PeerSpot user
Co Founder at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Basic security matters are handled automatically, although it can be bypassed easily by an attacker with knowledge of your main IP address.

What is most valuable?

The most important feature is that they handle the basics of security matters automatically.

How has it helped my organization?

Honestly the product has not really improved the way of my organisation. I just let the product take care of my security in term of networking attacks, but this is not a magic product. You still have to take care of other security matters which are important in network administration.

What needs improvement?

The only thing that I think about is that CloudFlare supercharges your website, as your dedicated IP is covered behind their server. Then, if you are a target of a network attack, they will handle the traffic, and the load, then mitigate the attack. However, depending on how your network system is built if, by any chance, your main IP address is seen by attackers they can easily bypass Cloudflare and directly target your server. In that case, you need to add extra filtering directly onto your dedicated server to avoid breaches out of CloudFlare cover, or add extra anti-DDOS solutions directly onto your dedicated server.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used this solution for one year. Unfortunately, I'll stop it this month as, rather than being unsatisfied, my needs have changed, and my website no has longer the same traffic. I think that I can (as a System Administrator) handle the security side without it for a while.

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Cloudflare
April 2024
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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Yes I did at the beginning, since I did not understand properly how to install the solution on my NGINX servers. I guess it was a lack of knowledges, but also a problem of speed, since I had to implement the solution in a chaotic atmosphere, since I was under attack at the time and had never faced this before, so I was not prepared.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not encountered any issues with CloudFlare so far. The solution has worked pretty well, but there are a couple of things which are linked to a webserver environment (NGINX in my case) that you have to be careful about when setting up. Otherwise, you may get some errors, but once the webserver is installed with CloudFlare, it should work like a charm.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is not a problem for CloudFlare since they are a cloud based solution. I think I had the biggest year for my service in 2014, in terms of traffic. My website was spread over two servers, with CloudFlare on top of them, and everything went well.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

9/10. I did not really have the opportunity to use their service as a free user. However, when you are a paying user at CloudFlare, they will answer you very quickly, and with accurate answers. I did contact them on a few occasions, and they gave me good answers.

Technical Support:

9/10. I did not really have the opportunity to use their service as a free user. However, when you are a paying user at CloudFlare, they will answer you very quickly, and with accurate answers. I did contact them on a few occasions, and they gave me good answers.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not, perhaps I had to, in order to be a little bit more objective about this kind of product, but since I implemented CloudFlare, I have been happy with them.

How was the initial setup?

I'll say that you have to be used to managed webservers such as Apache or NGINX. It's pretty straightforward, but you have to take care with some configuration details. If you do it incorrectly, it could make your website temporarily unavailable sometimes.

What was our ROI?

I first paid for the Business plan, which was 200$/month for the first month when I had those big issues with DDOS. Then I went to the 20$/month plan. In other words, I spent about 400$ more or less on the product. I have not had a DDOS attack, since, or at least not become unavailable due to DDOS which means my ROI is pretty good. I mean when your website is offline, you first lose money like daily revenue, around 400$ for us, but you also lose your customer loyalty, and there are many more issues. No matters what's going on (attacks or not) a website must be online at all time.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

In my opinion the Pro plan 20$/month is the best solution. It includes the core features of CloudFlare which is pretty much enough. If you do not have SSL, you can also use the free plan, which is almost exactly the same as Pro, just without the SSL support. The free plan has SSL support, but it does only support modern web browsers. This means that some of your customers may not reach your website if you are using SSL with a free plan.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I did not evaluate other options.

What other advice do I have?

Prepare your implementation while making tests in a pre-production environment. Do not let CloudFlare take care of everything, you still have to take care of security matters for your services.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Owner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Does It Really Work?

I’ve been on a quest for the need for speed lately. I recently swapped to a new host Host Gator and that helped with the load speeds of the site increased (a bit). But it also gave me an opportunity to make the site even more lean and mean by going through the plugins I was using and removing the fluff. A big part of that though was deciding to add a CDN to help optimize and speed up the load times of the site. But like most bloggers on a budget I had to find something that not only worked but was in my price range – free! This is where CloudFlare comes into play. Read more to find out what a CDN is, and if CloudFlare is right for you!

Site Speed

Even if you have the greatest content in the world and a site that is designed right the one thing that will turn people away faster than anything else is a website that takes forever to load. Things like not optimizing your images, having too many WordPress plugins, and using too many java script all can affect your load times greatly. So when starting to optimize your own website that is where I would start. But after you have worked on fixing them what next?

CDN – Content Delivery Network

The next step to consider is to implement a CDN to take that final step to speeding up your website. A CDN will take all of your images, java script, and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and host them on to their network to quickly load them on your visitors browsers. Another benefit is that a CDN has a huge network of servers that are closer to your potential visitor ensuring that your site will load quickly wherever in the workd they are visiting. The downfall is that they can cost a lot to implement.

