Cloudflare Reviews

1. CDN
2. Security

One of my projects, ancient-origins.net, gets 3 million views per month, so serving the page fast is an important element. Using the CDN of Cloudflare improved the speed significantly, reducing the page loading times to appropriate levels. Additionally their security features make sure to block attacks on our site.

Their CDN features, although good, still lack in speed in comparison to their competitors (e.g. Incapsula, MaxCDN, etc.).

I've been using it for almost one year.

No issues with the deployment. Their process is pretty simple and fast.

Yes, there were a few times when some of their CDN nodes would fail, creating serious speed issues with the site without any warning or notification from their side. Also, many times, even if our server is working properly, Cloudflare would report it as being down.

No scalability issues so far.

I would give them a 9/10. They respond pretty fast to requests.

I would give an 8/10 to their technical support. We haven’t had many issues, but when we do, it appears that sometimes they are not willing to look deeper into them to try and find a solution.

We used MaxCDN, but we switched to Cloudflare because MaxCDN lacks security features.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward and doesn’t require any technical knowledge, since everything is done on their site.

The implementation was done in-house, since it is a simple process.

This is difficult to calculate; however, improving the page loading speed always impacts the traffic on a site positively.

The original setup cost was zero, and the monthly cost is around $30 for three sites using the Business Cloudflare plan.

We evaluated MaxCDN and Incapsula.

If your budget is low, then Cloudflare is the only cost effective solution, at least to begin with. The best combination of CDN and security features at a low price. At a slightly higher budget, Incapsula may be a better solution especially since they provide a faster CDN and better security features.

I just switched to Cloudflare as my domain registrar. That led me to use their CDN service, and I will probably use them for SSL when that is available. 

Cloudflare has made management of my website much easier by combining various functions in one platform without compromising quality. There are also less dark UX patterns than other vendors, so I have peace of mind knowing they aren't trying to trick me or make complicated procedures to attempt to lock me into their service. That is very refreshing!

The dashboard is very well thought out, giving useful information and providing easy access to useful functionality I wasn't aware of.

This is a very minor thing since I can't think of many ways for them to improve: It looks like they don't support as many TLDs as other registrars, but since they are very new as a registrar, I expect this may improve soon. For example, there are many TLDs in this list, but /co is missing: https://www.cloudflare.com/tld...

This solution has been stable so far, and monitoring of Cloudflare has shown them to be reliable.

So far, scalability has done well, but I am not a heavy user.

I haven't contacted support which indicates a good self-serve product. The tools to answer your own questions are there, so support is built-in without ever needing to reach a person. 

I switched to Cloudflare from GoDaddy because Cloudflare promoted "at cost" domains. 

The initial setup was very straightforward.

Self-managed.

Less cost for domains and more satisfaction which is hard to put a dollar value to.

Cost for all services I have researched in Cloudflare is straightforward, and they don't include hidden fees. I'm not a heavy CDN user since I don't get much traffic, so I can't speak too much about the value for their CDN.

I've used various solutions like full hosting companies (Bluehost, iPage, etc.) and most recently GoDaddy. I also looked at Google domains and Namecheap. 

I encourage anyone interested in holistic internet service delivery solutions to check out Cloudflare. They have nice simple solutions that work well together, are easy to set up, and their UI/UX is intuitive.

Cloudflare is typically a firewall. There are several editions available, such as the free edition.

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

The pricing could be improved.

I have been using Cloudflare for one year.

The product is stable.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is good.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

We never need to contact customer service.

The initial setup is straightforward and takes a few hours. One person can do that.

​I did the deployment myself as a solution architect.

You might be on the free edition, depending on your chosen edition. With the free edition, you receive the top ten protection services.

If Microsoft offered something similar to Cloudflare at the same price, it would be much better because you're already on Azure utilizing resources for CI/CD and transitioning to Cloudflare. From the most basic functionalities to the highest level, they are all awesome if you prevent unauthorized access to your website data through penetration testing.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Our company provides the solution to customers who need website load balancing or DDoS protection. Customers with minimal traffic use the Business Plan and customers with a huge amount of traffic use the Enterprise Plan. 

We currently have thirty customers on the Business Plan and three customers on the Enterprise Plan. 

The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks. 

The solution should expand its learning portal for partners to include a few demo accounts for learning the product and developing knowledge or technical expertise. 

Support response time could be improved. 

I have been using the solution for one year. 

The solution is stable, has curbing centers in Pakistan, and is widely used. 

The solution is scalable to each customer's needs. For example, you can scale up if you have two domains and want to add a third. It is easy to incorporate scaling. 

The technical support response time for Business Plan customers could be reduced. Most companies opt for this cost-effective plan but they should receive the same service as the Enterprise Plan. Currently, response time for Business Plan customers is six to eight hours and that should be minimized. 

I rate support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The solution is easy to setup and share with customers. We categorize a customer's needs and recommend the best plan based on traffic and whether they need load balancing, bot management, routing, and unlimited bandwidth.  

We implement the solution for our customers. Deployment includes one project manager and one support technician. 

The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth. 

I rate the licensing options an eight out of ten. 

The solution is a great fit for customers who want unlimited bandwidth. 

Competitors such as Akamai have strict options for bandwidth so might not be a good fit. 

