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Technology · Servers

Cloudflare

cloudflare.com

Cloudflare sits in front of a website to provide DNS, a content delivery network, DDoS protection and an SSL certificate. It sells a free plan, two self-serve paid plans and custom contracts.[1]

Cloudflare is a leading web-infrastructure and website-security company that offers a comprehensive suite of services to enhance online performance and protection. Its global content delivery network (CDN) accelerates website loading times by caching content closer to users. Cloudflare provides robust DDoS mitigation to protect against cyber attacks, along with a range of security features including Web Application Firewall (WAF) and SSL/TLS encryption. The company also offers distributed domain-name-server services, improving DNS response times. With additional services like Cloudflare Workers for serverless computing and Argo Smart Routing for optimized content delivery, Cloudflare is a one-stop solution for businesses seeking to improve their web presence's speed, reliability, and security.

Cloudflare belongs toCDNcategory.

Free plan

For personal or hobby projects[1]

DDoS protection

Unmetered, listed on every plan[1]

CDN

Listed on every plan[1]

SSL certificate

Universal SSL on every plan[1]

1,035websites

use it — 40.5% of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months

#1of 29

tools in its category seen in our scans (we recognize 69)

428public pages

on UptimeCard — open any of them to see how that site is doing

In short: a free way to put DNS, a CDN and DDoS protection in front of a site. Paid plans add depth; check which features each plan includes before you upgrade.[2][1]

45.34% of all websites we track run Cloudflare

Should you use Cloudflare?

The 10-second version, from the vendor’s own pages and what we see in our scans

Cloudflare fits if…

  • You want DNS, a CDN and DDoS protection at no cost for a personal or hobby site[1]
  • A small business wants an uptime service-level agreement[1]

Look elsewhere if…

  • You already run on AWS and want a CDN billed together with your other AWS services[3]Amazon lists flat-rate CloudFront plans that combine the CDN with other AWS services.
The monthly price is higher than the yearly price on the paid plans[1]
The uptime guarantee is listed for the Business and Contract plans only[1]

Cloudflare next to Amazon CloudFront

Statements come from each vendor's own pricing page; website counts are ours.

CloudflareAmazon CloudFront
What the vendor says
Cheapest option$0 /monthFree plan[1]From $0/monthflat-rate plans[3]
Pricing modelsPlans by siteFree, Pro, Business, Contract[1]Pay-as-you-go or flat-rate[3]
What we see in our scans
Websites running it1,03540.5% of 2,555 scanned sites33513.1% of 2,555 scanned sites
Typical page load time4.7 s392 public sites4.6 s✓111 public sites
Typical page weight3.5 MB✓typical home page4.1 MBtypical home page
Security grade B or better25%32 of 130 graded sites score B or better41%✓13 of 32 graded sites score B or better

Prices are US dollars as listed for the United States.

  • Amazon CloudFront: Amazon's CDN, sold pay-as-you-go or as flat-rate plans[3]

Choose Cloudflare if…

  • You want one set of plans for DNS, CDN and security in front of any host[1]

Choose Amazon CloudFront if…

  • You want a CDN billed together with other AWS services[3]

Plans and what they cost

Website plans in US dollars, as listed for the United States[1]

Free

Free/ month

For personal or hobby projects

  • DNS, DDoS protection, CDN and SSL

Pro

$20/ month

For professional websites

  • $25 if paid monthly

Business

$200/ month

For small businesses operating online

  • $250 if paid monthly

A Contract plan has custom pricing[1]

How Cloudflare sites protect themselves

Share of the 1,035 sites we scanned that run each protection

HSTS62% · 646 sites

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) informs browsers that the site should only be accessed using HTTPS

reCAPTCHA22% · 225 sites

reCAPTCHA is a free service from Google that helps protect websites from spam and abuse

Protections add up, they do not replace each other: a site can run all of them.

What sites use Cloudflare for

An estimate from UptimeCard's technology map of 371 public sites

Runs the whole site352 sites

6sense.com · abeta.co.uk · accredible.com

Runs the marketing site12 sites

broadvoice.com · cleeng.com · domotz.com

Hosts help, docs or support content6 sites

discordstatus.com · hackeronestatus.com · jira-service-management.status.atlassian.com

Runs a shop or catalog1 sites

depict.ai

Rough guide, not a measurement: each description is written automatically from the site’s technology stack and the site has not confirmed it. A site is counted once, in the first group its description fits (shop, help and docs, blog, marketing site; otherwise the whole site). Descriptions that only guess (“likely”, “may”) are left out.

At a glance

UptimeCard's own scans and tests of 2,555 websites · refreshed weekly

How Cloudflare sites scoreout of 100 · hover or tap a score for details

49PerformancePooraverage site: 5089AccessibilityGoodaverage site: 8993Best practicesGoodaverage site: 9392SEOGoodaverage site: 92

Page load time

Loads about 10% slower than the average site

Cloudflare sites
4.7 s
All sites
4.3 s

Most Cloudflare sites load in 3.4–6.8 s. Home page weight: 3.5 MB vs 3.3 MB for all sites. 392 public sites measured.

Where are they hosted?

