Cloudflare: Free Global CDN and Security for your website

Cloudflare operates a highly-available global content delivery network that has actually security steps built into every layer and frequently clocks in lightning-fast speeds, and one of the biggest players in the Web security platform

According to Cloudflare, typically a site utilizing Cloudflare loads two times faster, uses 60% less bandwidth, has 65% fewer requests and is more secure.

At the time, the company reports of running over 200+ data centers worldwide.

Feature Set

Cloudflare discovers the geolocation of the visitors and directs them to its nearest data center. This serves your content from its own cache if possible, enhancing action times.

It can stop or limit abusive bots, limit comment spam, protect crucial ports (SSH, telnet, FTP) from hackers, or identify and reduce DDoS attacks in numerous ways.

Quality extras include some effective image optimizations. Cloudflare’s ‘Polish’ innovation works to minimize image file sizes by an average of 35%, while ‘Mirage’ uses numerous strategies to optimize how images are shown on mobile phones. These functions alone might make a huge speed difference to some websites.

Setup

Signing up to Cloudflare works similar to any other web service. Enter your email address, pick a password, and you are ready to go

Setting Cloudflare for your domain includes pointing of domain name servers to Cloudflare. This requires visiting your domain registrar, web hosting or whoever else is handling your domain, and following the guidelines in their control panel.

It will probably take a couple of hours for the brand-new settings to spread around the web, however there’s no downtime; your site will continue working as regular.

Pricing

The Cloudflare range starts with a basic free plan. This puts limitations on some features.
Following are the details pricing of the Cloudflare.

• Free

  $0 /month

  • DDoS attack mitigation
  • Global Content Delivery Network
  • Support via email

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• Pro

  $20 /month

  • DDoS attack mitigation
  • Global Content Delivery Network
  • Support via email
  • Enhanced security with Web Application Firewall (WAF)
  • Lossless image optimization
  • Automatic mobile optimization
  • Cache Analytics

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• Business

  $200 /month

  • Everything from Pro Plan
  • 24x7x365 chat support
  • 100% uptime SLA
  • CNAME set-up compatibility
  • Easy PCI compliance
  • Use your own SSL certificate

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• Enterprise

  Custom

  • Everything from Business plan
  • Prioritized IP ranges
  • Role-based account access
  • 24x7x365 emergency phone support
  • Customer Success Manager led Onboarding
  • 10x (included in Standard)/25x (Premium) reimbursement uptime SLA
  • Designated Customer Success Manager and Solutions Engineer (Premium)

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Final Words

Cloudflare is user-friendly and supplies loads of features, excellent security, and reliable site optimizations, not to mention a rapid international network which reaches locations other CDNs typically miss. That makes it a must for your efficiency improving shortlist.