What Is Cloudflare: A Quick Explanation

Here at Cloudwards.net, we have a affinity for discussing cybersecurity. If, like us, you’re a cybersecurity buff, you may have already heard about Cloudflare. It is a network and content delivery provider on the leading edge, but Cloudflare offers more than that, though.

Everyday denizens of the internet may not understand what Cloudflare is, unlike those who use its services. Many choose it to power their websites or blogs, and you’ve likely encountered its network while browsing the web, as it claims to handle around 10 percent of internet traffic. You just might not have known it.

It may be the biggest internet company you’ve never heard of, so we’re here to tell you what Cloudflare is. The company was given life thanks to a project designed to eliminate email spam, and, in a few short years, has become a massive security-as-a-service provider, content delivery network and an important part of the internet’s infrastructure.

What Is Cloudflare?

Cloudflare is a service that aims to prevent cybercrime and other malicious behaviour without slowing down websites too much or hurting the user experience.

Cloudflare was created in 2009 by former members of Project Honey Pot, a web-based, open source architecture that allows websites to collect information from IP addresses harvesting email addresses. Project Honey Pot was intended as a way to fight spam email and fraud.

In 2010, Project Honey Pot gave way to Cloudflare, and it was officially announced at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that year. Cloudflare was born out of the desire to not only track the malicious behavior of cybercrime — as is the case with the Project Honey Pot network — but to stop or prevent it altogether.

Its vision was to secure websites against threats, but to do so without adding undo latency. As such, it began experimenting with ways to lower latency in its system by adding advanced caching processes and removing bad traffic, such as bots, from customers’ websites.

That gave way to Cloudflare’s vision of building a better internet. It started by offering CDN services and gradually expanded into security, networking, developer and AI products designed to improve website performance, strengthen security and enhance the user experience.

Since 2018, Cloudflare has expanded far beyond content delivery and website security. The company now describes itself as a connectivity cloud, offering 60+ services that span application development, storage, databases, networking, Zero Trust security and artificial intelligence. In 2019, Cloudflare went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol NET, marking a major milestone in its growth.

How it Works

Cloudflare acts as an intermediary between a client and a server, using a reverse proxy to mirror and cache websites. By storing web content for delivery on the closest edge server, it is able to optimize loading times. That also allows it to modify content, such as images and rich text, for better performance.

This intermediary design is also how Cloudflare offers a level of filtration for security. By sitting between the client and the hosting server, it can detect malicious traffic, intercept distributed denial-of-service attacks, deflect attacks from bots, remove bot traffic and limit spam.

Cloudflare Services

What began as only a content delivery network has grown into a broad platform for performance, security, application development and enterprise networking.

Content Delivery and DNS Services

Cloudflare is a content delivery network. CDNs are an increasingly popular model across the internet because they solve an important problem: latency. They, at least in Cloudflare’s case, provide what’s known as an edge network. In short, an edge network creates a much closer entry point for data, rather than bouncing it between servers across the globe.

With a network spanning more than 335 cities across 125+ countries, Cloudflare works by caching a version of a customer’s website and any static resources, then delivering it to visitors based on their location.

That ensures the least amount of distance between a visitor and a website, which reduces latency, bandwidth and page load times. By moving the content and computational work closer, Cloudflare-powered websites can work faster.

The company’s DNS services use the same network of data centers. Cloudflare offers authoritative DNS and public DNS resolver services. Both are offered as privacy and speed-first alternatives to internet service provider DNS servers. In 2018, Cloudflare launched its free 1.1.1.1 DNS service, which is compatible with any device.

Security Services

In addition to content delivery and DNS services, Cloudflare provides security as a service with DDoS protection, email obfuscation, web application firewall access and threat blocking. By sitting between a client and host, it can also filter traffic, reducing bot traffic and spam.

Protecting the online presence of public interest groups and political election websites is yet another service offered by Cloudflare — for free, at that. Project Galileo and the Athenian Project deliver its highest level of protection to organizations or state and local governments.  

Cloudflare Workers

Through Cloudflare Workers, developers can run serverless applications and functions directly on Cloudflare’s global network without managing servers or infrastructure.

Workers is part of a broader developer platform that includes application hosting through Pages, R2 object storage, D1 databases, Queues messaging services and Durable Objects. By running code closer to users, Cloudflare can help reduce latency and improve application performance.

Cloudflare AI Features

Cloudflare has expanded into artificial intelligence with tools designed for developers and website owners. Workers AI lets developers deploy and run AI models on Cloudflare’s network, while AI Gateway provides a unified way to manage and monitor requests across different AI providers.

The company has also introduced tools aimed at controlling AI crawlers and automated scraping. Features like AI bot blocking and AI Labyrinth help website owners manage how AI systems interact with their content and protect against unauthorized data collection.

