Cloudflare WordPress CDN: Easy Setup Guide For Beginners!

Speed and security are two essential requirements of a WordPress website. Although Cloudways is the most impressive managed cloud platform for hosting WordPress sites, hosting is not the only factor in improving your WordPress site’s speed.

Another way to solidify your site’s security and speed is by using a CDN (content delivery network). And in the realm of CDNs, no CDN comes close to Cloudflare regarding coverage.

In this article, I’ll show you how to easily install and configure Cloudflare CDN for your WordPress website. First, we’ll look at the Cloudways method (easy), and then we’ll look at how to integrate Cloudflare with your WordPress site if you’re not a Cloudways user.

Integrate Cloudflare Enterprise via Cloudways (Easy Method)

Recognizing Cloudflare’s reliability, Cloudways partnered with it, bringing the enterprise security solution for as low as $1.99/month. With Cloudflare Enterprise, you can score higher on Core Web Vitals, safeguard your websites from DDoS attacks, avoid malicious traffic with a Web Application Firewall (WAF), and receive HTTP3 support.

Here’s how you can easily activate the Cloudflare Enterprise add-on for your applications on the Cloudways Platform:

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Step 1: Select Cloudflare in the WordPress Application

• Log in to the Cloudways Platform and create a server by clicking on the +Add Server button.

• Fill up the Application and Server Details. I chose WordPress as my application and a 2GB DigitalOcean server. Once done, click on the “Launch Now” button.

Step 2: Point Your Domain to Your Domain Registrar

• Now that you’re done with creating a server and choosing WordPress as your application, you must point your domain to your domain registrar. Since I’m using Namecheap, I’ll log in to my account and add my server’s IP address in the A record section.
• To do this, copy your server’s IP address. You can find it in the servers tab, as shown in the screenshot below.

• Now I’ll head over to Namecheap, where my domain, whichserversize.net, is registered, and log in to my account.
• Next, go to the Advanced DNS tab in Namecheap > select A record from the Type drop-down. You’ll need to do this step twice.
• Next, add your server’s IP address. For the first A record, type “@“ in the Host field and paste your server’s IP address in the value field.
• For the second A record, type “www” in the Host field. And paste your server’s IP address in the value field.

• Now, go back to the Cloudways platform and go to your application.
• Next, go to the Domain Management tab and select the + Add Domain button.

• After this, type in your domain name in the new popup window and click on the + Add Domain button.

• After this, simply checkmark your domain and click on the three dots.
• Next, click on Make Primary.

• Now that your domain is properly pointed and you have also made it primary in the Cloudways platform, you’re all set to configure Cloudflare enterprise.

Step 3: Enable Cloudflare Enterprise in the Cloudways Platform

• Select the WordPress application on which you want to add Cloudflare Enterprise.

• Under the Application Management tab, click on the Cloudflare option.

• Enter your domain name and click on the Enable button. It will take some time.

• After enabling Cloudflare, you’ll see the status as Domain not Live.

Step 4: Point Your Domain to Cloudflare By Adding CNAME Records

• Once your domain verification is complete, you’ll see a prominent ‘View CNAME Records’ button. Click on it.

• Here, you’ll see your CNAME Records. Copy the Hostname, and just like we added A record earlier in Namecheap, you must add CNAME.

• To do that, I’ll simply copy the Hostname, which is secure.cloudways.cloud, and paste it after selecting CNAME Record from the dropdown menu in Namecheap. Like previously, you’ll have to perform this step twice.
• For the first CNAME record, type “@” in the Host field and paste secure.cloudways.cloud in the Value field.
• For the second CNAME record, type “www” in the Host field and paste secure.cloudways.cloud in the Value field.

• Now, click on the refresh icon, and the status will change to Active.
• You’ll see a message “Your domain is successfully pointed to your Cloudflare Enterprise Network“ at the top-right corner.

