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CloudFlare looks cool but the sit does a lousy job explaining the service. I even watched the video. I'm actually more confused than when I started...I though

CloudFlare looks cool but the sit does a lousy job explaining the service. I even watched the video. I'm actually more confused than when I started...I thought it as a cloud layer like Heroku, but you keep your current host, and don't install anything. How does this work, is it DNS? Why is it so cheap?

trustfundbaby 15y ago
I have the same problem ... I don't know if it works like a reseller hosting account or more like a shared hosting account ... have no idea how much control I have over the website or if I have ssh access ... and I really don't want to sign up to find out ...
eastdakota 15y ago
Works via DNS. Takes about 5 minutes to sign up. Tens of thousands of sites using the service. Currently powering than 2,000 page views per second for more than 100 million unique visitors per month.
- seiji 15y ago
  Turn this into the front page: http://www.cloudflare.com/overview.html http://www.cloudflare.com/overview.html I visited half the site trying to figure it out.
  - ZoFreX 15y ago
    Definitely make this the front page, made things a lot clearer. It could still use work, though: it still feels a bit vague on how much its oriented toward caching (which I really need to know as it could potentially require changes in a web app) and security (because I'm really confused as to why someone would want to depend on the caching proxy layer for XSS protection). Also, this line really put me off: > We have designed the system to scale with our goal in mind: helping power and protect the entire Internet. I don't think anyone wants one entity having the ability to re-route a significant proportion of http traffic!
- pnathan 15y ago
  That's a pretty good ad copy there, at least for this geek.
  - semanticist 15y ago
    I disagree, it took a follow-up question to get the real answer to what it is. (A caching reverse proxy.) I undertand that you'd never ever say the words 'caching reverse proxy' to normal people, but if someone on HN asks 'what is this doing' you can probably feel safe to use the technical terms. Good ad copy, if you're aiming at geeks and only geeks, doesn't spare the jargon.
  - flam316 15y ago
    He should be pretty good at it, if he owns it ;).
- ZoFreX 15y ago
  But what does it do? Is it a caching reverse proxy in front of my site?
  - eastdakota 15y ago
    Yes. At a technical level, CloudFlare is a caching reverse proxy provisioned via DNS.
    - jrockway 15y ago
      Does it serve cache hits via a CDN, or do you provide all the bandwidth? I hadn't thought of this before reading this thread, but a great service would be something like Varnish that's backed by some CDN instead of a big block of memory. That way, we can get great performance out of sites that are low on memory and bandwidth, like your low-end Linode or Slicehost.
      - eastdakota 15y ago
        That's a good description: Varnish + CDN (+ security). CloudFlare ends up making sites twice as fast and saving sites about 65% of their bandwidth. We run our own CDN with nodes scattered around the world.
        jrockway 15y ago
        Sounds excellent. I may be trying out your service in the near future!
      - ZoFreX 15y ago
        While that does sound awesome, wouldn't this be pretty easy to accomplish with some of Amazon's products? In addition, based on their size, they effectively are a CDN!
        dools 15y ago
        It's pretty easy with open source products ;)
benologist 15y ago
It acts as a proxy for your website, and anyone it doesn't like gets a page of junk from them instead of your site. It's gotten me multiple times that I can only assume is because I'm in Nicaragua. The first few times I thought it was some weird wordpress plugin, it was only when a friend on MSN implemented it that I realized what it was.

trustfundbaby 15y ago

I have the same problem ... I don't know if it works like a reseller hosting account or more like a shared hosting account ... have no idea how much control I have over the website or if I have ssh access ... and I really don't want to sign up to find out ...

eastdakota 15y ago

Works via DNS. Takes about 5 minutes to sign up. Tens of thousands of sites using the service. Currently powering than 2,000 page views per second for more than 100 million unique visitors per month.

seiji 15y ago
Turn this into the front page: http://www.cloudflare.com/overview.html http://www.cloudflare.com/overview.html I visited half the site trying to figure it out.
- ZoFreX 15y ago
  Definitely make this the front page, made things a lot clearer. It could still use work, though: it still feels a bit vague on how much its oriented toward caching (which I really need to know as it could potentially require changes in a web app) and security (because I'm really confused as to why someone would want to depend on the caching proxy layer for XSS protection). Also, this line really put me off: > We have designed the system to scale with our goal in mind: helping power and protect the entire Internet. I don't think anyone wants one entity having the ability to re-route a significant proportion of http traffic!
pnathan 15y ago
That's a pretty good ad copy there, at least for this geek.
- semanticist 15y ago
  I disagree, it took a follow-up question to get the real answer to what it is. (A caching reverse proxy.) I undertand that you'd never ever say the words 'caching reverse proxy' to normal people, but if someone on HN asks 'what is this doing' you can probably feel safe to use the technical terms. Good ad copy, if you're aiming at geeks and only geeks, doesn't spare the jargon.
- flam316 15y ago
  He should be pretty good at it, if he owns it ;).
ZoFreX 15y ago
But what does it do? Is it a caching reverse proxy in front of my site?
- eastdakota 15y ago
  Yes. At a technical level, CloudFlare is a caching reverse proxy provisioned via DNS.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    Does it serve cache hits via a CDN, or do you provide all the bandwidth? I hadn't thought of this before reading this thread, but a great service would be something like Varnish that's backed by some CDN instead of a big block of memory. That way, we can get great performance out of sites that are low on memory and bandwidth, like your low-end Linode or Slicehost.
    - eastdakota 15y ago
      That's a good description: Varnish + CDN (+ security). CloudFlare ends up making sites twice as fast and saving sites about 65% of their bandwidth. We run our own CDN with nodes scattered around the world.
      - jrockway 15y ago
        Sounds excellent. I may be trying out your service in the near future!
    - ZoFreX 15y ago
      While that does sound awesome, wouldn't this be pretty easy to accomplish with some of Amazon's products? In addition, based on their size, they effectively are a CDN!
      - dools 15y ago
        It's pretty easy with open source products ;)

benologist 15y ago

It acts as a proxy for your website, and anyone it doesn't like gets a page of junk from them instead of your site. It's gotten me multiple times that I can only assume is because I'm in Nicaragua. The first few times I thought it was some weird wordpress plugin, it was only when a friend on MSN implemented it that I realized what it was.