Cloudflare
A global network that sits in front of websites to make them faster and safer.
Cloudflare is an American company founded in 2009 by Matthew Prince, Michelle Zatlyn and Lee Holloway. It runs a network of data centers in cities all over the world, and websites put it in front of their own servers. When you visit a site that uses Cloudflare, your request first reaches the Cloudflare data center closest to you, not the site's real server, which is called the origin.
From that position it can do several jobs at once. It works as a CDN, keeping copies of images and pages near visitors so they load faster. It absorbs DDoS attacks, where floods of fake traffic try to knock a site offline, and filters malicious requests with a firewall. It also handles the site's HTTPS certificates and its DNS. Beyond websites, it offers Cloudflare Workers, which run small programs in its data centers, close to users, and the public DNS service 1.1.1.1.
Its business model is freemium: a basic plan is free, which is why millions of small sites use it, and companies pay monthly for more features or sign larger contracts. The flip side of being in front of so much of the web is that when Cloudflare has an outage, many unrelated sites and apps fail at the same moment.
Keep in mind
- Founded in 2009; runs data centers in cities around the world.
- Sits between visitors and a site's origin server, acting as CDN, shield and DNS.
- Free basic plan; companies pay for advanced features and contracts.
- Because so many sites rely on it, its outages are felt across the web.