You have successfully integrated Cloudflare Enterprise Add-on into your WordPress application hosted on Cloudways. You can also read the Cloudflare integration KBs for more detailed information.

Why Should You Get the Cloudways Cloudflare Enterprise Add-on?

Cloudflare offers four pricing plans: Free, Pro, Business, and Enterprise. Cloudflare charges on the base of features instead of bandwidth usage.

1. The Free plan offers basic performance and security.
2. The Pro Plan at $20/month provides advanced performance with image optimization and WAF.
3. The $200/month Business plan provides DDoS attack protection, prioritized support, WAF, and dynamic content compression.
4. Lastly, the Enterprise plan is a custom plan based on customer requirements with a dedicated solution engineer and support. The Cloudflare Enterprise plan is the most premium option, with monthly costs ranging from $1000 to $5000.

But with Cloudways + Cloudflare, these prices are reduced. You can see the Cloudflare pricing plans and features here.

Cloudflare Free Version Limitations: The free version comes with some limited features. Some key features that are very important for your site are not available in the free version. It doesn’t include:

• Lossless Image Optimization
• Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
• PCI DSS 3.2 compliance
• Uptime SLA
• Uptime Service Credits
• Single-Sign-On (SSO) Support
• Network Prioritization
• Layer-3 Network DDoS protection with Magic Transit*
• China Network Access

The free plan also only allows 3-page rules and simple bots mitigation.

The Cloudways Cloudflare Enterprise add-on is the most affordable solution for better quality, performance, and security. With Cloudways Cloudflare Enterprise add-on, you get:

• 100GB Enterprise CDN
• Edge Page Caching (NEW)
• Argo Smart Routing (NEW)
• Argo Tiered Caching
• Priority DDoS protection
• Intelligent firewall (WAF)
• Global Rate Limiting (NEW)
• The Honey Pot Project (NEW)
• Image optimization with Polish
• Brotli compression
• Mobile optimization with Mirage
• Wildcard SSL support
• PCI DSS compliance
• HTTP/3 support
• Reserved for Cloudways IPs & prioritized routing

The initial cost is $4.99 per domain, but if you activate the add-on for hundreds of applications, the price decreases to $1.99 per domain.

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How to Set Up Cloudflare CDN on WordPress (Manual Method)

Cloudflare provides many options like CDN, optimization of ads, DDoS security, analytics, and more. Besides free plans, they offer multiple premium plans where you will have more powerful features.

Let’s learn how to install Cloudflare on a WordPress website.

• Sign Up for Cloudflare
• Add the Site’s URL
• Select Your Cloudflare Plan
• Review DNS Records
• Change Your NameServer
• Change your NameServer from Domain Registrar
• Cloudflare Quick Start Guide
• Check Cloudflare CDN Status

Step 1: Sign Up for Cloudflare

• First, you need to create an account on Cloudflare. If you already have it, you can skip this step.

Step 2: Add the Site’s URL

• Once you sign up on Cloudflare, a new screen will pop up where you’ll see a welcome message. Click the Add a website or application button at the end of the screen.

• Type in your domain and hit Continue.

 

Step 3: Select Your Cloudflare Plan

• Once you add your domain, Cloudflare will ask about the plan you want to avail. For this tutorial, I’m going with the Free plan. You can upgrade at any time if you need more features.

Step 4: Review DNS Records

• The next step is to review your DNS records and check whether they are configured correctly or not.
• Cloudflare will fetch all the DNS configurations from your domain registrar.
• In my case, only two DNS records (Type A) exist.
• Review your records and click Continue.

Step 5: Change Your Nameserver

• As you can see in the image below, you need to change your domain registrar’s nameservers.
• Replace them with the ones Cloudflare has provided.

Step 6: Change your Nameserver from Domain Registrar

• Now, open your domain registrar and change the name servers.
• Copy Cloudflare’s Nameservers.
• Paste them on your domain registrar Nameserver option.
• My domain is with Namecheap, and I’ve successfully changed the nameservers.

