CloudFlare Review!
August 14, 2018
CloudFlare Review!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with CloudFlare
CloudFlare is a fantastic service, and we use many of its free and paid offerings. CloudFlare's core product offering is a CDN solution, and is unique in that it offers a free service tier that includes its CDN edge locations and free SSL termination. CloudFlare also has a number of more SMB/Enterprise features, again, primarily through its CDN, with its focus being on supporting uptime for customers.
- CloudFlare's free CDN and free SSL tier are both great tools for those who are new to web development
- CloudFlare's basic product includes basic DDoS protection
- CloudFlare's cost structure is well-suited to most applications; there is a tremendous amount of functionality available on the free and $20/mo tiers
- CloudFlare has expressed that it can be politically motivated, removing content from its system that its CEO did not agree with
- CloudFlare's SSL termination arrangement can be difficult for new developers to understand -- particularly if it is setup in a way where traffic from CloudFlare to the origin is not protected by SSL. Its explanation of how this works is not user-friendly and over-emphasizes convenience over security.
- Even on the free tier, Cloudflare's CDN usage can drive down overall bandwidth usage
- Cloudflare's free DDoS protection ensures that traffic spikes are legitimate, and will block malicious users from reaching the origin server
CloudFlare shines in a situation where you need a low-cost solution that can be un-integrated with other aspects of your deployment. For websites that have larger DDoS risk, their DDoS solutions are also attractive. Up-market, their enterprise offerings are on par with services offered by other CDN services like Fastly, MaxCDN, etc.