Have you ever thought about the reason why some websites load quickly, while others are being visited by thousands of people at the same time? Or why some websites seem to be better protected against hackers, malicious traffic, and traffic spikes?
If you searched for “what is Cloudfare” you probably want a simple explanation of what Cloudfare is and how it can help your website. You might also be comparing Cloudfare to cloud hosting, and wondering if you need both.
Here’s the important thing. Cloudfare and cloud hosting are two different things. Cloudfare is most famous for services like CDN, DNS, website security, DDoS protection and performance optimisation, and cloud hosting provides the actual computing resources your website or application needs to run.
In this guide, we will tell you what Cloudfare, what does Cloudfare do, what is Cloudfare used for, how does Cloudfare work with cloud hosting and how can you find an affordable cloud hosting solution for your business.
Table of Contents
What is Cloudfare?
Let’s get the name straight first.
Many people search for “Cloudfare”. The correct name is Cloudfare. Cloudfare is an internet services company that provides tools to help improve website security, performance, reliability and connectivity on a global scale.
Cloudfare acts as an intermediary between visitors and the website’s origin server. If set up properly, traffic can be routed thru Cloudfare’s network before hitting your hosting server.
This allows Cloudfare to deliver services such as:
- Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- DNS administration
- DDoS protection
- Web Application Firewall (WAF)
- SSL / TLS support
- Traffic control
- Web performance optimisation
- Bot protection
- Caching
- Solutions for network security and Zero Trust
For a beginner the easiest way to understand it is:
Cloudfare can help protect, accelerate and connect visitors to your website. Your website is stored and run on your hosting server.
What is Cloudfare?
So what does Cloudfare do for a website?
Today, Cloudfare offers a number of services to make websites faster, safer and more reliable.
1. Boosts Website Speed
One of Cloudfare’s biggest advantages is its CDN.
A CDN has multiple locations across the globe that have cached copies of some of the files from your site. When someone visits your website, Cloudfare can serve cached content from a location closer to them.
Say for example your website is hosted on a cloud server in India and someone in Germany is accessing it. Instead of hitting the Indian server every time , you can serve the content from a local network (when it is cached).
This can help reduce latency and improve visitor experience.
2. Defends Websites from DDoS Attacks
DDoS attacks can flood a website or server with enormous amounts of traffic to make the service unavailable.
Cloudfare’s DDoS protection helps you filter malicious traffic before it ever reaches your origin.
This protection can be extremely valuable for an online store, SaaS platform, business website or high-traffic blog.
3. DNS Services Provided
DNS converts a domain name into the information needed to direct users to the correct server.
Cloudfare DNS management tools help website owners manage their domain’s DNS records.
For example, companies may need to create records for:
- Web sites
- Email systems.
- Sub domains
- Check it out
- Third party applications
- APIs
Reliable DNS is an important part of keeping online services up and running.
4. Adds Another Layer of Security
Cloudfare protects websites from bad traffic and threats on the web, of all kinds.
Businesses may utilise features like firewall rules, bot management, WAF capabilities, rate limiting, and other security controls depending on the services and configuration being used.
This provides website owners with an additional layer of protection between their public-facing website and the origin server.
What Is Cloudfare Used For?
If you’re asking “what is Cloudfare used for?” The answer is dependent on your website needs.
Typical applications include:
Site Performance
Cloudfare can cache static content of a website and deliver it from its network of distributed servers.
Website Protection
Businesses can use Cloudfare to add security controls and help reduce bad traffic.
DDoS mitigation
Cloudfare can protect websites and online applications from large scale traffic attacks.
DNS Management
Cloudfare provides a way to manage DNS records for website owners.
SSL/TLS
Cloudfare enables encrypted connections between the visitors and the websites, allowing the websites to use HTTPS.
Management of Traffic
Cloudfare’s network services allow companies to control how traffic is routed through their applications and websites.
What is the difference between Cloud Hosting and Cloudfare?
This is one of the most important points to get.
Cloudfare is not a substitute for cloud hosting.