Step 7: Cloudflare Quick Start Guide

• Once you change the nameservers on the domain registrar, go back to Cloudflare.
• Click on the Check nameservers button.

• You should now see a message on your screen saying, “Great news! Cloudflare is now protecting your site”.

• You’ll also receive an email from Cloudflare notifying you that your Cloudflare status is now active.

• Now that Cloudflare is integrated into your site, you can tweak a few recommended settings using the Quick Start Guide.
• Simply click the Review settings button, and enable a few recommended settings.

• Next, click on the Get Started button.

• Now, enable both Automatic HTTPS Rewrites and Always use HTTPS.

• Next, enable Brotli and hit Save.

Note: You may find our guide on Brotli vs. Gzip compression helpful.

• After reviewing the summary, click on Finish.

If you want to take full advantage of Cloudflare, I recommend installing the Cloudflare plugin on your WordPress website.

Step 8: Check Cloudflare CDN Status

Follow the below steps to check your Cloudflare CDN is working on your WordPress site.

• Open your WordPress site on a web browser.
• Right-click on the site and click on Inspect.
• Now, click on the Network tab on the Inspect console.
• Click on any JS or CSS file from the left corner.
• Now, if your cf-cache-status shows HIT, your CDN is working fine.

Adjusting Other Essential Cloudflare Settings

Your basic Cloudflare setup is complete. Still, there are a few vital configurations to enhance your WordPress site’s security:

Secure Your WordPress Login Page

You can use page rules to customize how Cloudflare functions on specific pages of your site, particularly critical ones like the login page and wp-admin area.

With a free Cloudflare account, you have access to 3 page rules. You can opt for five extra rules at $5 per month if you require more.

• Click on “Rules” in the left menu and then “Create Page Rule.”
• Begin by creating a rule to secure your WordPress login page with the following settings:

• Page URL: example: mywebsite.com/login-page*

• Settings: Security Level – High
• After configuring, click “Save and Deploy” to activate the rule.

Exclude the WordPress Dashboard from Cloudflare

Create a second rule to exclude the WordPress dashboard from Cloudflare caching and apply high security.

• Click “Create New Rule” to set up your second rule.
• Configure the rule with these settings:
  • Page URL: mywebsite.com/wp-admin*
  • Settings: Security Level – High, Cache Level – Bypass, Disable Performance, Disable Apps
• Click “Save and Deploy” to add the new rule.

Configure SSL Certificate Settings

Access the SSL certificate settings in the “SSL/TLS” menu on the left. If you’re already using SSL, select the “Full” radio button.

With these settings in place, Cloudflare will display a green padlock in your visitors’ address bar, indicating that your website is secure.

Auto Minify

Auto Minify optimizes your website by reducing the size of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files, improving page loading times.

Cloudflare removes unnecessary characters like comments and empty lines from HTML. For JavaScript and CSS, minification applies to cached files, so clear the cache to see changes on your WordPress site.

This feature is available on all Cloudflare plans. Enable it by going to Speed → Optimization → Content Optimization → Auto Minify and choose the file type to minify.

Rocket Loader

Rocket Loader speeds up content display by postponing the loading of JavaScript code until other content like text, images, and fonts are rendered.

Cloudflare’s Rocket Loader enhances the following performance metrics for pages utilizing JavaScript:

• Time to First Contentful Paint (TTFCP)
• Time to First Meaningful Paint (TTFMP)

Cloudflare provides the Rocket Loader feature to all users. To activate this optimization, go to Speed → Optimization → Content Optimization → Rocket Loader in your settings.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a key security feature that helps safeguard your website from potential online attacks and DDoS attacks.

Utilizing machine learning, the WAF protects your WordPress site by preventing unauthorized account access, halting data leaks, and blocking login attempts using stolen credentials.

To configure these Cloudflare settings, navigate to Security → WAF, where you’ll find four tabs: Custom rules, Rate limiting rules, Managed rules, and Tools.

