TrustRadius Insights for Cloudflare are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
DNS Management: Users have consistently found Cloudflare's DNS management to be extremely user-friendly, describing it as effortless to set up and quick to propagate across their networks. This feature has significantly streamlined their processes and increased operational efficiency.
Web Application Firewall: Many reviewers have praised the effectiveness of Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall in safeguarding their websites against common web attacks. They appreciate the proactive protection it offers, including active defense mechanisms that enhance overall security measures.
Integration with AI Frameworks: Customers highly value Cloudflare's integration with popular AI frameworks and APIs for simplifying AI development tasks. By facilitating the creation of fast, private, and scalable AI applications in the cloud, this feature has proven instrumental in driving innovation and streamlining workflows.
I use Cloudflare to assist in mitigating a number of attacks my web server came under. In that respect, Cloudflare has made my life simpler. I also utilize Cloudflare's domain name registrar offerings which offer domain names at cost, which is hard to beat. Not sure what I would do without them at this point.
Pros
Fending off server attacks
Makes managing DNS records simple
Domain registrar services are simple and a great value
Cons
The renewal date on domain name registrations needs to be specific about the day in which it will automatically renew a domain and ding your bank account. I've had it put me in the negative when not watching the bank account too closely. As a result, I've had to just disable the auto renew feature on upcoming domains to avoid any surprises.
Likelihood to Recommend
For a simple WordPress site, depending on where and how it is hosted, Cloudflare might be a bit overkill. You can say the same for someone who only has a domain or two they are looking to park, again, Cloudflare would be overkill in that area as well.
Cloudflare is a great solution to be able to have a good website speed all over the world. It also protects my websites from cyberattacks. I have been using it for years for these main purposes. It's a more and more concerning issue, so it is good to have this kind of affordable solution to protect websites and also make it load faster.
Pros
Very clear user interface
Good performances
Good security
Cons
Make the interface easier to go around
Account management could be smoother for multi sites
Analytics could be more complex
Likelihood to Recommend
Awesome solution to make websites faster and protected. It has been smooth since day 1. Easy to setup and with great uptime rates. It has been my go to CDN solution for many years. I have tried others but always come back to Cloudflare. If you are looking for a simple and affordable solution, this is the one to go for.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Marketing (Marketing & Advertising company, 1-10 employees)
We get our domain name system services from Cloudfare. We run on cPanel, and cPanel runs on Cloudfare for its DNS service. Cloudflare can automatically import DNS records for you. Its UI is both elegant and straightforward. The domain name system (DNS) propagation time is incredibly fast. Cloudfare's content delivery network (CDN) component reduces website loading times. In addition, setting it up is a breeze. In a matter of minutes, we can begin. For sites with a lot of concurrent users, this is a useful tool.
Pros
More quickly, consistently, and safely.
It offers a gorgeous and intuitive user interface that is incredibly easy to use.
Contains a Content Delivery Network (CDN) Feature that enables users to view Internet content, webpages, and videos more quickly.
Cons
In order to configure Cloudfare's DNS Servers, a resource with experience is required.
During the process of establishing DNS, your email configuration is vulnerable to interference from third parties.
The costs of the premium plans are a little high.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you already have a solution that manages the infrastructure, then you won't be able to utilize this tool at all if your website is one of the smaller ones that doesn't require it. If you find yourself in a position to make use of it, I urge you to register for the service's free trial; I have no doubt that you will come to adore it and want to include it into your daily life.
I love Cloudflare. I use it every day for a variety of websites. I use Cloudflare for its uptime monitoring, to block against malicious traffic, and to route traffic to a secure version of websites (SSL). I love how it automatically pulls in my DNS values from the previous host and then I just switch the nameservers to get going. It's really great.
Pros
Routing to SSL
Blocking malicious traffic
easy to use
uptime monitoring
Cons
more detailed explanations of features
Likelihood to Recommend
I think Cloudflare is perfect for speeding up websites, monitoring website uptime and keeping it online, routing traffic through SSL, and blocking malicious traffic (bots). If your web provider already uses Cloudflare (like Kinsta), then you probably don't need to sign up yourself. Additionally, you might not need it if your current host already has these features.
Cloudflare makes it easy for DNS Management for all of wordpress websites. With its intuitive user interface, we can quickly set up our domain name servers and configure settings in just a few clicks. We can also manage multiple domains from a single account, making it simpler than ever to keep track of all your websites. From a security standpoint, Cloudflare is unmatched. It uses advanced DDoS protection techniques to effectively prevent malicious attacks on our websites.
Pros
Dns Management
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Speed Optimization
DDoS protection
Great Documentation and Knowledge Base
Cons
Integrated Analytics
Pricing Structure for Plans
Interface Customization
Likelihood to Recommend
We mainly use it for DNS management in Cloud Services such as Digital Ocean. We also benefit from malware attacks, high spikes in traffic and overall performance. On the other hand, Cloudflare may not be the most suitable solution for small websites with little traffic or those that don’t need many advanced features. The platform may be too complex to set up and use without significant technical knowledge or experience and there may be no real benefit to using it on simpler sites.
VU
Verified User
Director in Marketing (Marketing & Advertising company, 11-50 employees)
We use Cloudflare as our DNS server provider to make changes to our DNS records and improve the user experience for visitors to our websites. We also use their DDoS protection.
