Cloudflare - too good to be true?
Posted by UberTricep, 11-02-2012, 08:24 AM So I've been testing out cloud flare (for free) and it seems to be going very well. The paid plan is only $20 + $5 per additional website which is cheap as chips. Does anyone have any good/bad experiences with them? How can they offer this at such a small price (even for free)? I am very skeptical about Cloud flare, isn't this kind of an enterprise classed solution? Any advise/experiences would be nice to read. Thanks!
Posted by FINESEC, 11-02-2012, 09:40 AM Well, Cloudflare is a really nice service but first you have to ask yourself if you really need it? Do you have any specific reason why you want to use them? Do you want to hide your server IP address and/or you need a decent DOS protection?
Posted by ParagonHost, 11-02-2012, 09:48 AM We are a Hosting Partner of CloudFlare and We love CloudFlare - The free version is supported by the paid versions (obvious) but we have been using CloudFlare both direct on our own account as we provide CloudFlare inside of our managed shared cpanel accounts. Over the 2 some years it seems we have used then, we have had zero trouble with their services. We love the security in relation to web threats that it provides. Best thing is give them a try / startup an account and migrate some zone records into cloud flare / super easy and quick. We were really impressed by the founders and their message. Matthew and Michelle (CEO and Co-Founder) See Interview Here : http://youtu.be/AaMWqyg_xMo TV Interview : http://youtu.be/XO5al5qrcSU Sept. 9, 2011 (Bloomberg) -- Matthew Prince, chief executive officer of CloudFlare Inc., talks about CloudFlare's website services including security. Prince also discusses the company's revenue model. He speaks with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." (Source: Bloomberg) Dave Last edited by ParagonHost; 11-02-2012 at 09:53 AM.
Posted by copxxx, 11-02-2012, 09:56 AM Actually you won't get any ddos protection with "CloudFlare PRO" package. DDOS protection included in the Business and Enterprise packages only so you should spend at least 200 bucks / website to get ddos protection.
Posted by BestServerSupport, 11-02-2012, 10:11 AM Cloudflare is a very good option for high traffic site. It will increase the website speed and security significantly.
Posted by UberTricep, 11-02-2012, 11:00 AM I'm glad to hear your having a nice time with them. What the hell, I'll just go ahead and migrate more stuff over to them and see how we get on!
Posted by damoncloudflare, 11-05-2012, 04:30 PM We actually offer limited protection from DDoS to free and Pro (I'm Under Attack mode). More advanced protection from more advanced attack types are in the Business and Enterprise plans.
Posted by damoncloudflare, 11-05-2012, 04:31 PM Just a quick note that we really aren't an IP protection service (a lot of people jump to that conclusion because basic lookups will terminate on our IPs).
Posted by buzzhostingUK, 11-05-2012, 05:41 PM Pretty sure that CloudFlare doesn't hide your IP address, it's a DNS based solution.
Posted by Orien, 11-05-2012, 05:46 PM It does on all records filtered through CloudFlare.
Posted by shovenose, 11-05-2012, 07:00 PM CloudFlare is awesome. But keep in mind direct.yourwebsite.com will have your IP.
Posted by plumsauce, 11-05-2012, 07:17 PM Anyone heard abouth this: http://blog.skimlinks.com/2012/02/08...-not-a-secret/ Other searches say Cloudflare is a Viglink partner. What the press releases do not say is the nature of the partnership. For example, whether Cloudflare collects any click revenue, all click revenue, or no click revenue. Another example, is whether or not they get a commission override on either signups or clicks. http://www.google.com/search?q=cloud...hl=en-CA&gbv=1 ++
Posted by damoncloudflare, 11-06-2012, 03:35 PM BTW, Cloudflare does a similar thing with Viglinks. They hid this behind an outbound click tracking service that also turned links into affiliate links that Cloudflare benefitted from. I say “hid” because it was turned on without telling me about it, and I had to sleuth it out. Was that illegal? Certainly not, but it felt pretty crappy to me. " This feature was turned off by default over two years ago. While we do offer affiliate program through our app partners, all of them require the customer turning them on.
Posted by shovenose, 11-06-2012, 04:56 PM Out of curiosity, with the 404 search page, do you make money out of the ads?
Posted by damoncloudflare, 11-06-2012, 05:14 PM Are you referencing SmartErrors?
Posted by shovenose, 11-06-2012, 06:54 PM Yup. I have enabled it on one of my sites I was just curious about that aspect of it.
Posted by damoncloudflare, 11-06-2012, 06:56 PM Right now, yes (very much still super early beta). There is supposed to be some kind of publisher split once we figure that piece out.
Posted by Serverfruit-Kris, 11-07-2012, 07:06 AM I honestly wouldn't use CloudFlare. The people at the team believe heavily in it, which is good, but after trying both the free and the paid version, I'm not impressed. Yes, it could save me some bandwidth, but - It's down more than my real host. What's the point of their host down caching? - It's slower than directly through my real host. - The security they claim to have in place display way too many times with annoying CAPTCHAs - both for me personally, and for visitors. I know for a fact that people get annoyed at them, and just click over to another site.
Posted by damoncloudflare, 11-07-2012, 03:10 PM All customers can modify the security level setting to a lower level, if this is an issue. You can also whitelist IP(s) to override any challenge behavior. Note: The captcha ONLY appears because our data sources have seen problematic behavior of some sort from that IP (spammer, exploit attacker, bad bot, etc.) over the past few weeks. Not all visitors see a captcha & most visitors never see one
Posted by viGeek, 11-07-2012, 03:39 PM Still currently using Cloudflare for a few of our basic pages (guides, etc). For our application, we took advantage of Cloudflare primarily as a CDN, worked very well, but we would always have customers problems with assets not loading, I suspect it's any cast related. This caused a lot of headaches for us so it's been disabled in our application for months. I would really like if Cloudflare had a fall back option, let us serve the assets for a certain user if they can't.
Posted by damoncloudflare, 11-08-2012, 11:14 PM What kind of assets? A quick hunch is that it may be Rocket Loader (can impact JavaScript and jQuery)....that's probably the number one cause of what we see impacting assets (even though it isn't that widespread).
Posted by NetworkPanda, 11-08-2012, 11:26 PM Actually you can change this. In your CloudFlare control panel you can change the "direct" subdomain to something else, which only you will know. And also you can change "ftp" to anything else.
Posted by shovenose, 11-09-2012, 12:08 AM Most people don't.
Posted by damoncloudflare, 11-09-2012, 01:52 AM Yep. And we even cover why the direct subdomain is added in our KB (potential mail conflict) and a solution.
Posted by viGeek, 11-10-2012, 12:38 AM I'll give this a shot, that may be it. I disabled rocket loader, we will see how it goes.