Cloudflare
One platform for your apps, agents, and workforce.
About Cloudflare
Cloudflare is a global connectivity cloud that combines CDN, DNS, DDoS protection, and a web application firewall with Zero Trust access and a serverless developer platform (Workers, R2, D1, Pages). Its network runs in 335+ cities and serves roughly one in five websites. A free plan covers basic CDN, DNS, SSL, and DDoS protection, with paid plans and usage-based pricing for advanced security and compute.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Generous free plan includes CDN, DNS, SSL, and unmetered DDoS protection for any number of sites
- R2 object storage charges no egress fees, which cuts costs for bandwidth-heavy apps
- Workers deploy globally with near-zero cold starts and start at $5/mo on the paid plan
- One dashboard covers performance, security, Zero Trust, and serverless compute
- Zero Trust is free for teams under 50 users
- Large network (335+ cities) keeps latency low for global audiences
Cons
- The product catalog is very broad, and the dashboard and docs take time to learn
- Usage-based billing across dozens of developer products makes total cost harder to forecast
- Advanced features such as Bot Management, higher SLAs, and phone support require custom Enterprise contracts
- Free and Pro plans get community or email support only, with slow responses for urgent issues
- Global outages, though rare, can take down many dependent sites at once
Key Features
Global CDN
Caches and serves content from 335+ cities, within about 50 ms of 95% of the world's internet-connected population.
Authoritative DNS
Fast, free managed DNS with DNSSEC, plus at-cost domain registration through Cloudflare Registrar.
Unmetered DDoS protection
Layer 3-7 DDoS mitigation included on every plan, including Free, with no bandwidth caps.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Managed rulesets, custom rules, rate limiting, and bot management to block application-layer attacks.
Universal SSL
Free TLS certificates issued and renewed automatically for every proxied domain.
Workers serverless compute
Run JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, and WebAssembly at the edge, with Durable Objects, Workflows, Queues, and Containers for stateful and long-running workloads.
R2, D1, and KV storage
S3-compatible object storage with no egress fees, serverless SQLite (D1), and a global key-value store.
Workers AI and Vectorize
Run 50+ open models on Cloudflare GPUs and store embeddings in a managed vector database for RAG and agent apps.
Zero Trust (Cloudflare One)
Access, Gateway, WARP client, and Tunnel replace VPNs with identity-aware access; free for teams under 50 users.
Pages
Git-connected hosting for static and full-stack sites with preview deployments.
Pricing
- Fast, easy-to-use DNS
- Unmetered DDoS protection
- Global CDN
- Universal SSL certificate
- Free managed WAF ruleset
- Workers: 100k requests/day
- Zero Trust for up to 50 users
- Billed annually, or $25/mo billed monthly
- Everything in Free
- Full Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- Lossless image optimization
- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
- APO for WordPress included
- Billed annually, or $250/mo billed monthly
- Everything in Pro
- PCI DSS 4.0 compliance
- 100% uptime SLA with 1x service credits
- Single sign-on (SSO) support
- Billed annually
- 100% uptime SLA with 10x-25x service credits
- Network prioritization
- Role-based account control
- Phone, chat, and ticket support
Best For
Speeding up and protecting websites
Proxy a domain through Cloudflare to cache content at the edge, issue free SSL, and absorb DDoS attacks without changing hosting.
Building full-stack edge apps
Combine Workers, D1, KV, R2, and Pages to ship APIs and web apps without managing servers or regions.
AI agents and RAG apps
Use Workers AI, Vectorize, Durable Objects, and the Agents SDK to run inference and stateful agents close to users.
Replacing the corporate VPN
Use Cloudflare One (Access, Gateway, Tunnel, WARP) to give employees identity-aware access to internal apps.
Cheap object storage and media delivery
Store assets in R2 without egress fees and serve images and video through Images and Stream.
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