Question for the community

[Sakimabear]

Is Cloudflare a positive service to add to the hosting?

Thank you

 

[Sharky]

I use CloudFlare both for my personal sites and work.

 

[Sakimabear]

@Sharky, will you explain to me me how does it benefit the site and why do you use it.

Thanks

 

[Sharky]

Read this: http://www.cloudflare.com/features-cdn

These are the benefits and subsequently the reasons behind me using CloudFlare.

 

[Sakimabear]

@Sharky or anyone in the community, I had already read the hype their website says, I want to know why do YOU use it and does it work the way you want or expected it to.

Thanks

 

[essellar]

It's not "hype", but whether or not it's useful to you depends on your site and how people are using it. If you have few static assets (everything's dynamic) and few users who visit infrequently, then you might even notice a slight slowdown since user-agent caches are faster than server caches for retrieval and there's an extra step between the user and the site. (It's fast, but it's still an extra step.) If your site sees even modest usage, then moving your static assets (images, stylesheets, javascript, etc.) to a distributed CDN is going to speed things up considerably -- every user is essentially generating a cache for those assets for every other subsequent user, so your server can concentrate on serving only new or generated content. (This is a particular benefit if you're using SASS/LESS on the server to generate stylesheets.)

But that's just the day-to-day thing. There's also the DoS protection to think about. It's not just about organised black hat activity or botnets aimed at you, there's also the slashdot/reddit/HN effect to think about. All it takes is one user to think that something on your site is interesting (or worse, a hilarious error) and your site can be down for the count -- you can run over CPU or DB usage limits, run out of bandwidth (depending on your hosting plan) etc., and getting your site back online (if it's at all important to you) can put you out of pocket considerably. A service like Cloudflare can handle the viral for you (assuming you're not using header values that prevent it from doing so) and it can actively shut down anything that looks organised (which would include inadvertent DoS attacks as well, like CURL or WGET calls stuck in a loop).

But again, if you have next to nothing that sits still, few or no new users, and all of your major static assets are already being served by a CDN, then all you get is the DoS protection. It's up to you to decide whether or not the very slight performance penalty is worth it.

 

[Sakimabear]

Thank you @essellar for explaining it a in such a way that is more clear to me than reading the company hype. The biggest reason I was asking for the more understanding, was over the past couple of months there have been a more than a few posts here on the forums with users having problems with it. I am all for making my site better but just wasn't sure what to totally expect from Cloudflare. Your insight has made it clearer for me.

Thank you again!

Mods,please leave this topic open, I would like to have more feedback on this

 

[Sharky]

The biggest two benefits to me are that my x10VPS is based in the USA and I'm a Brit, and also that the DNS configuration pages are so much quicker to use than my domain name provider's.

For work it's primarily that the DNS config pages are what I'm used to from personal use. Additionally, people connect to the CloudFlare CDN and not directly to the server. Being a small organisation, it's not an overly expensive internet connection (6mbps upload) but through CloudFlare, the site's as snappy as any other. No matter where in the world you are*

*Providing you're near-ish to a CloudFlare CDN server.

 

[carl6969]

The biggest reason I was asking for the more understanding, was over the past couple of months there have been a more than a few posts here on the forums with users having problems with it.

Just carefully follow Cloudflare instructions and consider suggestions they make and it will work very well, meeting or exceeding the expectations of most users. No, I do not receive any compensation for these remarks. Just relating my experience and opinion.
I have had a VPS and have my own nameservers registered and for several years managed my own DNS. Periodically my sites would go down and, almost always, I would find some DNS issue that needed to be resolved. This has not happened one single time since I went to Cloudflare. I realize this feedback is of very little value unless you have a VPS.
As for the broader range of folks who do not have a VPS, I can only say that I completely agree with the remarks made by Esseller.

@ Sakimabear : My SECOND PC was a Commodore 64. First PC was a Commodore VIC 20. Using the term "PC" loosely here. Very first computer I worked with was an IBM 360 with tape drives and punched card readers. A reboot on that machine took about 12 - 14 hours if memory serves me.

 

[essellar]

I still think the VIC 20 was a step down from the PET. I mean, sure, colour -- but a what cost? I went with the TI 99/4A. (By the time I was done with it, it had expanded to roughly the size of a VAX. And cost nearly the same, now that I come to think on it...)

 

[Sakimabear]

@essellar
The C=64 was more than a little advanced the PET. The 64 had a more advanced chip {Pet - 6502} [C=64 - 6510] Max PET memory was {32kb} C=64 was [64 kb] and yes the Vic was only 5kb but was expandable to 32kb. The Vic also used the same chip that the Pet was using. I think the C=64 was much more advanced PET. @essellar you also forgot the 64 had 3 voices. The first computer of any type that had that.

@carl6969 The C=64 was my first "PC" that I ever owned by the first "PC" I started learning how to program was the Trash-80 errr TRS-80 Model 1 Level 1. That was the model the FCC stopped due to RF issues.

The C=64 was so far ahead of everyone else, if only they could've promoted themselves better. Jack Tramiel was the company's vision but also it's biggest inner enemy. (My opinion)

FYI to both of you, did you know that the Apple II was offered to CBM. Jack Tramiel refused it saying it was to expensive. Interesting. The Apple was one of the nails that put the Commodore line into schools here in the US. The C=64 is still being heavily supported in Europe.

Also remember that the C=64 has the record for a largest selling (per unit) "PC" of all time. The estimates are from 12.5 million to 19 million. Tramiel had said 22-30 million. That to me sounds like advertising.