What is Cloudflare? - Rocketeers app [ Rocketeers ](/) [Login](https://rocketeersapp.com/login) On this page Knowledge --------- What is Cloudflare? =================== ### [\#Hosting](https://rocketeersapp.com/knowledge/hosting) Cloudflare sits between your visitors and your server, acting as a CDN, DNS host, and security layer all at once. Here is what it actually does and how it fits in front of your site. Published by [Mark van Eijk](https://rocketeersapp.com/author/mark-van-eijk) on June 30, 2026 · 2 minute read 1. [How it works: the proxy](#content-how-it-works-the-proxy) 2. [What it gives you](#content-what-it-gives-you) 3. [DNS hosting](#content-dns-hosting) 4. [A CDN (content delivery network)](#content-a-cdn-content-delivery-network) 5. [Free SSL/TLS](#content-free-ssltls) 6. [Security: DDoS protection and a WAF](#content-security-ddos-protection-and-a-waf) 7. [Hiding your origin](#content-hiding-your-origin) 8. [One thing to watch: real visitor IPs](#content-one-thing-to-watch-real-visitor-ips) 9. [Should you use it?](#content-should-you-use-it) 10. [Let Rocketeers handle it](#content-let-rocketeers-handle-it) Cloudflare is a service that sits in front of your website. Instead of visitors connecting straight to your server, their requests go to Cloudflare first, and Cloudflare decides what to serve from its own global network and what to forward to you. That one change — putting a smart layer between the internet and your origin server — is what makes everything else it offers possible. [\#](#content-how-it-works-the-proxy "Permalink")How it works: the proxy ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When you move your DNS to Cloudflare and switch a record to "proxied," its public address becomes a Cloudflare IP, not yours. Every request now lands on the nearest Cloudflare data center, which either answers from cache or passes it back to your origin server. Your real server address is hidden behind Cloudflare. That proxy position is the key idea. Because traffic flows through Cloudflare, it can cache content, filter attacks, and terminate HTTPS — all before a request ever reaches you. [\#](#content-what-it-gives-you "Permalink")What it gives you ------------------------------------------------------------- ### [\#](#content-dns-hosting "Permalink")DNS hosting Cloudflare is one of the fastest DNS providers, and it's free. You manage your records — A, CNAME, MX, TXT — in its dashboard, and changes propagate quickly. ### [\#](#content-a-cdn-content-delivery-network "Permalink")A CDN (content delivery network) Cloudflare caches your static files — images, CSS, JavaScript — in data centers around the world. A visitor in Tokyo is served from a nearby cache instead of waiting for a round trip to a server in Europe, which cuts load time and takes work off your origin. ### [\#](#content-free-ssltls "Permalink")Free SSL/TLS Cloudflare provides a trusted certificate for the connection between the visitor and Cloudflare at no cost, so your site is HTTPS without you issuing a certificate. (You still want a certificate on your origin for the Cloudflare-to-server hop — see [getting an A+ SSL grade with Cloudflare](/a-plus-grade-ssl-using-cloudflare).) ### [\#](#content-security-ddos-protection-and-a-waf "Permalink")Security: DDoS protection and a WAF Because attacks hit Cloudflare's network first, it can absorb large denial-of-service floods and block malicious requests with its Web Application Firewall before they ever reach your server. ### [\#](#content-hiding-your-origin "Permalink")Hiding your origin With the proxy on, your server's real IP isn't public, which makes it much harder for an attacker to target your machine directly. [\#](#content-one-thing-to-watch-real-visitor-ips "Permalink")One thing to watch: real visitor IPs -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once traffic is proxied, every request arrives from a Cloudflare IP, so your server logs would show Cloudflare instead of your actual visitors. The fix is to tell your web server to trust Cloudflare's IP ranges and read the real client address from the `CF-Connecting-IP` header. Cloudflare publishes its IP ranges, and they change over time, so this needs to stay current. [\#](#content-should-you-use-it "Permalink")Should you use it? -------------------------------------------------------------- For most sites the free tier is a clear win on speed and security. The trade-offs and the cases where it really pays off are covered in [why do you need Cloudflare](/why-do-you-need-cloudflare). [\#](#content-let-rocketeers-handle-it "Permalink")Let Rocketeers handle it --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The fiddly part of Cloudflare isn't signing up — it's the wiring: importing your sites, getting the SSL mode right so you don't end up in a [redirect loop](/err-too-many-redirects), and keeping your web server's trusted-IP list in sync with Cloudflare's ranges so your logs and rate limits see real visitors. Rocketeers imports your sites into Cloudflare and keeps the IP ranges updated on your servers automatically, so the proxy works correctly without manual upkeep. ### Subscribe to our newsletter Do you want to receive regular updates with fresh and exclusive content to learn more about web development, hosting, security and performance? Subscribe now! 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