GitHub Goes Dark
GitHub, the leading platform for version control and collaboration, has faced yet another round of disruptions over the past few days. Despite an official statement resolving several incidents, users are still encountering issues today.
This latest string of service interruptions, which began on November 19, 2025, has affected a range of GitHub's core features, including GitHub Actions and performance across other services like Codespaces and Copilot. The frequent outages and degrading service quality have left many developers frustrated, especially as the platform continues to struggle with scaling and reliability.
GitHub's November 2025 incidents report details degraded performance for several of its services, with GitHub Actions experiencing significant latency between November 19th and 21st. This issue resulted in excessive delays in queuing and updating workflow runs, job statuses, and related operations like artifacts and cache management. Despite a resolution, the impact was considerable, as 67% of workflow jobs queued during the downtime were affected, and the median latency for operations increased by 35x. Statistics come directly from GitHub Incident History.
Ongoing Disruptions and Response
The platform has faced connection issues, service outages with Codespaces, and problems with GitHub Enterprise Importer. The increasing frequency of these disruptions raises concerns over GitHub's ability to provide the consistent and reliable service developers have come to expect. All coming off the back of the recent Windows 11's issues too.
In response to these persistent issues, GitHub has attributed much of the trouble to their current data center constraints, with scaling issues being a major bottleneck. GitHub’s infrastructure is increasingly struggling to keep up with the growing demands of modern AI-powered workflows, including services like GitHub Copilot. Which doesn't bode well for Microsoft's Windows 11 "agentic AI" push.
The Push to Migrate to Azure: Is It the Solution?
The growing number of disruptions has prompted GitHub to shift its focus towards migrating its entire infrastructure to Azure, Microsoft’s cloud service. According to a recent article from The New Stack, this shift comes at the cost of feature development, as GitHub prioritizes migration over new updates. GitHub’s CTO, Vladimir Fedorov, mentioned that the company’s data center in Virginia has reached its limits, and scaling is essential to meet the explosive demand from tools like Copilot and AI-driven services.
GitHub’s migration to Azure is planned to be completed within 24 months, with 18 months to complete the major transition, including a buffer period for contingencies. This major move, however, has sparked concern among GitHub’s internal teams, as the migration could lead to further outages and reliability issues due to the challenges involved in transitioning complex infrastructure, such as MySQL clusters, to a cloud-based environment. This is has been echoed in user spaces on platforms such as Reddit.
Interestingly, GitHub had already begun the transition, but some parts of the migration, such as Project Proxima, which focuses on data residency for GitHub’s enterprise users in Europe, have been slow and sometimes failed. Despite these challenges, GitHub believes that the migration is essential for scaling its service and meeting the demands of AI and developer workflows in the future.
The Growing Pains of Integration with Microsoft
The shift to Azure comes as GitHub, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2018, is more deeply integrating into the tech giant’s organizational structure. This deeper integration became more apparent after the departure of GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke earlier this year. GitHub is now under closer oversight from Microsoft, and the decision to prioritize infrastructure migration to Azure over new features reflects Microsoft’s larger strategy of aligning GitHub more closely with its cloud services.
While the migration is crucial for the future growth of GitHub, it has not been without its issues. In fact, recent outages at GitHub have been directly tied to the current infrastructure's inability to scale with increasing workloads. As GitHub works to move off its data centers, the transition to Azure could lead to more frequent service disruptions as systems move between environments.
Moreover, the increasing reliance on Microsoft Azure for GitHub's operations has raised concerns within the developer community. Some users have expressed unease about GitHub’s integration with Microsoft’s broader cloud ecosystem, particularly in light of Microsoft's growing dominance in the cloud space. There are also privacy and data security concerns about moving GitHub even closer to Microsoft’s control, with some developers fearing that AI-driven systems and cloud dependencies could compromise their data and the integrity of open-source contributions.
Will GitHub's Move to Azure Solve the Issues?
While Azure migration offers GitHub the opportunity to scale more effectively, the growing number of service outages suggests that the current infrastructure is simply not up to the task. With AI workflows, GitHub Actions, and other critical services requiring more resources than ever before, the company’s ongoing reliance on outdated infrastructure is contributing to the disruptions but Azure itself has also had a series of outages recently. Perhaps indicating a larger issue at Microsoft than we're being lead to believe.
GitHub's plan to focus on migration while delaying feature development reflects an urgent need to address these scaling and performance issues. However, the question remains will this move to Azure truly solve GitHub’s reliability problems, or will it lead to a new set of challenges?
As GitHub continues to integrate further into Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem, the platform faces a precarious balancing act. Developers rely on GitHub for stability, performance, and open-source collaboration, and every disruption chips away at the trust that the platform has built over the years.
Looking Forward
For now, GitHub users will likely have to endure some growing pains, and occasional hiccups, as the platform undergoes this major infrastructure shift. While Azure migration is essential for GitHub’s future, the frequent outages and slow service recovery are a reminder that reliability remains a top priority. Developers and organizations will be closely watching to see whether this move leads to a more stable GitHub experience or if the platform's deepening integration into Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem will further complicate its reliability. For self-hosting and homebrew individuals, perhaps now is the time to build an Open Source alternative to GitHub or launch a decentralised GitLab instance? Something to consider given CVX is decentralised and does well so far with our in-house solutions, but for the not-so-tech-savvy, this isn't always realistic.
GitHub’s infrastructure issues are far from being resolved that is remains clear, and the decision to prioritize migration to Azure over new feature development means that users may continue to experience service disruptions for the foreseeable future especially with Microsoft's Azure team having their own issues. As AI workflows and cloud-dependent features like GitHub Actions grow in importance, it’s crucial for GitHub to address its scaling issues and improve performance. Only time will tell if Azure can provide the stability and scalability that GitHub needs, or if the ongoing disruptions will further alienate its users.
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