![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nunoprospero.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/CloudFlare-logo-300x125.png\" "\\"CloudFlare-logo\\""){kind=logo}
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Cloudflare<\/a> is a content delivery network (CDN) which aims to enhance website performance and speed and providing security. It became famous for hosting the\u00a0LulzSec<\/a> services, the hacker group that attacked Sony network.<\/p>\n My main interest in a CDN solution is caching resources, since I was having too much accesses to the database to retrieve static data chunks and images, for some sites I manage.<\/p>\n I’ve been testing Cloudflare for the last 3 months, using the standard free plan for dealing with traffic from\/to a Hostmonster server. The setup is easy if you are keen on managing DNS entries, but the changes are not\u00a0immediate\u00a0so I recommend setting up in a low balance period, if possible, to avoid losing traffic. After the initial setup, Cloudflare has a lot of web management tools with “one click installation” so it’s a great opportunity to try tools for free – for instances, Pingdom<\/a>. Cloudflare allows the user to turn Cloudflare service on\/off in realtime, so it’s real useful to use the “Development mode” when you want to force the Cloudflare to request the resource instead of sending the cached version. Its also possible to reset manually the Cloudflare cache.<\/p>\n Results:<\/p>\n Pingdom<\/a> – Uptime: in 90 days, only one downtime max 5 minutes.<\/p>\n Pingdom – Response time: 19 ms is quite good. The pike in the graph refers to a development period, I guess. However, I’m not aware of such an\u00a0interruption.<\/p>\n Webmasters Tools<\/a> – Site Performance (beta): this is the most strangest information when using Cloudflare, since the site performance has not changed. This beta feature seems to report random data\u00a0regardless the traffic, the server availability, etc.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cloudflare reporting:<\/p>\n Adsense<\/a>: no problems were identified that could be correlated to CF. Ok, to be honest, the average CPC has been slowly falling this year (some cents) however is due to the economical context (at least for Portuguese advertisers…) so the Adsense behavior doesn’t seem to be affected by Cloudflare.<\/p>\n Drawbacks:<\/p>\n Conclusion:<\/p>\n Despite all these drawbacks, mostly common to all CDNs, Cloudflare<\/a> is a perfect choice for mid sized websites. It’s a free solution with lots of features available (the paid version has more analytics and 3rd party webapps).<\/p>\n The only price you really pay in these platforms is giving the CDN the knowledge about your site – since they intercept your traffic, they have even more information than Google Analytics, for instances.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nunoprospero.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/cloudflare-diagram.jpg\" "\\"cloudflare")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nunoprospero.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/pingdom_ping.png\" "\\"pingdom_ping\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nunoprospero.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/pingdom_responsetime.png\" "\\"pingdom_responsetime\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nunoprospero.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/webmasters.png\" "\\"webmasters\\"")
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