I recommend the solution for customers who don't yet have an idea how much bandwidth they need or who anticipate upscaling in a few months. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Our primary use case would be as an immediate wrapper-type security solution as opposed to other solutions which put an in-point monitor on a workstation. I'm the VP of our company and director of IT.

They've implemented a tunneling system. It's not quite VPN, but it's not quite HTTP traffic, either. It's a very robust and different system which, in my opinion, is what needs to be done. New and innovative ways to protect the client's data should be the focus.

I think they have failed with their technical support. I feel I would have gotten to a solution faster, quicker, and more efficiently if they would have been there to just answer a couple of questions. I had to read so much documentation to validate what I was about to do versus what I had already known I could do. They almost lost me as a customer and it was only because I had a bit of time and the gumption, the drive to keep going. I'm glad I did, but I'm not happy with the road. It was bumpy.

I've been using this solution for about three months. 

Stability is great. I love their mechanisms, I love their GUI, I love their front end, I love their behind the scenes. Algorithms and everything, it all makes sense. I look at Microsoft and I say, you just don't make sense anymore. If you've been working in this industry for long enough, you know what makes sense and what doesn't make sense. And this box ware makes a lot of sense.

The solution is open ended like with Cisco so quite scalable. I'm the only one using it and, at this point, I'm probably using 2% of their overall capacity. We're in the process of reevaluating our presence on the cloud, our data on the cloud and our ability to do work in the cloud. 

I've tried to contact technical support three times without any luck. I found the solution myself. If I look at the community, I see others have experienced the same issue. 

I carried out a comparison of Cloudflare with Call Ways, which was a good runner-up. Not only because of the sophistication of their cloud monitoring system, but they also have zero remediation, which means that they will tell you that you've got a problem even though they can't fix it. I'm also looking at Support Net as a primary firewall to replace the firewalls that I'm going to retire. I accidentally found Cloudflare, which offered me a lot more than any of the other companies, because the first thing it did was to encrypt all my traffic. Microsoft had failed us and as a result I had to shut everything down for three days and reconfigure firewalls and everything before bringing it all back up again.

On this particular system, I didn't have as much budget as I would have liked, but I still had the redundancy that I wanted. The complexity was that things don't work the way they used to so I had to rethink things. In the end, deployment for the actual solution took about 10 minutes. It was a matter of just literally giving them a credit card and flipping a switch. It's been fine ever since. 

All my data was encrypted before the hackers got past two firewalls. Encrypting your data does not keep hackers from getting in. In that respect, Cloudflare has proved to be a huge benefit for us. 

For now, the cost of Cloudflare is very reasonable compared to everything else. It's hard to say what will be down the track. Sometimes these companies offer very good deals early on and then annual fees increase as the companies become more successful. 

There is a lot of documentation and I would recommend reading it. I think that's how they want their tech support to work, through community. The community doesn't talk so well with each other like the Microsoft community because Microsoft's been around a lot longer. It isn't quite working perfectly yet and they don't have experts to answer the questions. They want the users to come to the realization for themselves, based on what I see in the conversations in the communities. It's a millennial mentality. We don't have to be involved, we'll just make the product and let them solve their own problems. That's an issue for me.

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

I work as the Senior SEO Strategist on a very small in-house team of digital marketers for Lakeview Health, a drug and alcohol rehab. Upon starting my role, one of my first tasks was migrating our websites to a new web hosting provider so that we could take ownership of them. With all our sites developed in WordPress, I decided on hosting with WP Engine which recommended Cloudflare in the setup process. 

In the past, I worked in environments where the developers and IT team managed the websites, so I admit that there are gaps of knowledge in my understanding of how the internet works. Using Cloudflare made the process of migrating much easier and gave me the satisfaction of knowing we’d receive enhanced security features, alongside a reputable CDN, simple DNS hosting, and the many other solutions Cloudflare offers.

I manage these websites independently within my organization and, with exception of a third-party vendor, I am the only one that has access to our Cloudflare account. It helps me ensure the sites are running optimally and securely.

The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules.

I will say, in the years I have used Cloudflare, one thing I love is the constant improvements and developments being made.

One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country.

I would rate Cloudflare a nine out of 10. I haven’t used any other solutions that might compete with Cloudflare, so I am a bit biased, but for ease of use, features, and cost effectiveness, I think it’s a great solution.

We are using Cloudflare for the CDN for our applications. We deployed the solution as SaaS.

Cloudflare has many features. We can control profits, block attacks, and use a Global Location CDN. Additionally, we have a single console from which we can manage multiple tasks.

In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM. Compared to other vendors and Cloudflare, there will be more downtime. We encountered this issue last year, and there have been a few occasions when Cloudflare was not accessible in certain regions, not all global regions or speed regions, but the website went down and it took Cloudflare a long time to restore the service.

I have been using the solution for two years.

We have experienced a few periods of downtime in the last two years, but the solution is generally stable.

The solution is scalable.

The initial setup is not difficult. All the steps for deployment are documented. We followed the step-by-step instructions for configuration.

The implementation was completed in-house by three employees.

I give the price a five out of ten.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

Maintenance is easy; we receive a notification whenever maintenance is needed, as well as if a major restoration is required and what the likelihood of the system going offline will be.

I recommend Cloudflare.