Speed up your websites with Cloudflare?

Dopani

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Mar 11, 2014
Messages
233
Points
18
Hey Guys,

I was just wondering, did anybody here use CloudFlare and can say if this CDN is actually that good? I see a lot of hype around it these days.
I checked it on my blogs with a decent traffic and it could handle as well, also speed up the loading of web pages with about 30%, but I have no idea if it really protects the sites from DDoS attacks and such things.

Your answers would be appreciated.
 

VirtuBox

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2016
Messages
1,622
Points
83
Yes, you should use Cloudflare, even if it's not as a CDN because it's already a better DNS server than any other host.
And as a CDN it's better than nothing, but you will have to use a real CDN (keycdn, maxcdn, aws) to deliver your assets faster.

But i recommend you to use it, DNS propagration is faster (>2 minutes), and you can have http2, ssl, anti-ddos, and cdn for free.
For DDoS it's the first step to secure your website, but It will require an premium if you have a lot of attack to get the Cloudflare complete firewall.
 

MailEdge

Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 21, 2016
Messages
22
Points
0
Hey Guys,

I was just wondering, did anybody here use CloudFlare and can say if this CDN is actually that good? I see a lot of hype around it these days.
I checked it on my blogs with a decent traffic and it could handle as well, also speed up the loading of web pages with about 30%, but I have no idea if it really protects the sites from DDoS attacks and such things.

Your answers would be appreciated.
The good thing about CloudFlare is you can start out with a free account / see how you link the DNS management / as VirtuBox mentioned / you are taking advantage of an Global AnyCast network / so DNS is supported within there world wide network / AND on the free account you will see based on the logs how many times and what types of attacks that your site will be protected from ... now for DDoS you will need to have a Paid Account as mentioned / but from what I have heard and seen on other sites / they way they protect from DDoS is works well.
 

RDO Servers

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Apr 3, 2015
Messages
1,027
Points
83
Free cloudflare accounts a great for DNS management, and basic DDoS Protection.

If you realy want the best CDN possible, pick a host that is a Cloudflare Certified Optimized partner
This way, you can get Cloudflare Railgun for free (Usually requires a $200/mo Cloudflare account!)
Railgun allows you to cache dynamic content and only transmits the changes on a updated page vs re-transmitting the entire page!

https://www.rdoservers.com/knowledgebase/cloudflare/Railgun-FAQ
 

ulterios

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Nov 25, 2015
Messages
481
Points
0
I was just wondering, did anybody here use CloudFlare and can say if this CDN is actually that good?
I use it for almost all of my sites (many) and have noticed a big improvement in load speed. At first I was just using the basic CloudFlare setup but then turned on the Railgun feature and that's when they really got faster.


I checked it on my blogs with a decent traffic and it could handle as well, also speed up the loading of web pages with about 30%, but I have no idea if it really protects the sites from DDoS attacks and such things.
Yes CloudFlare helps give a level of protection against DDOS attacks and the level of protection will depend on which plan you are on. Even the lowest free plan has some protection so it will definitely be a good idea to use that at the least.
 

designman

New member
Registered
Joined
Aug 7, 2016
Messages
8
Points
0
Hey, i'm using it, it's so good. it has cache feature, support SSL, it can optimize html, js, css for you too. It's perfect for me now
 

VeyraHost

Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 28, 2016
Messages
22
Points
0
I love CloudFlare! I recommend using it, even if its just the free version it will still help in many ways.
 

Dopani

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Mar 11, 2014
Messages
233
Points
18
Hey, i'm using it, it's so good. it has cache feature, support SSL, it can optimize html, js, css for you too. It's perfect for me now
I am getting a little problem with its caching system for my Wordpress sites. I changed some parts on my template files but they didn't change till I purged all caches in Cloudflare.

I love CloudFlare! I recommend using it, even if its just the free version it will still help in many ways.
I agree with @VeyraHost.
 

GswHosting

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
233
Points
0
Yes you have clear caches on cludflare if you have some changes on your WP like CSS and something like that.
 
