Cloudflare Services

Cloudflare Workers run on V8 isolates rather than containers, enabling cold starts under 1 millisecond compared to hundreds of milliseconds for Lambda. Workers execute in every Cloudflare data center globally, meaning code runs close to every user automatically. The trade-off is that Workers use a Web Standards-based runtime rather than full Node.js, so some npm packages may not be compatible.

Yes, Cloudflare's free plan includes unlimited CDN bandwidth with no overage charges. This applies to cached content served through Cloudflare's network. However, the free plan has limits on other features such as the number of page rules, firewall rules, and Workers requests. For most websites, the free plan provides substantial protection and performance improvements at no cost.

R2 provides an S3-compatible API, making migration straightforward. The key advantage is zero egress fees, which means you are not charged for data transferred out of R2. This can result in massive cost savings for applications that serve large amounts of data. R2 pricing is $0.015 per GB per month for storage, compared to S3's $0.023 per GB plus egress charges that can significantly increase total costs.

For many use cases, yes. Cloudflare Pages handles full-stack web deployment with serverless functions. Workers provides compute for API endpoints and business logic. R2 handles object storage, D1 provides SQLite databases, and KV offers key-value storage. However, for applications requiring relational databases, long-running processes, or specific server-side runtimes, you may still need a traditional cloud provider for certain components.

Cloudflare's DDoS protection leverages its 310+ data center network to absorb and mitigate attacks close to their source. The system automatically detects and blocks malicious traffic without requiring manual configuration. All plans, including Free, receive unmetered DDoS mitigation with no bandwidth surge charges. Cloudflare has successfully mitigated some of the largest DDoS attacks ever recorded, including attacks exceeding 71 million requests per second.

Cloudflare Zero Trust replaces traditional VPNs with identity-based access controls. Users authenticate through identity providers, and Cloudflare enforces access policies at the edge before requests reach your applications. This includes Cloudflare Access for application-level security, Gateway for DNS and HTTP filtering, and Browser Isolation for safe browsing. The free tier supports up to 50 users, making it accessible for small teams.