: 1704): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

lemmy.dbzer0.com(Active Users: 1444): Cloudflare? No

lemmy.ca(Active Users: 1381): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

lemmygrad.ml(Active Users: 972): Cloudflare? No

lemmy.blahaj.zone(Active Users: 956): Cloudflare? No

programming.dev(Active Users: 929): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

discuss.tchncs.de(Active Users: 778): Cloudflare? No

sopuli.xyz(Active Users: 596): Cloudflare? No

slrpnk.net(Active Users: 371): Cloudflare? No

infosec.pub(Active Users: 331): Cloudflare? No

lemmy.today(Active Users: 314): Cloudflare? No

midwest.social(Active Users: 307): Cloudflare? No

reddthat.com(Active Users: 292): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

feddit.nl(Active Users: 290): Cloudflare? No

pawb.social(Active Users: 243): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

forum.guncadindex.com(Active Users: 234): Cloudflare? No

mander.xyz(Active Users: 194): Cloudflare? No

lemmings.world(Active Users: 177): Cloudflare? No

ani.social(Active Users: 173): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

feddit.it(Active Users: 158): Cloudflare? No

startrek.website(Active Users: 156): Cloudflare? No

feddit.dk(Active Users: 151): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,cname)

leminal.space(Active Users: 126): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

ttrpg.network(Active Users: 125): Cloudflare? No

szmer.info(Active Users: 116): Cloudflare? No

lemmy.eco.br(Active Users: 99): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,proxy,cname)

lemy.lol(Active Users: 97): Cloudflare? Yes(dns,cname)

awful.systems(Active Users: 90): Cloudflare? No

[–] davidgro@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I think you missed the second biggest instance (at least it was a while back.)

lemmynsfw.com is using Cloudflare DNS, CDN/Proxy

Edit:
Also noticed:
checkforcloudflare.selesti.com is using Cloudflare DNS, CDN/Proxy.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

I used observer and sorted by active users, so maybe fediverse observer doesn't host the instance due to the NSFW? idk

[–] Tangent5280@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Not the goonercave too, Say it ain't so.

[–] Cricket@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It looks like that source also didn't list hexbear.net, which seems to be around the 5th or 6th largest Lemmy instance, at 1.57k monthly active users. Results from the site you linked (thanks, by the way) say that they use Cloudflare for DNS but not for CDN/Proxy/SSL.

Hexbear and lemmynsfw aren't listed on fedidb either, which leads me to believe that they must block whatever discovery mechanism is being used by these fedi stats sites.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

Yea that would make sense, if that endpoint is blocked then it wouldn't be added.

[–] iii@mander.xyz 17 points 1 week ago

Everything looked fine to me. I'm on mander.xyz

[–] cheeseburger@piefed.ca 17 points 1 week ago

dbzer0 was not affected and even had a post about it.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Piefed was down. Or at least piefed.social.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah it uses cloudflare for a number of services if I recall.

[–] MalReynolds@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

FWIW I switched VPN egress to Singapore (I have two egress points up permanently and switch with foxyproxy) and was up again immediately.

[–] ladel@feddit.uk 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I didn't notice anything on feddit.uk

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 3 points 1 week ago

Nor feddit.nl

[–] tal@lemmy.today 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I mean, it's easy to check whether a given instance is using CloudFlare.

$ host lemmy.world|head -n1
lemmy.world has address 104.26.9.209
$ whois 104.26.9.209|grep ^NetName
NetName:        CLOUDFLARENET
$

You can browse anonymously on any instance that permits doing so, so if you just want to browse during an outage, you can do that anywhere.

IMHO, having an account on a second Threadiverse instance isn't necessarily a terrible idea, not just because of CloudFlare outages, but because instances do have outages for various reasons. I have an account on olio.cafe (PieFed, not on CloudFlare) and on lemmy.today (Lemmy, not on CloudFlare) because I wanted to try out PieFed, and I have fallen back to that to post before if lemmy.today has issues.

That being said, I didn't intentionally try to avoid CloudFlare. I mean, they're used by a lot of major sites, and I don't expect them to have a lot of downtime. I mean, every Threadiverse instance has had downtime for some reason or another. I've had Internet outages, as well as electricity outages. Not all that common or usually an extended thing, but they happen.

