The original post: /r/selfhosted by /u/Knurpel on 2024-06-10 10:40:59.

There is a letter floating around the Internet where the Cloudflare CEO complains that their sales-team is not doing their job, and that they “are now in the process of quickly rotating out those members of our team who have been underperforming.” Those still with a job at Cloudflare are put under high pressure, and they pass-on the pressure to customers.

There are posts on Reddit where customers are asked to fork over 120k$ within 24h, or be shut down. There are many complaints of pressure tactics trying to move customers up to the next Cloudflare tier.

While this mostly affects corporate customers, us homelabbers and selfhosters should keep a wary eye on these developments. We mostly use the free, or maybe the cheapo business tier.  Cloudflare wants to make money, and they are not making enough to cover all those freebies. The company that allegedly controls 30% of the global Internet traffic just reported widening losses.

Its inevitable: Once you get hooked and dependent on their free stuff, prepare to eventually be asked for money, or be kicked out.

Therefore:

  • Do not get dependent on Cloudflare. Always ask yourself what to do if they shut you down.
  • Always keep your domain registration separate from Cloudflare.  Register the domain elsewhere, delegate DNS to Cloudflare. If things get nasty, simply delegate your DNS away, and point it straight to your website.
  • Without Cloudflare caching, your website would be a bit slower, but you are still up and running, and you can look for another CDN vendor.
  • For those of us using the nifty cloudflared tunnel to run stuff at home without exposing our private parts to the Internet, being shut out from Cloudflare won’t be the end. There are alternatives (maybe.) Push comes to shove, we could go ghetto until a better solution is found, and stick one of those cheapo mini-PCs into the DMZ before the router/firewall, and treat&administer it like a VPS rented elsewhere.

Should Cloudflare ever kick you out of their free paradise, you shouldn’t be down for more than a few minutes. If you are down for hours, or days, you are not doing it right.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Cloudflare, and I use it a lot. But we should be prepared for the love-affair turning sour.