Cloud Flare

I happened to first seeCloudFlare from a fellow blogger’s site The Bad Blogger. I decided to do some research and found that they offered a FREE service! I thought there was some sort of catch or I would have to plaster their logo all over the place. But as it turns out not only was it simple to setup – there was not catch! It really is FREE. But not only do they offer their CDN services check out the other features they offer:

CDN

Well first they offer your basic CDN service. By caching things like your images, CSS, and javascript on their servers you are sure to have a site that will load quickly no matter where in the world visitors are checking out your site. Another cool feature of using a CDN? Say your host went down for whatever reason. You would still have a cached page instead of the dreaded 404 message people would usually get! I know it works… I inadvertently tested it while switching to a new host!

Optimization

CloudFlare offers for your pages to be further optimized before being loaded onto your visitors browser. I already mentioned some of them above! The other benefit of using a service like CloudFlare? It will save your bandwidth and the amounts of requests to your webhost!

Security

Add another layer of security from Spammers, SQL Injection attacks, and DDOS attacks from the script kiddies. By having to go through their CDN first it is just another layer of protection to keep your site and your visitors safe! It also offers services like obscuring email addresses and preventing hotlinking of your images.

Analytics

CloudFlare offers you some awesome stats to see how your site is performing. I take them with a grain of salt though. Although Google Analytics uses java script to track visitors, CloudFlare’s numbers will be greatly inflated showing you more of a “raw data” indicating almost 5-10x more traffic then you are actually receiving!

Applications

There are a slew of applications available that CloudFlare will implement on their end. Some are pretty frivolous to being really beneficial. You can add Google Analytics, PunchTab Rewards, and even experiment.ly!

Implementing Cloud Flare

So with a ton of forethought and planning (i.e. I’m full of crap) I decided to go for it. So how did I implement it? Seriously it was probably the easiest setup process I’ve ever gone through!

  • First I signed up for my CloudFlare account. After I received my confirmation email I then signed onto CloudFlare.
  • I then imported my DNS settings which CloudFlare exported and setup for me automatically. I do recommend doing some research to understand what you are looking at though.
  • After I had everything setup with CloudFlare I then went to my GoDaddy account and changed the DNS settings to point to CloudFlare instead of my webhost. This is the scary step as GoDaddy states this could take up to 24hrs for them to make the changes. For me it took 10 minutes for the changes to take place.
  • After all of that all I had to do was see if I could still see if the website was up and running and *poof* I had implemented CloudFlare onto my site.
  • When this is all completed you can go back into the CloudFlare dashboard and finish tweaking the settings by enabling applications or making any necessary changes to your DNS. (I had to manually add things like FTP and SSH that I had forgotten about.)

Do You Really See An Improvement?

Considering I had already tweaked this site? I can definitely say yes I do see an increase. Of course I would do your own testing first to see if I’m lying to you or not. I did a random test (as of this writing) to see how fast it loaded. Actual content of the site loaded fairly quickly with the added geegaws and doo hickeys loading a few seconds afterwards (i.e. ads, the sharebar, and my PunchTab toolbar at the bottom of the screen.) What this means is that the stuff you want to see – the images and text loaded really fast, and the rest of it kind of popped up a little bit afterwards. So I still have some work to do… *sigh*

Updates

I had a fellow blogger Bryan from www.thehobbyblogger.com ask about how the CDN refreshes the site if I make changes.

If you are going to implement small changes to your blog? They will take place ‘on the fly’. I have not had any issues performing basic site updates/maintenance. If you are doing extensive updates? You can either temporarily disable Cloud Flare through their control panel by clicking on the “Development” option. Or disable Cloud Flare altogether. I do recommend using the Development mode as that will only temporarily disable the service for a few hours.

Update #2

Lost Traffic?

People have told me horror stories about potential lost traffic or visitors getting blocked to their sites. I have done a short test with my own site and I can say I did not see any noticeable difference in traffic with the service off or on. I would suggest though that if you think you are losing traffic? You should conduct your own testing. This can be done by either:

A) Adjusting the Security settings from what you currently have it set at to a lower setting.

or

B) Disable Cloud Flare altogether and test to see if your traffic changes dramatically.

Also please note I do not have a huge traffic site. So your results may vary.

Is a CDN For You?

Well, that depends really. If you don’t get much traffic and if your site loads quick as it is? Then um, no? But if you want the added security and speed you get with a CDN then I say sure! I had a great test this past week with visitors averaging around 1500 – 2000 visitors (hey I hear you snickering!) and everything remained snappy even when I had 30 visitors hammering (OK, knocking softly) on the site!

For me the benefits outweigh any negatives using CloudFlare might bring.

