Cloudflare Pro: How critical is website downtime for your business?

Is your website crucial to your sales process, and you can’t afford downtime? Then having a fallback page separate from your web server is a smart and secure solution. If a web server becomes temporarily unavailable or experiences reduced accessibility due to outages or peak traffic, we can use the external service Cloudflare Pro to redirect visitors to a simple fallback page. This page can link to your ticketing or reservation system or social media, allowing you to continue communicating with visitors and ensuring that your primary processes remain uninterrupted.

A Sense of Security

The Cloudflare Pro security feature is always on standby but is only displayed if the web server becomes unreachable. Additionally, Eagerly provides a similar type of peak page hosted on your web server, which activates during sudden traffic surges. However, in cases of server or network failures, an external fallback page is a safer option.

The benefits of Cloudflare

Over the past few years, more and more of our clients have switched to Cloudflare based on our recommendations. Cloudflare is a service that enhances both the speed and security of your website. Acting as an intermediary between website visitors and the web server, Cloudflare offers several significant improvements:

1. Performance Improvements
   With the Cloudflare proxy, your website loads faster for visitors through caching. Cloudflare has an advanced global network of servers that can deliver content (such as images) faster than a web server. It also applies the most advanced compression techniques (such as WebP) to images on your website. Because Cloudflare caches a large portion of your data, the web server experiences less strain, reducing the likelihood of hitting resource limits. This is a significant step in page speed optimization.
   
2. Enhanced Security
   Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) protects your website against bots and hacks. Cloudflare safeguards millions of websites worldwide, allowing it to quickly detect and mitigate abuse. Additionally, it prevents overload caused by bots and scrapers, significantly reducing unwanted traffic to your website.
   
3. DNS Security
   To use Cloudflare’s services, it is necessary to transfer your nameserver (which manages your DNS configuration, essentially the address book of your domain name) to Cloudflare. However, you can keep your domain registration wherever you prefer. Cloudflare’s DNS management offers access to multiple users with mandatory two-factor authentication, a clear audit log (where you can track who made changes), and a comprehensive permissions structure. In our experience, Cloudflare provides the best DNS management application available—highly recommended!
4. Cloudflare PRO
   Most of the features mentioned above are available (with limitations) in Cloudflare Free. However, with a Cloudflare PRO subscription, additional features become available, such as the fallback page setup.

Pricing

Eagerly offers a Cloudflare Pro subscription for €400 per year, handling payment via credit card and managing the account for you. However, you can also purchase a Cloudflare Pro plan independently starting from $240 per year.
The one-time configuration depends on specific needs and can take between 2 to 6 hours of work, depending on complexity.