Cloudflare
The layer in front of everything — a global edge network that makes sites faster, blocks attacks, and runs code milliseconds from the user.
What it is, and why we use it.
Cloudflare sits between your users and your servers as a global network in hundreds of cities. It caches and speeds up content (CDN), absorbs denial-of-service attacks, manages DNS, and runs code at the edge with Workers — plus object storage (R2) with no egress fees. It's less 'where the app lives' and more 'the fast, safe front door to it.'
Cloudflare fronts most of what we ship: DNS and CDN for speed, WAF and DDoS protection for safety, and Workers for edge logic like redirects, auth checks and image resizing that shouldn't round-trip to origin. For low-bandwidth regions, caching at the edge is one of the biggest perceived-speed wins available.
Cloudflare vs AWS (CloudFront) vs Vercel.
Cloudflare against a hyperscaler's edge and a frontend cloud — it's the specialist front layer, not a full replacement for either.
| Dimension | Cloudflare | AWS (CloudFront) | Vercel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core role | Edge network, security & CDN front layer | Full cloud; CloudFront is its CDN | Frontend deploy + edge for your app |
| Edge compute | Workers — fast, cheap, global | Lambda@Edge / CloudFront Functions | Edge Functions for your frontend |
| Security (WAF/DDoS) | Best-in-class, included | Available (Shield, WAF) | Basic; pair with a CDN |
| Storage | R2 — no egress fees | S3 — egress charged | Partners for storage |
| Best used as | The front door to any origin | The whole backend + its CDN | The home for a Next.js app |
Cloudflare wins when
- You want speed and attack protection in front of any stack
- Edge logic (redirects, auth, image resize) should skip origin
- Egress-free object storage (R2) saves real money
AWS CloudFront wins when
- You're already all-in on AWS and want one bill
- Tight integration with S3 and other AWS services matters
- You need CloudFront-specific features
Vercel wins when
- The thing you're deploying is a Next.js frontend
- Preview-per-PR is the workflow you want
- You'd rather not assemble the edge layer yourself
Cloudflare is the front door on most of what we run — fast, secure, and cheap at the edge. It complements a cloud rather than replacing it: origin on AWS or a frontend host, with Cloudflare making it quick and keeping the bad traffic out.
Thinking about Cloudflare?
Tell us what you're building — we'll tell you honestly whether Cloudflare is the right tool for it.