Please note that while some firewall features are accessible with a free Cloudflare account, most require a Pro plan.

Cloudflare’s Caching Feature

Caching involves storing copies of static content temporarily, allowing browsers to access them more quickly, resulting in faster website loading times. Cloudflare offers caching solutions for both web browsers and DNS servers to enhance website performance.

To access Cloudflare’s caching features, go to Caching → Configuration. Here are some of the key features you can manage:

• Purge Cache
• Caching Level
• Browser Cache TTL
• CSAM Scanning Tool
• Crawler Hints
• Always Online
• Development Mode

Additionally, Cloudflare offers settings for Cache Analytics, Tiered Cache, and Cache Reserve, but some of these options are available only with the premium version.

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Setting up and Configuring the Cloudflare WordPress Plugin (Optional)

Cloudflare provides a dedicated WordPress plugin with one-click WordPress-optimized settings. This plugin allows you to set up Cloudflare on your WordPress site easily, add web application firewall (WAF) rulesets, and automatically clear the cache, among other features.

• To begin, install and activate the Cloudflare plugin on your website.

• Once the plugin is active, navigate to “Settings » Cloudflare” in your admin panel to configure your Cloudflare settings.

• On the settings page, you’ll find a “Create Your Free Account” button and a sign-in option for existing accounts. Simply click the “Sign in here” link to proceed.

• On the next screen, enter your Cloudflare email and API key by clicking the “Get your API key from here” link.

• A popup window will appear in your Cloudflare account area. Ensure you are on your “My Profile” page, then go to the “API Tokens” tab in the left sidebar.

• Navigate to the “Global API Key” section and click “View” to reveal your API key. Copy it by clicking on the key itself.

• Return to your WordPress dashboard and paste your email address and API key. Click “Save API Credentials.”

• Your Cloudflare settings will now appear on your dashboard. You can optimize your WordPress site with one click by selecting “Apply Default Settings” and clicking “Apply.”

• To access more site optimization settings, go to the “Settings” menu option.

• Scroll down to the “Security” section. By default, the security level is set to medium. Choose “High” from the dropdown list to enhance your website’s security.

Cloudflare Overview and Market Share

Cloudflare CDN is one of the most popular CDNs available, with a network covering more than 300 cities in 100+ countries, including mainland China. 12,500 networks directly connect to Cloudflare, including every major ISP, cloud provider, and enterprise. Because of this, Cloudflare’s network can reach about 95% of the world’s population within approximately 50 ms.

According to the latest stats from BuiltWith, 30,760,997 websites are Cloudflare Customers. It is used by about 29.24% of the Top 1m websites in the world.

If you do a quick Google search of the most popular CDN (Content Delivery Network) providers based on the number of customers they serve, you’ll see that currently, Cloudflare is in the lead, followed by Amazon CloudFront and Akamai.

Some well-known websites that use Cloudflare’s services include:

• Discord
• Fiverr
• Udemy
• Medium
• Canva

Needless to say, Cloudflare’s market share is massive.

Cloudflare’s Position in the CDN Industry

While Cloudflare is a prominent player in the CDN market, it’s important to note that it’s not the only CDN in the ecosystem. There are several CDNs available, but Cloudflare consistently stands out and maintains a strong presence.

If we look at the WordPress CDNs, they all have tons of users/customers, but how does Cloudflare stand out in them?

Let’s have a look at the statistics and analyze the difference.

According to the w3techs survey, “Cloudflare is used by 77.2% of all the websites whose reverse proxy service we know”. This is 18.5% of all websites.

The graph below shows Cloudflare’s market position in terms of popularity and traffic compared to the most popular reverse proxy services.

Cloudflare stands out in the CDN market compared to the other popular CDNs.

Advantages of Using Cloudflare CDN

Cloudflare CDN is a renowned CDN provider with servers spread all over the globe to serve the content of your website to every corner of the world. Cloudflare offers multiple features depending on the pricing plan.