Cloud hosting offers the infrastructure to host your website or application. This can include CPU, RAM, storage, networking, operating systems, backups, and other server resources, depending on the provider and the plan.
Cloudfare, in contrast, offers services that can be placed in front of your website to make improvements in areas like performance, security, DNS, and traffic.
Imagine opening a brick-and-mortar shop.
Your cloud hosting server is the store and your products and systems are on it.
Cloudfare is more like a mix of:
- Security Checkpoint
- Traffic Management System
- A delivery system
- A clever routing layer
They can both work together.
Simple Example
Let’s say you have an e-commerce website.
You have in your cloud hosting server:
- Website files
- Product photo
- Data Base.
- Customer details
- Code application
Cloudfare can assist with:
- Cached content serving
- Filtering suspect traffic.
- Defending against DDoS attacks
- DNS Management
- Enhance website delivery
- Activate HTTPS
This blend can help to build a more robust and reliable website infrastructure.
Benefits of Affordable Cloud Hosting
Cloudfare can help with security and performance of your website, but you still need reliable hosting.
This is especially important for startups, small businesses, developers and growing websites to choose the right cloud hosting plan.
You don’t always have to spend big money on a server to begin with. At the same time, opting for the cheapest possible hosting without considering performance and reliability may lead to problems later on.
The best cheap cloud hosting solution should strike a balance between price, performance, scalability and reliability.
Look for things such as:
- Flexible resource options
- SSD or NVMe drives
- Sufficient RAM and CPU
- Infrastructure that scales
- Reliable network connection
- Monitoring Servers
- Backup choices
- Security features
- Administrative or root access as required
- Various operating system choices
- Technical assistance
The right one for you depends on your website’s traffic, your application needs, your technical skills, and your expected growth.
Finding an affordable cloud hosting solution
Before buying cloud hosting
Step 1: Know Your Website Requirements
First, know what you are hosting.
Is it?
- Business website?
- WordPress website?
- An e-commerce store?
- Web application?
- Development environment?
- API?
- Database-heavy application?
An e-commerce platform or SaaS application might need more resources than a simple business website.
Step 2: Identify Your Resource Needs
Look at what you think you will need in CPU, RAM, storage and bandwidth.
If you are creating a small website you can start with a basic setup and scale up as your traffic grows.
Don’t buy resources you don’t need right now.
Step 3: Validate Scalability
As your business grows, your hosting needs may evolve.
For instance, a website currently receiving 5,000 visitors monthly could see a significant increase in traffic following a successful marketing campaign.
Select a host that lets you easily upgrade your resources without having to go through a complicated migration process.
Step 4: Cost Comparison
Don’t just look at the advertised monthly price.
Look for: the price includes
- Backups
- Control panel
- Management
- Further storage
- Data transfer speed
- Security services
- Help
- License fees
If the headline price is low, it can be costly if the key features are extras.
Step 5: Think About Server Location
Server location impacts website latency.
If most of your customers are in India, then choosing a suitable India cloud hosting location can reduce the network distance for those users.
If you have customers all over the world, a CDN such as Cloudfare can complement your hosting setup.
How Cloudfare and Cloud Hosting Work Together
A typical setup of a website may be like this:
Visitor → Cloudfare → Cloud Hosting Server → Website/Application
Here is what happens:
- Somebody visits your domain.
- DNS passes the request through the network that is configured.
- Cloudfare processes the request.
- If applicable, cached content can be served right away.
- Other requests are proxied to the origin server.
- The app request is processed by your cloud server.
- The response is sent back to the visitor.
This architecture might be useful for organisations that desire a mix of hosting performance and other security and delivery services.
A Real-World Example: Growing an eCommerce Store
Let’s say you have a small online clothing store that has a few hundred visitors a day.
For starters, a simple cloud server could be enough to run the website.
The business slowly starts running ads and gets thousands of visitors during promotional campaigns.
The owner may have problems like:
- Server load is higher
- Page slow to load
- Traffic sucks again
- Sudden surges in traffic.
