Cloudflare

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET) operates a global network that sits in front of websites, applications and corporate networks. It began as a CDN and DDoS protection service and now groups its products into application services (CDN, DNS, web application firewall, bot and DDoS protection), Cloudflare One for Zero Trust and SASE, network services, and a developer platform built around Workers.

For a small business or developer, the usual problem it solves is making a site faster and harder to attack without running your own edge infrastructure: you point your domain's nameservers to Cloudflare and traffic is cached, filtered and proxied through its network. Cloudflare says its network spans 348 cities in more than 100 countries.

Key features

• CDN and DNS. Authoritative DNS and caching reverse proxy; records can be set to proxied or DNS-only per hostname.
• Application security. DDoS mitigation, web application firewall, rate limiting and bot management, plus a Client-Side Security add-on that defends against attacks on vulnerable JavaScript dependencies.
• SSL/TLS certificates. Universal and custom SSL certificates are listed among plan features; Advanced Certificate Manager, for more control over issuing certificates, is an add-on starting at $10 per month.
• Cloudflare One (Zero Trust). Access for application-level authentication, a secure web gateway, Cloudflare Tunnel to publish services without public IPs, browser isolation, CASB, DLP and email security.
• Workers developer platform. Serverless functions on Cloudflare's network, with storage products such as R2 object storage, Workers KV, D1 SQL databases and Durable Objects.
• Performance add-ons. Load Balancing and Smart Shield with Argo Smart Routing each start at $5 per month; Automatic Platform Optimization targets WordPress sites.

Who it is for

The Free plan suits personal sites, blogs and early-stage products. Pro is aimed at professional sites and startups that need more security and performance features, and Business at companies that need a 100% uptime SLA, PCI and SOC 2 compliance support, partial (CNAME) DNS setup and chat support. Developers use Workers and R2 to build applications on the same network, and IT teams use Cloudflare One to replace VPN access to internal apps.

Pricing at a glance

• Website plans: Free, Pro, Business and Enterprise. Pro and Business are flat monthly subscriptions shown on Cloudflare's plans page; Enterprise is priced by quote.
• Workers: free tier of 100,000 requests per day; the Workers Paid plan starts at $5 per month with 10 million requests included, then $0.30 per additional million.
• Storage: R2 includes 10 GB-month free, then $0.015 per GB-month; Workers KV includes 1 GB, then $0.50 per GB-month; D1 includes 5 GB, then $0.75 per GB-month.
• Zero Trust: a free plan is offered for proofs of concept, with seat-based paid plans.

Prices as checked on 7 October 2026; confirm on the vendor's pricing page.

Things to consider

• A full setup makes Cloudflare your DNS provider, so you change nameservers at your registrar; partial (CNAME) setup is a Business plan feature.
• Many features are add-ons with their own prices, so the monthly bill can grow beyond the base plan.
• Workers Free limits CPU time to 10 ms per invocation; heavier workloads need Workers Paid.
• Free and lower Zero Trust tiers have lower limits, for example fewer Digital Experience Monitoring tests than Standard or Enterprise.
• Putting DNS, security and hosting with one provider simplifies operations but concentrates dependency on a single vendor.

Getting started

1. Create an account and choose Onboard a domain, entering your apex domain and selecting a plan.
2. Review the imported DNS records, especially email records (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and set proxy status.
3. Change your nameservers at the registrar to the two Cloudflare assigns, as described in Cloudflare's onboarding guide.
4. Check SSL/TLS settings so visitors are not served insecure connections.
5. Developers can try Workers on the free tier; see Workers pricing for limits.