Last edited:

KevinHV

Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 8, 2016
Messages
57
Points
8
You can good site speed if your website is optimized. check your site on www.gtmetrix.com and see how much good work is done on your websites. You can also give a try on http://tools.pingdom.com
 

fwh

Administrator
Staff Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2012
Messages
773
Points
63
You can good site speed if your website is optimized. check your site on www.gtmetrix.com and see how much good work is done on your websites. You can also give a try on http://tools.pingdom.com
I don't know why but pingdom is always giving the result your website's loading time is lesser than gtmetrix

There is a big difference between website speed and website optimization. Some websites are optimized but slow when some others have a terrible pagespeed score and are faster to load.
What is the reason for that? I have to agree with your opinion because I saw this case when checking websites with page speed testing tools :D
 

VirtuBox

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2016
Messages
1,622
Points
83
The website optimization make google happy, but the biggest part of a website speed is the server optimization and the solutions like cloudflare which make your website faster all around the world. For example I'm working on a website currently, and I haven't done the optimization process on it yet, but the loading speed is already faster than most of optimized websites ^^

 

CyberHour

Well-known member
Registered
Hosting Provider
Joined
Sep 9, 2016
Messages
109
Points
0
While is true that using Cloudflare might boost your website performance there is still possible to do the opposite.

Regarding the DDOS protection under the free plan, it may filter some lame flooding however they would charge you a liver and leg per month ($200 Biz plan) to provide you with good DDOS protection (something that you can get for less or free from your hosting provider).

We would suggest using real CDN provider most of them are now even more affordable charging like 0.04c per 1GB. For an average blog that would be no more than $2.00/mo.
 

VirtuBox

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2016
Messages
1,622
Points
83
VirtuBox
I don't use cloudflare to protect against DDoS, I'm using it for SSL in strict mode and for assets minifications. But to have run some tests, if you haven't heavy content like pictures, Cloudflare is in most of case faster than a classic CDN. Because it doesn't require extra DNS & http requests
 

UWH-David

Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 18, 2016
Messages
45
Points
8
Depends on your hosted server. CloudFlare can be fast but not locally when compared to a properly optimized server using a reverse proxy + caching in play. We have found MaxCDN to be much faster and we run https:// over our website and typically run under 1.5 seconds.

pingdom.jpg
 

techman

Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 8, 2017
Messages
47
Points
8
Hey Guys,

I was just wondering, did anybody here use CloudFlare and can say if this CDN is actually that good? I see a lot of hype around it these days.
I checked it on my blogs with a decent traffic and it could handle as well, also speed up the loading of web pages with about 30%, but I have no idea if it really protects the sites from DDoS attacks and such things.

Your answers would be appreciated.
I'm using Cloudflare for one of my sites, and the feelings are not that great with it - that's also the reason why I'm not using it with my other sites. Some people are saying that it makes sites faster, and some saying it's not. When I installed it to one of my older sites a few years ago, I immodestly noticed speed improvements, and those DDoS protection things are also nice to have. I've heard more that Cloudflare paid plans are truly great and improve things, but their free plan is just waste of your time (not money, since it's free).

Since installing it to one of my newer sites, the loading speeds have risen dramatically. Cause it causes more headache to get rid of Cloudflare, I usually just keep it turned off via its settings. If you're looking for a CDN that improves loading times, then my recommendation is KeyCDN; I've used/tried a lot of different CDNs and find KeyCDN the fastest + they have pay-as-you-go pricing which is the cheapest around. I found a review about Cloudflare at Reviewhell's site, you can check it out here - it describes similar things I have with Cloudflare.

After experimenting with a lot of CDNs, I found that using Cloudflare for protection against attacks (I'm getting around 100 attacks, says their page) and KeyCDN (I'm not affiliated with them, I just love their CDN) in a combination is just perfect - together they really improve loading speed and provide protection.
 
Last edited:

VirtuBox

Well-known member
Registered
Joined
May 3, 2016
Messages
1,622
Points
83
VirtuBox
Cloudflare is not a "magic" solution to make your website faster. But their DNS service is one of the best available, and free. And you can setup their SSL origin certificate on your server to use all the features of Cloudflare :
HTTP/2 - SPDY - TLS1.3 - HSTS with preloading - Websockets.
The most part of hosting providers doesn't provide those features. And HTTP/2 have a real impact on website loading speed.
Their CDN service is free, avoid to make extra http requests to a subdomain, and provide the ability to set browser cache for all your assets, so in my opinion if you don't use heavy assets/images on your website it should be enough.

Cloudflare paid plans are for websites with high-traffic or e-commerce websites which need to be PCI-Compliant.

But a good hosting with an optimized configuration will always have more impact on your website speed than Cloudflare
 
Recommended Threads
Replies
3
Views
1,989
Replies
12
Views
3,771
Replies
9
Views
3,470

Latest Hosting OffersNew Reviews

Sponsors

Tag Cloud

You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.

Top