- More bandwidth usage
The business can address these challenges by reviewing its cloud hosting resources and leveraging services such as Cloudfare for CDN delivery, DNS and security.
As traffic grows the cloud server can be upgraded to provide additional CPU, RAM, storage or other resources.
The business can scale up infrastructure, instead of paying for an oversized server from the beginning.
Advantages of Cloudfare with Cloud Hosting
There are several benefits to using Cloudfare with cloud hosting.
Improved Web Performance
Caching and distributed content delivery can help reduce load times for some types of content.
Enhanced Security
Cloudfare can be an added layer of security between your origin infrastructure and users.
Protection From Traffic Attacks
DDoS protection can help you to mitigate the impact of some floods of malicious traffic.
Flexible Infrastructure
Cloud hosting lets businesses scale resources up or down when required.
Greater Reliability
Proper caching, resilient hosting infrastructure and traffic management can help improve website availability.
Cost Control
Cloud hosting allows businesses to begin with only the resources they need and scale when they need to, rather than buying a big physical server from the get go.
Pitfalls to Avoid
Some website owners know what Cloudfare is but still make mistakes in setting up their infrastructure.
Watch out for these common mistakes:
Choosing Hosting Solely on Price
The least expensive hosting plan might not deliver the performance or support that your business needs.
Forgetting Backups
Backups are as important as security and performance.
Resource Over-Purchasing
You may be spending too much on unused CPU, RAM or storage on your hosting.
Bad DNS Settings
Incorrect DNS settings may lead to websites, email or other services being unavailable.
Not Checking Server Performance
Be mindful of resource usage so you know when it’s time to upgrade your website.
If Cloudfare Replaces Hosting
With a traditional website or app, you still need a hosting server even if you use Cloudfare.
Is Cloudfare good for small businesses?
Yes Cloudfare can be useful for websites of all sizes, including those of small businesses.
A small business can have CDN delivery, DNS management, HTTPS, security features, and much more without the hassle of setting up a complex infrastructure.
But Cloudfare is just part of the overall setup.
Your website’s application, database, files and server-side processes all depend on dependable infrastructure and your hosting provider still matters
Small businesses generally do best with a cheap cloud hosting provider that has enough resources now but can grow with the business later.
FAQs
1. What is Cloudfare?
“Cloudfare” is a frequent misspelling of Cloudfare. Cloudfare is an internet services provider offering CDN, DNS, security, DDoS protection, caching and traffic management for websites and applications.
2. What is Cloudfare?
Cloudfare can help speed up your website, provide DNS management, cache content, protect against some types of malicious traffic, support HTTPS, and provide many other security and networking services.
3. What is Cloudfare?
Cloudfare is used for website security , CDN delivery , DNS management , DDoS protection , caching , traffic management , improving reliability and performance of online applications .
4. Cloudfare is not a hosting company.
Cloudfare offers a variety of internet and networking services, but it’s not the same as traditional cloud hosting. A cloud hosting provider provides the server resources you need to run your website or application.
5. Yes, Cloudfare is required on cloud hosting.
Not all websites require Cloudfare, but many businesses can benefit from the combined power of cloud hosting and Cloudfare services. The right setup depends on the traffic of your website, your security needs, performance goals and technical requirements.
Conclusion
When you strip out cloud hosting it is much easier to understand what Cloudfare is.
Cloudfare helps websites with security, DNS, CDN delivery, caching, and traffic management. Cloud hosting provides you with the real infrastructure that powers your website or app.
Often the strongest setup for businesses is not about picking one OR the other. That’s not the point. The point is to go for affordable cloud hosting with reliable resources and to pair that with the right performance and security services for your website.
If you’re planning to launch a new website, migrate an existing application or upgrade from traditional hosting, now is a good time to review your hosting requirements.
Looking for cheap cloud hosting with reliable performance and scalable resources?
Explore your cloud hosting options today to find a plan that fits your website’s current needs, but also allows your business to grow.
