I'm currently reviewing our web expenses and I've noticed we're spending quite a bit on various services. I want to see if switching to Cloudflare would be a good option for us. Here are the details:
- We have 50 domains—mostly common TLDs, no international ones.
- When I compare the pricing to our current provider, Network Solutions, it seems like Cloudflare could save us money.
- For DNS, we're averaging about 10 million queries a month, with 5% of those being the main traffic. I'm a bit concerned about any potential complications, especially since Cloudflare requires a Business Plan to use their nameservers without limitations.
- As for SSL, we manage several certificates, including Wildcard and OV ones. I usually order directly through our domain registrars, but I understand that to use Cloudflare's Universal SSL, we'd need to proxy all the traffic through them, which also means they would manage the cert rotation.
- Alternatively, I could buy from a third-party provider, but that requires a Business Plan, which might not be worth it given our needs.
I've already had a good experience with the two domains we have using Cloudflare for their Web Application Firewall (WAF). Their domain pricing seems appealing, and the offer for unlimited DNS queries sounds almost too good to be true. The only downside I see is the need to proxy web traffic for Universal SSL; otherwise, the cost for using a Custom SSL would be quite high at $200 per month per domain.
What am I missing? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
2 Answers
I've always kept my domain registrar separate from my nameservers. It's a good precaution; if Cloudflare were to face a major outage, you'd be at a standstill without the option to switch to another nameserver.
Honestly, paying for an SSL certificate seems a bit unnecessary these days. We use Cloudflare for DNS, but we don't proxy traffic because it can break some of our legacy applications. You can use free services like Let's Encrypt (LE), GetTLS (GTS), or ZeroSSL to avoid those costs.
I’m a bit confused on this—if I go with a third-party cert, isn’t that going to need a paid plan for each domain? How does that allow you to use the free services on Cloudflare without proxying?
Fair point! But in the event of an outage, I’d be among a huge chunk of the internet in the same boat, right? Haha!