Pros
Fast
Secure
Easy to use
Cons
Client transfer
Import function
Configuration setup
Likelihood to Recommend
Overall DNS management to integrate with our web hosting service, performance improvement options, and analytics.
VU
Verified User
Director in Marketing (Marketing and Advertising company, 5001-10,000 employees)
Cloudflare was used to manage DNS and as a content delivery network for website caching. Used a managed WordPress hosting provider and we needed to ensure media and other static content were delivered with edge nodes for faster delivery.
Pros
Simple, easy-to-use interface
CDN serves content across edge network
Cons
Repeated cache dumping becomes annoying when working on site CSS.
Likelihood to Recommend
Cloudflare has a wide variety of service offerings that go well beyond DNS and CDN. They're well known for the security products and services they provide like DDOS protection. The free plan they offer is probably good enough for a small business.
Cloudflare was initially deployed as a replacement DNS provider. DNS was previously housed on-site but this became complicated and risky since it didn't provide for redundancy. We also replaced our previous CDN provider at the same time since the two work together seamlessly. We also have 50+ domains currently registered with Cloudflare ever since Cloudflare became a registrar. Cloudflare's network is beyond our expectations and this was a primary motivator to migrate many services to Cloudflare. Currently, we are testing R2 as a replacement for AWS S3, which seems to be promising at this point. As new products are released, we evaluate how they can fit into our ecosystem and work with other solutions we have in place. For example, we recently deployed Cloudflare Stream as a replacement for another paid video hosting platform.
Pros
Global content delivery network (CDN)
DDoS mitigation and detection
Highly available network
Fast DNS response times
Cons
Some features require a bit of hand holding to deploy correctly. While the documentation is good, it could provide more examples to cover additional use cases.
Telephone support for enterprise customers is for emergencies only, but sometimes phone conversations are better for providing clarity.
Enterprise lite customers can't purchase all options available to total enterprise customers. Still, many of those additional features cost additional, so upgrading to the full enterprise means an increase in base plus the additional feature (bot management is a great example). Enterprise lite customers should be able to add these services on as well but without an increase in base.
It's difficult to add new services to enterprise plans. It would be ideal if customers could purchase/upgrade online and sign an order insertion digitally from the site instead of having to go through customer success.
Likelihood to Recommend
Cloudflare provides exceptional value to the organization. It is a mission-critical part of the business and enables better customer support and a faster, more enjoyable experience for our customers and non-customers alike. The platform has put years into R&D and many of the solutions they provide help enhance the internet overall (TLS 3, HTTP/3, etc.)
VU
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (Marketing & Advertising company, 51-200 employees)
I consult with a number of small businesses that have a web presence. I encourage the use of Cloudflare to prevent malicious web traffic from disrupting their business operations.
Pros
I no longer have to worry about DDOS attacks.
Prevents bots from accessing areas they shouldn't, like login screens.
International CDN provides peace of mind when traffic might spike.
Cons
I am eager to see what they might be able to offer for email security.
Some settings appear to be redundant, or the distinction is confusing, such as with firewall rules and page rules.
Likelihood to Recommend
For CDN, firewalls, and threat management on websites, this is a fantastic tool. It may or may not be appropriate for some web applications (e.g. eCommerce may require special configurations), but for basic websites, Cloudflare is a no-brainer to mitigate threats and offer peace of mind.
We started using Cloudflare as a way to both, speed up our (then) slow WordPress page and get a free SSL certificate. Unfortunately, it didn't manage to speed up the process as planned as most of the slowness was due to database connections, but we did keep using it for SSL and IP obfuscation where it does an excellent job. We ended up getting a fast dedicated server and switched to letsencrypt for our professional page, as the complicated system hit Cloudflare´s timeout frequently but I still use Cloudflare for all my personal pages and frequently recommend it for smaller pages with slower servers. Its IP obfuscation, SSL certificates, and CDN function work pretty well, speeding up the download of larger files, other optimizations, especially javascript are a mixed bag, breaking some systems so it's necessary to make some thorough tests for those or just avoiding the advanced optimizations keeping the default settings. It's a MUST HAVE for anyone still not using HTTPS (SSL) on their page yet and very easy and straightforward to set up, needing only a nameserver change in your domain. Despite its ads, don't expect magic though, a slow page will never turn into a quick one just adding Cloudflare unless you have a very specific slow connection for static content.
Pros
When you need a FREE and EASY TO SETUP SSL certificate on your page (if you don't have the locked locker icon when opening your page, you need it)
When you want to obfuscate your webpage's IP (any connection will give the Cloudflare's IP)
You need to speed up the connection for static content (it will not help database connections or dynamic content)
IF your DNS isn't good (Cloudflare's DNS is amazing, quick, easy, and works pretty well)
Cons
Personalize the page's timeout (300sec fixed now, some backend processes couldn't be done and that's the reason we stop using it in my company)
Option to have optimizations activated in just some pages.
Likelihood to Recommend
Most of my Cloudflare recommendations are for personal or small pager or stores, the main reason is undoubtedly the FREE SSL certificate, it is way less useful when you do have a good server setup with your own SSL and optimizations on top. At least in its free plan, it's NOT recommendable for bigger systems with backend processes where you have large database queries as you can hit its timeout that can be changed, that said, it's a good 300 seconds timeout, your page should never take more than this, except if its a bulk backend process that doesn't affect usability (our case).
