Cloudflare Alternatives

Self-hosting

Self-hosting often works great, but it requires some effort to setup. It is more aimed at technical people.

We might create a guide for some self-hosting basics which don't require Cloudflare. IPFS may be worth consideration if performance is the main concern.

Apache is vulnerable to various low-bandwidth attacks. Use other server software such as Caddy, lighttpd or nginx.

Best way to protect your server from DDoS

Avoid any third-party service that can intercept HTTP traffic (like Cloudflare)
Install WAF on your loadbalancer.
- Even simple ModSecurity can save you.
Add rate-limit to your nftable(firewall) and server software.
- Just drop the excessive connection.

Alternatives

Alternative	Drawback	Price	Link
Akamai	can be used to block Tor	?	https://akamai.net/
BunnyCDN	?	$0.01+	https://bunnycdn.com/
Codeberg pages	no custom domain support; tor hostility	Free	https://pages.codeberg.org/
Gitee pages	must understand Chinese	Free	https://gitee.com/help/articles/4136
Github pages	uses Microsoft servers	Free	https://pages.github.com/ (WARNING: Tor/VPN users will get their account blocked automatically by Github)
Level 3	?	Enterprise	https://www.centurylink.com/
PerimeterX	not gratis	?	-
Sharktech DDoS Solutions	?	?	https://sharktech.net/
Surge.sh	Modifies *.surge.sh/robots.txt response	Free	https://surge.sh/
Voxility	?	?	https://www.voxility.com/
eQualitie	not gratis	gratis during COVID19	https://equalit.ie/
neoCities	static pages	Free	https://neocities.org/
sucuri	not gratis; tor hostility at ~3.483%	$200+	https://sucuri.net/

Not researched yet

CDNJS: sponsored by Cloudflare. It might use it in the background.

Why X is not included

X	Reason
Cloudflare Argo	Uses Cloudflare.
DDoS-GUARD	just like CloudFlare.
Gitlab pages	GitLab is now Cloudflared
Imperva	Uses Cloudflare.
jsDelivr	Uses Cloudflare, see their network page
Netlify	Uses Amazon AWS which is also a content delivery network. It would be hypocritical to include it.
Siteground	Tor-hostile people.

History

Sucuri and eQualitie have a history of CloudFlare patronage, but no longer.

2.7 KiB Raw Blame History