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Getting Started with Cloudflare

Welcome to Cloudflare​

Cloudflare sits between the internet and your server, acting as a reverse proxy, CDN, firewall, and DNS provider — all for free on the base plan. You point your domain's nameservers at Cloudflare, and it handles the rest.

Cloudflare is often the fastest and simplest way to get a production-grade setup: SSL, CDN, and DDoS protection in under 10 minutes.

What You'll Learn​

  • Adding a domain — pointing your nameservers to Cloudflare
  • DNS management — creating A, CNAME, and MX records in Cloudflare's dashboard
  • Proxy mode (orange cloud) — routing traffic through Cloudflare vs. DNS-only
  • Free SSL — how Cloudflare provides HTTPS without Certbot (and when you still want Certbot)
  • SSL modes — Flexible, Full, Full (Strict) — and which one to use
  • Page rules — redirects, always-use-HTTPS, cache control per URL pattern
  • Firewall rules — blocking countries, bots, and bad IPs
  • Caching — how Cloudflare caches static assets and how to purge the cache
  • Cloudflare vs. Route 53 — when to use each

Prerequisites​

  • A registered domain name
  • A running server or service to point the domain at
  • Access to your domain registrar to change nameservers