Mostly Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services

  • Cloudflare56%
  • Amazon Web Services17%
  • Google Cloud3%
  • Fastly3%
  • Other21%
United States 44%Canada 38%Brazil 1%

Who uses it?

Technology and Software is the biggest group

Technology and Software55%
Business Services13%
Software as a Service (SaaS)8%
Educational Resources4%

Share of 428 classified public sites. “× average” compares with all 961 public sites.

Browser-security check

25% of graded sites pass

32of 130 score B or better

Rates each site’s own security settings, not Cloudflare. 130 public sites graded so far.

How Cloudflare sites are built

Closest partners. The number says how many times more often the tool runs on Cloudflare sites than on an average website. Hover a partner for its share of sites.

Cloudflare Bot Management2×cdnjs2×Cloudflare Browser Insights2×

Stacks we see most. Tools that tend to run together with Cloudflare on the same websites. The percentage is the share of all 1,035 Cloudflare sites that run the whole stack.

3 stacks · swipe, drag or use the arrows
#1

Cloudflare + jsDelivr + Google Hosted Libraries + Webflow

2.7%28 of 1,035 sites
#2

Cloudflare + jsDelivr + Unpkg

3.1%32 of 1,035 sites
#3

Cloudflare + cdnjs + Unpkg

2.5%26 of 1,035 sites

Usually installed alongside

The bigger the bubble, the more of the 1,035 Cloudflare sites also run the tool. Colour shows what the tool does. Hover or tap a bubble for details.

Google Tag Manager62%Google Analytics60%Linkedin Insight Tag22%Facebook Pixel20%OneTrust18%Microsoft Advertising16%DoubleClick Floodlight13%HubSpot15%Yoast SEO10%
Tag managerAnalyticsCookie consentAdvertisingMarketingSearch visibility

Similar tools in its category

CDN: 69 tools known, 29 seen in our scans

Amazon CloudFront335 sitesAlternativeAkamai205 sitesAlternativeAmazon S3184 sitesAlternativejQuery CDN89 sitesAlternativeGoogle Cloud CDN82 sitesAlternativeNetlify58 sitesAlternativeFastly57 sitesAlternativeImperva46 sitesAlternativejsDelivr321 sitesUsed togethercdnjs245 sitesUsed togetherGoogle Hosted Libraries144 sitesUsed togetherUnpkg105 sitesUsed together

How websites combine Cloudflare with other tools

Relationships found on the websites that use it, from the same map status pages show.

Built on a platform 322Complements another tool 207Integrates with another 135Needs another tool 67Overlaps with another 40

Websites using Cloudflare

1,035 websites use Cloudflare: 40.5% of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months. A selection is shown below.

Scores are out of 100: P Performance · A Accessibility · B Best practices · S SEO. Green 80+, yellow 65–79, orange 50–64, red below 50. The dot shows whether our last scan found the site failing (red) or not (green); Red, amber or blue: an active incident on the site's status page (outage, degraded, maintenance) or a failing scan; amber also means a certificate ending within 30 days. Hover the dot for details.

Who is behind Cloudflare

From its own pages and public records, with sources

Its story

  1. 2010

    Cloudflare launched in September with an authoritative DNS service. Domain-name resolution was part of its website infrastructure from the start.[4]

  2. 2014

    Universal SSL brought automatically provisioned HTTPS certificates to the network, including free plans. Browser-to-Cloudflare encryption became available without buying a separate certificate for that connection.[5]

  3. 2018

    Workers became available to everyone after its beta. Developers could run JavaScript on Cloudflare’s edge, expanding the platform from delivering traffic to executing application code.[6]

  4. 2018

    Cloudflare launched the 1.1.1.1 consumer DNS resolver. It extended the company’s DNS work from authoritative services for domain owners to lookups for people using the internet.[4]

  5. 2020

    Cloudflare One brought together cloud network services, access controls and related tools. Its launch addressed corporate networks whose applications and employees were increasingly outside the office.[7]

  6. 2022

    R2 object storage became generally available with an S3-compatible interface and no egress fees. Application builders gained storage alongside the platform’s compute services.[8]

  7. 2024

    D1, Cloudflare’s serverless SQL database, became generally available. Relational data joined object storage and compute as a supported part of building applications on the platform.[9]

Questions about Cloudflare

Does Cloudflare have a free plan?
Yes. The Free plan is listed at no cost, for personal or hobby projects.[1]
Is yearly billing cheaper?
On the Pro and Business plans the price shown is for yearly billing; paying monthly costs more.[1]
Is DDoS protection included on every plan?
Cloudflare lists unmetered DDoS protection on the Free, Pro, Business and Contract plans.[1]
How many websites use Cloudflare?
We found Cloudflare on 1,035 of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months (40.5%). 428 of them have a public status page.
What is Cloudflare often used with?
Among the websites we scan, Cloudflare is often found alongside Cloudflare Bot Management (36.8% of its sites), cdnjs (23.7% of its sites), jsDelivr (20.5% of its sites).
What are the alternatives to Cloudflare?
Other CDNs we recognize include Amazon CloudFront, jsDelivr, cdnjs, Akamai.

Is your website built with Cloudflare?

UptimeCard checks it around the clock, tells you the minute it stops answering, and gives your visitors a status page.

Monitor my site freeCreate a status page