Cloudflare review: Dev & Infrastructure, pricing and who it's for
Free DNS, CDN and DDoS protection that almost every founder with a domain should use. The free plan has no SLA; pay for Pro when the site earns money.
Cloudflare sits in front of your website to provide DNS, a CDN, SSL and DDoS protection. The free plan includes DNS, unmetered DDoS protection, CDN, Universal SSL and a managed WAF, with no SLA. Pro is $25 a month, or $20 billed annually, and Business is $250, or $200.
Free plan; paid from $20 per month billed annually ($25 monthly)
Some links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects our verdicts.
Reviewed · Facts checked · Dev & Infrastructure
Good fit if
- Every founder with a domain who wants free DNS, CDN and DDoS protection.
Skip if
- You need nothing in front of your site.
Use cases
Move your domain's DNS to Cloudflare and get free SSL
Free planFounders with a domain on a slow or basic registrar DNS. 1) Add your site in the Cloudflare dashboard and review the imported DNS records. 2) Change your nameservers at the registrar to the two Cloudflare gives you. 3) Once active, Universal SSL and the CDN switch on automatically.
Sources: developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/ma…, cloudflare.com/plans
Get hello@yourdomain.com without paying for a mailbox
Free planSolo founders who want a branded address that forwards to Gmail. 1) Open Email Routing for your domain and add your Gmail as a verified destination. 2) Create a rule for the address (e.g. hello) that sends to it. 3) Let Cloudflare add the MX and SPF records.
Sources: developers.cloudflare.com/email-service/g…, developers.cloudflare.com/email-service/c…
Stop spam sign-ups on your forms without a CAPTCHA puzzle
Free planSites getting bot sign-ups or contact-form spam. 1) Create a Turnstile widget and copy its site key. 2) Add the widget snippet to your form. 3) Verify the cf-turnstile-response token on your server before accepting the submission.
Watch-outs
The API limit is 1,200 requests per 5 minutes per user across dashboard, keys and tokens; exceeding it blocks all calls for 5 minutes.
Source: developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/ap… · checked
The free plan is meant for personal or hobby projects that are not business-critical and has no SLA.
Source: cloudflare.com/plans · checked
Pro is $20 a month billed annually or $25 monthly; R2 storage and other developer products bill separately.
Source: cloudflare.com/plans · checked
At a glance
Price
Free plan; paid from $20 per month billed annually ($25 monthly)
Source: cloudflare.com/plans · checked
Free plan
Yes · DNS, unmetered DDoS, CDN, Universal SSL and managed WAF; no SLA
Source: cloudflare.com/plans · checked
Key integrations
Source: developers.cloudflare.com/agents/model-co… · checked
Pricing
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | What's included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | MonthlyFree | Annual— | What's includedDNS, CDN, DDoS protection, Universal SSL and managed WAF. |
| Proper month | Monthly$25 | Annual$20 | What's includedPaid plan for business sites. |
| Businessper month | Monthly$250 | Annual$200 | What's includedHigher-tier plan for business-critical sites. |
Pricing checked on · Cloudflare pricing page
Trust & security
SOC 2 Type II · Type II
Source: cloudflare.com/plans · checked
ISO 27001 certified
Source: cloudflare.com/plans · checked
CautionTrains on your data by default · Used for security models
Source: cloudflare.com/trust-hub/responsible-ai · checked
AI & integrations
Official MCP server · Official Cloudflare MCP servers
Server URL:
https://developers.cloudflare.com/agents/model-context-protocol/cloudflare/servers-for-cloudflare/Source: developers.cloudflare.com/agents/model-co… · checked
Public API · API docs
Source: developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/ap… · checked
Some links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects our verdicts.
FAQs
How much does Cloudflare cost?
Free is $0. Pro is $25 a month, or $20 a month billed annually. Business is $250 a month, or $200 billed annually. Developer products such as R2 bill separately.
Source: cloudflare.com/plans
Is the Cloudflare free plan enough for a startup site?
It includes DNS, CDN, DDoS protection, SSL and a managed WAF. Cloudflare positions it for sites that are not business-critical, and it has no SLA.
Source: cloudflare.com/plans
Does Cloudflare have an MCP server?
Yes. Cloudflare documents a set of official MCP servers for its products.
Ready to try Cloudflare?
Free DNS, CDN and DDoS protection that almost every founder with a domain should use. The free plan has no SLA; pay for Pro when the site earns money.
Some links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never affects our verdicts.
Alternatives to Cloudflare
Other Dev & Infrastructure tools
ApifyReady-made scrapers and browser automations for pulling web data into your workflows, with a free plan to start. Best for teams comfortable with a little setup.
Better StackUptime alerts, on-call, status pages and logs in one product, with a free tier that covers small projects. Responders from $29/month billed yearly.
FirecrawlWeb scraping and crawling API that turns sites into LLM-ready markdown for AI builders. Free tier.
Something wrong or out of date?
Private — not published. Every report is read.