And did I mention all of this is FREE already? For larger sites they do offer paid plans that offer additional functionality – but for most folks the free plan will definitely do the trick!

Other Resources/Additional Reading

I am suggesting that you read these two articles to help you make a decision as well. Why? Well I respect the sites and more importantly I want you to have a better overall opinion rather than some little blog you happened to run across while searching for information. Both will give you a more technical explanation and I found them interesting.

Conclusion

CloudFlare is a fantastic option for bloggers on a budget. From what I’ve researched on the web CloudFlare is considered “CDN-lite” by some folks. All I know is that it works! I might look into using a different CDN later on but for now CloudFlare is an awesome solution!

What are your thoughts on using a CDN? What service do you use if any? Leave a comment below with your experience with using a CDN or if you have any questions!

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Cloudflare
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cloudflare. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
769,479 professionals have used our research since 2012.
CTO at QROK GmbH
Real User
Easy to use, good documentation, reasonably priced, and they have good support
Pros and Cons
  • "It's very user-friendly."
  • "There are some issues with the CDN services."

What is most valuable?

It's very user-friendly. A user who doesn't completely know how everything works can easily sign up and have an account. 

It is very clear and the information is very useful.

There is a very good reporting system for statistics.

What needs improvement?

There are some issues with the CDN services.

Also, the connection could be improved.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There are some issues with stability. We have connection issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

We are satisfied with technical support.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We don't have any issues with the price.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Cloudflare an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Business Director at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Easy to deploy, gives us peace of mind regarding DDOS attacks
Pros and Cons
    • "I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."
    • "The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

    What is our primary use case?

    For DDOS mitigation.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Provides peace of mind. We do not have to do things over and over, or double check their work, or worry about what could have happened due to a potential DDOS attack, if we didn't have protection.

    What is most valuable?

    Convenient

    Ease of deployment

    What needs improvement?

    I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution.

    Also, the reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    One to three years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We have not encountered any stability issues.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I can't say, since we actually just deployed it. Our organization has already grown. For now, it serves our needs and manages are our expansion.

    How is customer service and technical support?

    I'm quite comfortable with them so I don't see a big issue. We get fairly good support. The earlier issues that we had, some minor issues here and there, we got them resolved. They resolve our issues in a timely manner.

    How was the initial setup?

    I think any DDOS solution is going to be complex. But we could actually follow the process and implement the solution. So it was not that complex, in that sense. And the tech support was there to provide feedback and support.

    We didn't get any training other than you reading up materials and working with tech support.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I think the pricing is competitive.

    I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We did review a couple of options, Tenable and a couple of others. We settled on Cloudflare because of price, support, and of course comfort in dealing with a vendor that was supporting us.

    What other advice do I have?

    My advice would be to review exactly what you need and talk to different people to understand the potential advantages and pitfalls of implementing these kinds of solutions. Then identify the right product to meet your requirements.

    From a solution perspective and from a product perspective I would give Cloudflare an eight out of 10. It's a reasonably priced solution that meets customers' needs and it's not too difficult to deploy.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Manager - Web Development at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Allows you to create various sub-domains and A-record management.

    What is most valuable?

    • Provides a very easy DNS management: Allows you to create various sub-domains and A-record management
    • Handy interface with one-click to switch the service on and off
    • Global coverage supports the DNS queries with its load balancing feature
    • Helps to secure your web from DDoS attacks and unwanted bots
    • Has a very user-friendly interface to handle the allowed IPs if you need to bypass/block any particular region or identified bots.
    • Web optimization features such as ‘Automatic Content Caching’, ‘Rocket Loader’, and ‘AutoMinify’, which help to minimize the website loading time and increase the website response.

    How has it helped my organization?

    • We use the DNS management for all of our domains. It brings all websites under the umbrella of CloudFlare.
    • We no longer require any other security levels, as all websites under CloudFlare wrappers are secure with DDoS protection.
    • We do not need to implement complex caching techniques as the CloudFlare content caching helps to minimize the website load time.

    What needs improvement?

    For DDoS protection and website downtime, it would be nice to have a feature to provide email/SMS alerts that can be implemented like Pingdom and other solutions.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I implemented these solutions in 2013.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I did not encounter any stability issues.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I have not yet encountered any scalability issues.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Until now, I didn’t require much technical support. I try to find any help by myself through the interface.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I did not use any previous solution. In fact, I searched for a few and selected CloudFlare.

    How was the initial setup?

    The product is very straightforward and simple to implement. Those are the main reasons for using it.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I haven’t gone through the other pricing plans. For the services I am using, it is a bit expensive. It is worth the price when you weight it against time and cost.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    Before selecting CloudFlare, we looked at Amazon products. Although AWS provides a range of services and is a standardized platform, I found CloudFlare to be a much easier and faster solution for websites.

