Cloudflare Reviews

Name: Cloudflare
Brand: Cloudflare
Rating: 4.2 (71 reviews)

Vendor: Cloudflare

4.2 out of 5

71 reviews
95% willing to recommend

1,990 followers

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What is Cloudflare?

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distribution Denial of Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can use the solution and experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

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Cloudflare is the #1 ranked solution in top CDN solutions, #1 ranked solution in top Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection solutions, #1 ranked solution in top Managed DNS solutions, and #11 ranked solution in top Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) solutions. PeerSpot users give Cloudflare an average rating of 8.4 out of 10. Cloudflare is most commonly compared to CrowdStrike Falcon: Cloudflare vs CrowdStrike Falcon. Cloudflare is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 38% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a educational organization, accounting for 25% of all views.

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Featured reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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XYX ABC

Product manager at Infozion

For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed. Many small businesses lack the budget for solutions like AWS and rely on GoDaddy, hosting, or even Versal plans for their initial setup. At that level, Cloudflare is the best option, even though it's not as powerful as Amazon CloudFront or Akamai. Those are built for different services, while Cloudflare caters specifically to smaller teams that eventually scale up. For smaller businesses, they're the absolute best, so I'd give Cloudflare a nine out of ten. For larger businesses, it depends on the budget. Even for them, I'd rate it a seven out of ten.

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M.A. Faisal

General Manager at .bKash Limited

It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set.

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Cloudflare mindshare

Product category:

As of November 2024, the mindshare of Cloudflare in the Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection category stands at 19.8%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection

Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

Cloudflare's most valuable features, according to various user experiences, include the ability to hide servers through its proxy feature, providing security against attacks such as port scanning and ransomware. Other essential features include a web application firewall and load balancer, which provide good security and stability to access points. The application gateway and DDoS protection are also favorable features, along with the solution's flexibility to control configuration rules. Additionally, Cloudflare offers many features such as controlling profits, blocking attacks, and using a Global Location CDN, all manageable through a single console with an embedded GUI interface. Cloudflare's built-in SSL certificate feature is automatic and protects websites, while its solution also provides the ability to trace and manage applications, monitor traffic, and detect spikes in traffic.

"The tool is user-friendly."
"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

Room for Improvement

Improvements on Cloudflare that were suggested include offering better accessibility for international customers, providing more detailed dashboards and reports on web application firewalls, offering dedicated account managers for large enterprise clients, improving automation, reducing downtime, offering on-premise solutions, making it easier to collect logs, increasing the number of servers for better traffic routing, improving partner relationships, expanding the learning portal for partners, and improving reporting capabilities.

"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."
"The pricing could be improved."

ROI

Cloudflare has provided a positive ROI for users, preventing downtime and the potential loss of millions. It is recommended for companies with online sales and newsletters, as it prevents server overload from high traffic. For simple websites, a basic Cloudflare setup provides protection against hacking. It is a cost-effective solution compared to setting up auto-scaling on AWS, which can be expensive and time-consuming.

Pricing

Cloudflare offers a range of pricing options. While some features are available for free, others require payment. One reviewer suggests a custom pricing model for enterprise customers based on the features used. Licensing costs vary and some reviewers note that Cloudflare is expensive compared to other products, but offers unlimited bandwidth. Despite the cost, reviewers generally rate Cloudflare's overall value positively.

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

Popular Use Cases

Cloudflare is primarily used for website and server security, including hiding IP addresses and using the DNS manager. It is also used for web application firewalls (WAF) and load balancer rules, as well as DNS load balancing and content delivery network (CDN) for applications. Some users also use Cloudflare for legacy websites that need protection or to secure critical websites. It is used as a managed service for end-user customers, including residential ISP customers with high traffic. Cloudflare is also used for website load balancing or DDoS protection, with customers using the Business Plan or Enterprise Plan depending on their traffic volume. The web application firewall and Zero Trust features are also used by customers.

Service and Support

Cloudflare's customer service and support receive mixed reviews. While some users praise their knowledgeable and responsive technical support team, others criticize the level of support provided, particularly for those on lower-tier plans. Some users have also expressed a desire for a dedicated account manager and faster response times. Cloudflare's support is rated between six and ten out of ten, depending on the level of support and plan.

Deployment

Users found the initial setup for Cloudflare to be generally simple and straightforward, with some noting that it may require some advanced configuration in certain cases. Some users found the setup stressful due to the need for correct configuration, while another noted that they preferred to handle the setup themselves to ensure proper DNS management. Overall, users found the solution easy to set up and maintain, with only an occasional need for adjustments or maintenance.

Scalability

Cloudflare's solution is highly scalable, with users rating its scalability as a ten out of ten or an eight out of ten. The solution is easy to scale up, with a clear process and the Cloudflare team contacting users to check if they want to scale up. It is also customizable to each customer's needs, making it easy to incorporate scaling. Cloudflare's solution is a powerful content delivery network, security, and web application firewall rolled into one, with thousands of servers across the world that cache data. It is worth the cost, as it provides unmatched throughput and performance value.

Stability

The majority of reviews suggest that Cloudflare is a stable solution, with some rating it as a perfect ten out of ten for stability. While there have been some isolated instances of downtime or issues with updates, these do not seem to be significant enough to impact the overall stability of the solution. Some reviewers note that Cloudflare's global performance could be improved, but overall it is considered a reliable and widely used option.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our Cloudflare Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Media Company

University

Healthcare Company

Insurance Company

Retailer

Hospitality Company

Construction Company

Non Profit

Real Estate/Law Firm

Energy/Utilities Company

Legal Firm

Outsourcing Company

Transportation Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Performing Arts

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Logistics Company

Pharma/Biotech Company

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Learn more about Cloudflare

Currently, there are millions of internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to access Cloudflare highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end-users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD ( bring your own device) access ensure end-users and employees always have the best resources and technology available to them at all times.

Cloudflare Benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

Faster load times
Robust DNS security
Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Free universal SSL
Image Enhancement
Automatic Browser Caching
Next-generation cloud load balancer
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Rate Limiting
Minification
Zero-trust capabilities
Cost-effective
Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from Real Users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network engineer at Ufinet

“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.” A PeerSpot user who is a Competence Center Manager at a tech services company.

Cloudflare was previously known as Cloudflare DNS.

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