Cloudflare One

Cloudflare One is the company’s Zero Trust and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform. Rather than relying on traditional VPNs, it verifies users, devices and connections before granting access to applications and internal resources.

The platform combines networking and security services such as secure web gateways, access controls and private application connectivity. Businesses use Cloudflare One to protect employees, devices and data regardless of where users are located.

Cloudflare One also includes services such as Cloudflare Access for Zero Trust network access and WARP, a secure connectivity service that helps protect internet traffic on user devices.

Cloudflare Domains

Cloudflare also offers domain registration services through Cloudflare Domains. Unlike traditional domain registrars, Cloudflare sells domains at cost, so customers pay the wholesale registry fee plus applicable ICANN fees without additional markup.

Cloudflare Domains integrates directly with the company’s DNS, security and performance services, making it easy for website owners to manage their domain and Cloudflare settings from a single dashboard. This streamlined approach is useful for businesses already using Cloudflare’s content delivery, DNS and security tools.

What Does Cloudflare Do?

Using a network like Cloudflare is worth considering for a few reasons, the most obvious being the potential for faster content load times. That could be a blog, WordPress website or an e-commerce website built with Shopify.

Speed is everything. No one wants to wait on a webpage to load. Besides, the paradigm of edge computing — bringing information and content closer to devices or consumers — is only growing.

You also get enhanced security and protection. Cloudflare can reduce bot activity, mitigate a DDoS attack and prevent comment spam. It can protect your online presence and uptime in the event of a DDoS attack thanks to the way that it separates good traffic from bad. You can learn more about that in our guide on DDoS attacks.

By going with an edge provider, you reduce server load and bandwidth, both of which are good things. Having a CDN in front of your website also helps process large volumes of traffic, reducing the risk of your website crashing during peak hours or traffic spikes.

Even if you’re not looking to get a website or blog off the ground and into the ether, Cloudflare’s DNS services provide another third-party option. Third-party DNS services are usually more focused on security and performance, and they can prevent ISP snooping, tracking and targeted ads.

A third-party DNS service provides some of the features of a virtual private network’s security, but you should still use a VPN to maximize that security.

How Do I Get Cloudflare?

Activating Cloudflare is simple. There’s nothing that needs to change at a hardware or code level. All you have to do is create an account and select a plan. The service offers a basic plan for free, as well as paid plans aimed at enterprises. From there, you choose which websites you want to protect by updating their DNS to point to it.

Many web hosts, such as HostPapa and DreamHost, integrate with Cloudflare for free. Those hosts have Cloudflare options built in, so it’s just a matter of enabling them.

What Are Cloudflare’s Security Issues and Criticisms?

As one of the internet’s largest infrastructure providers, Cloudflare has faced its share of outages, security incidents and public controversies. Some have involved technical failures, while others have centered on questions of content moderation and the role infrastructure companies should play in policing online content.

In January 2026, Cloudflare disclosed a vulnerability that could allow attackers to bypass certain web application firewall (WAF) protections under specific circumstances. The company addressed the issue and published details of the flaw as part of its security disclosure process.

Cloudflare also experienced two major global outages in late 2025. Service disruptions on Nov. 18 and Dec. 5 affected websites and online services that relied on Cloudflare’s network, highlighting the company’s importance to the broader internet ecosystem.

Beyond technical incidents, Cloudflare has faced criticism over the websites and communities it chooses to support. In 2019, it terminated service for the imageboard 8chan following public scrutiny after multiple mass shootings were linked to content posted on the platform. In 2022, Cloudflare also ended service for Kiwi Farms after concerns about targeted harassment campaigns and escalating security risks.

Earlier incidents include the 2017 Cloudbleed bug, which exposed sensitive user data due to a software error in Cloudflare’s systems, and a 2012 attack that allowed hacker group UGNazi to hijack 4chan’s domain through a series of account compromises and DNS changes.

Cloudflare continues to balance its role as an infrastructure provider with growing expectations around online safety, security and content moderation, making it a frequent participant in debates about the future of the internet.

Final Thoughts

Using a CDN is a great way to accelerate your web content. Whether that be a local blog or an e-commerce website, CDNs, such as Cloudflare, can help improve the performance and accessibility of your website. Cloudflare is unique in that it can also enhance your security.

Cloudflare isn’t the only CDN available, but it’s one of the most prominent. It is consistently ranked among the Forbes Cloud 100 and has become one of the most popular CDNs in the world. It continues to be a prime example of how edge computing and networking is changing the internet.  

In some ways, a CDN can be thought of as a VPN for your website. On that note, if you haven’t checked out our best VPN providers of 2018, now is as good a time as any. We’re going to spoil it a bit and let you know that ExpressVPN ranks first, though (read our ExpressVPN review).

We hope we’ve helped you understand what Cloudflare is and what CDNs are in general. If you’ve used Cloudflare or a CDN before, let us know about your experience in the comments below or tweet at us.