Cloudflare
Infra / DevOps · Freemium
Overview
A company that runs a large global network sitting between websites and their visitors. Traffic to a site passes through Cloudflare first, which speeds it up by caching content close to users, blocks attacks and bad bots, and manages DNS. It was founded in 2009 by Matthew Prince, Lee Holloway, and Michelle Zatlyn, and is publicly traded. Over time it has grown from security and content delivery into a platform for running code, storing data, and replacing corporate VPNs. Cloudflare says its network reaches more than 340 cities and that 95 percent of the world's internet users are within 50 milliseconds of it.
What people use it for
Site owners put Cloudflare in front of a website for a faster load through its cache, protection from denial of service attacks, and a firewall against common web exploits. Companies use it as their DNS provider because it is fast and reliable for large zones. Developers build and run applications on Workers, its serverless platform, and store data in its object storage, databases, and key value stores. Teams replace a traditional VPN with Cloudflare Access, which checks each user and device before granting entry to internal apps. Businesses route all staff internet traffic through Cloudflare Gateway for filtering and monitoring. Developers host front end sites on Cloudflare Pages. Larger customers use it for load balancing, bot management, and email security across many domains.
Key capabilities
Cloudflare's CDN and denial of service protection are included at every plan tier, including the free one. Workers runs JavaScript, WebAssembly, and Python at the edge, deployed to every location at once with no cold start, with a free allowance of 100,000 requests a day. R2 is object storage that is compatible with Amazon S3 and charges no fee for reading data out, only for storage and operations. The developer platform also includes D1, a SQL database, KV and Durable Objects for state, Queues, Vectorize for embeddings, Workers AI for running models on edge GPUs, and Pages for hosting sites. Other products include the 1.1.1.1 public DNS resolver, a domain registrar that sells names at wholesale cost, Stream and Images for media, Turnstile as a CAPTCHA alternative, and Email Routing. Zero Trust products, Access, Gateway, WARP, and data loss prevention, are priced per user. The network spans hundreds of cities, carries more than 13,000 direct peering connections, and Cloudflare says it powers about one in five websites. Plans run from a free tier through Pro and Business at fixed monthly prices to custom Enterprise contracts.
Limitations
There is a steep jump between plans. The Business plan costs about ten times the Pro plan, and mid sized features like custom firewall rules and a real service level agreement sit behind that wall. Support is thin below Enterprise: free and Pro users rely on community forums and docs, live chat starts at Business, and phone support is Enterprise only. Some basic administrative features, such as user provisioning with SCIM, are Enterprise only and support only a couple of identity providers. Building on Workers, R2, and the rest ties an application to Cloudflare's platform, and moving off it later takes work. Enterprise pricing is quote only, which makes budgeting and comparison hard.
Insight
Cloudflare is close to a default for the basic job of putting a site behind a fast, protected network, and the free tier alone covers a lot of small sites. The developer platform, Workers, R2, and the storage products, is a genuine option for running apps at the edge, and R2 charging nothing to read data out undercuts a real pain point with other clouds. Two things to watch. The pricing tiers have a sharp step: the move from Pro to Business is a large jump for features many mid sized sites actually need, and useful support is mostly an Enterprise thing. And the more of the platform an app uses, the harder it is to leave, since these are Cloudflare specific services with no drop in replacement. Use the network and CDN freely. Weigh the developer platform knowing it is a commitment, not a neutral utility.
Pricing
Freemium
Website
Last checked 2026-08-30