    What other advice do I have?

    If someone is looking for a secure and optimized wrapper over an open website, I would suggest CloudFlare services. It will instantly help you to secure and optimize websites/web pages or blogs. It is quick, easy to use, and simple to implement.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    PeerSpot user
    System Administrator at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
    Real User
    It allows you to avoid running DNS locally. Enterprise-level DDoS mitigation plans are cost effective compared to on-premises/distributed solutions​.

    What is most valuable?

    • DNS setup: Their DNS allows you to move control over DNS from your own server to a third party. This allows you to avoid running DNS locally that might consume resources or become unavailable if something happens with your local DNS server.
    • DDoS protection: DDoS protection is what CloudFlare is known for. They are known to prevent DDoS attacks from taking down your server.
    • Distributed content delivery (CDN): Their content delivery network is also a nice feature which can keep a website accessible even if your webserver goes down.

    The setup and configuration is also easy to perform and their support is excellent.

    How has it helped my organization?

    This product has kept the site up while under an attack.

    What needs improvement?

    None that I can think of at this point. Their enterprise-level DDoS mitigation plans are costly but they are cost effective compared to any on-premises/distributed solutions that can go upwards of high six figures to implement. If a company like Sony can be taken offline for a week due to an attack, then there is not much that can be done by midsized/startups to prevent these attacks. For these companies, CloudFlare is ideal.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have used it for five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I have not encountered any stability issues.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I have not encountered any scalability issues. You can move up to bigger packages if you are under a heavy DDoS attack.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Technical support is excellent.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I did not previously use a different solution. This was the first CDN company I have used.

    How was the initial setup?

    Initial setup was simple enough for novices. They have plenty of documentation on their site.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Start off with their free plan. However, major DDoS protection is only provided with their paid plans. I would start with the free plan to test or to simply move DNS off your local server to them to free up resources.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options. They are an industry leader in CDN.

    What other advice do I have?

    If you need your website accessible at all times, consider going with them.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user517581 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user517581Works at a tech company with 51-200 employees
    Vendor

    A really great product which has a good offering even on the free tier.

    Competence Center Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    Top 10
    Highly scalable, useful GUI, but more deployments methods needed
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service."
    • "Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

    What is our primary use case?

    Cloudflare is used for service protection. We use this solution as a managed service for our end user customers, such as banking users for protection.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.

    What needs improvement?

    Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Cloudflare for approximately five months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    There were a few months when we were doing some updates and there were some issues with the stability. However, the one or two times we had problems it is not enough to say that it is not a stable solution in general.

    I rate the stability of Cloudflare an eight out of ten.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution can scale well.

    I rate the scalability of Cloudflare an eight out of ten.

    How are customer service and support?

    The technical support from the vendor could be better.

    The support is provided online and most of the technical advice is provided by an open community. The level of support is not enough. For example, if you start using this solution and do not have a lab there needs to be someone that can speed up your process. In this case, the community is not enough, it could be better.

    I rate the support from Cloudflare a six out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Neutral

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was stressful. You have to tune the configuration for the integration which is important to have it done correctly.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    Most of the vendors are building new functionality and are moving in the same direction.

    What other advice do I have?

    I rate Cloudflare an eight out of ten.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
    PeerSpot user
    it_user241758 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
    Consultant
    It allows us to deploy websites using less hardware but more insight into analytics and threats would be a good.

    What is most valuable?

    The aggressive caching and DDOS mitigation are the most valuable features offered by Cloudflare. Website traffic analytics and threat insights are also very useful.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Utilizing Cloudflare allows us to deploy websites using less hardware due to their caching and helps us serve pages to our customers more quickly and efficiently.

    What needs improvement?

    More insight into analytics and threats would be a good place to start improving cloudflare. Also less 501 and 504 errors would be good too.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've used Cloudflare since 2012 and am currently using the latest version. I've utilized it with several different websites successfully.

    What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

    No issues encountered.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Only the occasional network issues, some in 2013, where all Cloudflare customers were affected, but much less lately.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    No issues encountered.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Customer Service:

    Good, as the few times I've required customer service, it was more technical but they were always helpful in directing me to the people I needed to speak to.

    Technical Support:

    Excellent. The representatives are knowledgeable and online documentation is great.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Cloudflare was the first service of this type I've used.

    How was the initial setup?

    It was very easy to get setup on Cloudflare. They have made it even easier recently, and all that needs to be done is to enter your DNS records into their interface and the configuration is done.

    What about the implementation team?

    We implemented it in-house.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Setup cost was zero and currently we are using the $20 a month plan. I've used the business tier in the past which costs $200 a month.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I don't know of other vendors who offer a comparable service.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would recommend that you use it. It has been very useful and well worth the cost to me over the last three years.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Cloudflare Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: April 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Cloudflare Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.