[–] yessikg@fedia.io 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure fedia.io was up the whole time

[–] MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

When was the cloudflare outage? I saw the memes about it on Fedia, but I have no clue if it was ongoing at the time.

[–] yessikg@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Early this morning, from 6 am EST, I think

Thank you! I didn’t get to the web till sometime after 7 EST but it fedia was fine then.

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 10 points 1 week ago

lemmus.org was online the entire time.

I just moved my instance off of cloudflare, you’re all welcome to make an account here!

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This other post has some discussion: https://lemmy.ca/post/55386786

While the downtime was most active, most of the top instances were down. Lemmy.ml, feddit.org, discuss.tchncs.de and behaw.org were all up. You can use https://lemmyverse.net/ to browse things and the ones offline all show a “content error” in lemmyverse.

Here is a screenshot that @straycatstrut@discuss.tchncs.de took during the outage

[–] passepartout@feddit.org 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I just came home and learned about the outage. Still can't get the smirk of superiority out of my face from when I noticed my people were still able to shitpost in my absence.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

I appreciate that different teams are doing different things, I'll have to remember to drop by during the next cloudflare outage 😄

[–] MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Everything was down for me. Lemmy.ca using Voyager.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

We rely on Cloudflare for our instances, so unfortunately lemmy.ca, piefed.ca, and pixelfed.ca were all down during the outage

If anyone is curious, we've discussed why we use Cloudflare here: https://lemmy.ca/post/40252238/15009722

[–] karashta@piefed.social 7 points 1 week ago

sopuli.xyz and fedia.io both stayed up for me

[–] markz@suppo.fi 6 points 1 week ago

While you were away I was browsing cloudflare memes

[–] Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Slrpnk worked, I had to use that during the outage.

[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

sopuli.xyz didn't have any issues. At least I could access it at any time, I don't know if there is any lag in federation due to unavailability of other instances.

Another important consideration is that Cloudflare outage might have been regional. Same content could be available in one region but not in another. On the Cloudflare status page they mention issues with London specifically.

[–] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 5 points 1 week ago
[–] tux0r@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Then tell me which one. Because all of mine was offline.

[–] tux0r@feddit.org 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Mine (feddit.org) was not.

[–] MCTamTam@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago
[–] TheMinions@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Lemmy.world uses Cloudflare.

[–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yep. I kinda realize that.

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Say it with me again: your server does not need middlemen that can break your stuff whenever they feel like it.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

So, there are a couple of reasons to use CloudFlare, but I suspect that the reason that a lot of people are doing so is to deal with DDoSes, which are hard to deal with otherwise.

Like, my home instance, lemmy.today, doesn't use CloudFlare, so it isn't affected by a CloudFlare outage. But...it was also knocked offline for a few days about a month back by a DDoS.

A lot of major sites do depend on CloudFlare, so they probably aren't going to have a horrendous amount of downtime


like, any issue that comes up is probably gonna have a lot of engineers banging on it pretty quickly.

load more comments (2 replies)

Startrek.website :)

[–] Sergio@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago
  • piefed.social - down
  • lemmy.world - down
  • slrpnk.net - up
  • mastodon.social - up
[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

sh.itjust.works was down during it as well.

[–] baduhai@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago

sopuli.xyz was fine.

[–] DrDystopia@lemy.lol 3 points 1 week ago

My private archiving instance. But assuming there's still no users and federtion was broken, onlineity doesn't really matter.

[–] TheImpressiveX@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

Not Lemmy, but piefed.social was offline due to Cloudflare.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 1 week ago

You can monitor instance downtime at:

https://lestat.org/

[–] Limfjorden@feddit.dk 2 points 1 week ago

feddit.dk was unaffected.

[–] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

I just think clients should auto fail over to another instance. You should be able to pull posts from somewhere else but just be unable to post. No reason we can't pull posts though.

[–] AlexisFR@jlai.lu 1 points 1 week ago

Ours was ;)

load more comments
view more: next ›