DDoS Protection

Cloudflare provides comprehensive DDoS protection to secure your Websites, applications, and entire network. Cloudflare ensures the performance of legitimate traffic is not compromised.

The 209 Tbps (terabit per second) Cloudflare’s network blocks an average of 124 billion daily threats. It also includes some of the largest DDoS attacks in history.

Cloudflare was entitled as a Leader in the Forrester Wave™ report for the DDoS Mitigation Solutions 2021. Forrester states, ‘Cloudflare protects against DDoS from the edge, and fast.’ If your site, application, or network is under attack, Cloudflare can protect you from multiple threats, such as login attacks, bot attacks, layer 3 and 4 attacks, and more.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

The WAF (Web Application Firewall) protects your website by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic. It defends against major threats like SQL injection, file inclusion, and cross-site scripting (XSS). Cloudflare’s WAF offers layered security, safeguarding against OWASP-identified vulnerabilities and application layer threats, including zero-day attacks.

Reliability

As we discussed earlier, how big Cloudflare is, from the reliability perspective, millions of people, internet properties, and ecommerce giants use Cloudflare DNS to make their sites available to anyone worldwide. Cloudflare DNS service, resolving 2,270 billion DNS queries per day.

Caching

Cloudflare for WordPress includes an advanced caching system that automatically stores static content and provides features like cache purging and tiered caching. Most websites use a combination of dynamic and static content. Cloudflare helps conserve CPU resources and bandwidth on your web hosting server by handling content delivery through its servers. This results in reduced latency for end-users and an improved overall user experience.

Read More: How To Use Cloudflare CDN with W3 Total Cache Plugin

Optimizations

Cloudflare’s image optimization compresses and resizes images for quicker website loading. This enhances user experience and reduces bandwidth usage, saving hosting costs.

For example, Cloudflare Polish optimizes website images, reducing their size without quality loss for faster page loading. Cloudflare Mirage serves the best image version based on user device and network conditions, ensuring top quality without slowing down speed.

Accelerated Mobile Pages

Accelerated Mobile Pages is a technique to load web pages faster on mobile devices when searched by Google’s mobile search engine. More and more users are using their mobile devices to browse the internet.

Cloudflare CDN accelerated mobile links are powered by AMP and load AMP-enabled web pages inside the viewing window three times faster than the standard mobile pages.

Cloudflare provides several options like CDN, optimization of ads, DDoS security, analytics, and more. They also offer a free plan you can use before purchasing a paid one.

Smart Routing

Smart Routing is routing traffic through the fastest network available, with an algorithm that utilizes real-time network intelligence to decide the quickest path.

Cloudflare’s network infrastructure is designed to intelligently route traffic through the fastest and most reliable paths, optimizing content delivery and ensuring a smooth and speedy user experience.

Stream Delivery

Media streaming can be time-consuming to load if accessed from the other corner of the region. Cloudflare CDN offers a unique caching mechanism to deliver stream files to solve this problem instantly.

Load Balancing

Cloudflare offers a subscription-based load-balancing feature that starts from $5 per month. Load Balancing protects against service disruptions by employing local and global traffic load balancing, geographic routing, server health checks, and failover mechanisms. This ensures the uninterrupted availability of your essential resources.

Summary

If you are a blogger, developer, or agency who is concerned with the security and performance of your website, you must try out Cloudflare CDN. It might be possible for you to think it is difficult to set up and configure Cloudflare on WordPress.

In this article, I’ve explained everything related to Cloudflare – from an overview to two different integration methods of Cloudflare: Enterprise add-on via Cloudways and setting up Cloudflare CDN on WordPress.

After reading this article, you’ll be able to know how easy it is to use Cloudflare CDN when you host your WordPress server on the Cloudways Platform. If you still have any questions related to Cloudflare CDN, please write them in the comments section, and I’ll be sure to get back to you.