On 5 December 2025, Cloudflare reported a global service issue affecting its Dashboard, APIs, and network performance. Because Shopify relies heavily on Cloudflare’s edge network for security, CDN delivery, and traffic routing, this outage created noticeable issues for Shopify merchants worldwide.
If your Shopify store has been slow, glitchy, or showing errors, this outage is the reason — and thousands of businesses were affected, not just yours.
In this blog, we break down what happened, how it impacts Shopify stores, and what you should do next.
What Caused the Shopify Issues Today?
Cloudflare confirmed that they are investigating problems with their Dashboard and related APIs, resulting in:
- Failed requests
- Slow API responses
- Temporary unavailability of dashboards
- Errors across services using Cloudflare’s edge network
Because Shopify’s infrastructure integrates Cloudflare for:
- Web application firewall (WAF)
- Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Edge caching
- Bot protection
- Outbound/inbound API requests
any disruption at Cloudflare’s end naturally affects Shopify performance.
How the Cloudflare Outage Affected Shopify Stores
Many Shopify merchants saw the following issues during the incident:
1. Shopify Admin Becoming Slow or Unresponsive
Cloudflare API disruptions affect internal Shopify tools as well, making:
- Product updates slow
- Inventory changes delayed
- App dashboards break
2. Checkout Failures or Long Loading Times
Some customers may have experienced:
- Checkout pages loading slowly
- “Something went wrong” messages
- Payments stalling or timing out
3. Apps Not Working
Popular Shopify apps rely on Cloudflare APIs for:
- Search results
- Reviews
- Email pop-ups
- Inventory sync
- Feed management
These services may have temporarily stopped working.
4. Higher Latency in Certain Regions
Due to maintenance in the DTW (Detroit) datacenter, traffic was rerouted, causing slight delays for US-based users in particular.
Is Shopify Down?
Shopify itself is not down, but its performance was impacted because Cloudflare — a key infrastructure partner — experienced a global outage.
This is similar to when:
- AWS outages affect apps
- Meta outages affect Instagram
- Akamai outages affect major websites
Cloudflare sits at the core of Shopify’s security and traffic routing, so any disruption cascades downstream.
Should Shopify Merchants Be Worried?
No.
This was a temporary Cloudflare issue, not a problem with your store.
Your products, orders, customer data, and settings remain safe. Once Cloudflare resolves the issue, Shopify performance automatically returns to normal — with no action needed from merchants.
What Shopify Store Owners Should Do Right Now
1. Avoid making theme edits
Publishing theme changes during an edge network outage may cause caching inconsistencies.
2. Communicate calmly with customers
If customers report slow checkout or issues, use this simple message:
“There is a temporary global outage affecting Cloudflare, which powers parts of Shopify’s infrastructure. Your order is safe — everything will return to normal shortly.”
3. Wait for Cloudflare’s final resolution
Cloudflare updates their system status as they fix the issue. Performance should stabilise soon.
4. Monitor Shopify Admin carefully
When Cloudflare recovers, you’ll see:
- Faster loading
- Apps reconnecting
- Webhooks catching up
- Checkout running smoothly
Why Cloudflare Issues Impact so Many Websites
Cloudflare is one of the largest internet infrastructure companies globally, powering:
- 20%+ of the world’s web traffic
- Millions of websites and APIs
- Security and performance services
When Cloudflare experiences issues, the impact is felt worldwide — even on platforms as large as Shopify.
Final Thoughts: Cloudflare Outage 2025 & Shopify Impact
Today’s Cloudflare outage briefly disrupted Shopify performance, causing:
- Slow admin response
- Checkout delays
- App errors
- Intermittent storefront issues
However, this was not a Shopify failure — it was a third-party infrastructure hiccup. As Cloudflare completes their fix, store performance will normalise automatically.
If you’re a merchant, the best action is simply:
- Stay patient
- Avoid major changes
- Keep customers reassured
Outages like this happen occasionally, but they rarely last long.
