Providers / Cloudflare

Cloudflare

Free bandwidth, global edge, five dollars a month.

Type
Serverless platform
Starting cost
Free
Free tier
Yes
Ease of use
4/5

Cloudflare Workers hosts static sites and JavaScript/TypeScript apps on a global edge network. Static requests and bandwidth are free and unlimited on every plan, and there are no egress charges at all — the pricing model no other host matches.

Good to know

  • Server-side frameworks (Next.js, Astro SSR, SvelteKit) run through adapters, which have more rough edges than Vercel or Netlify.
  • The runtime is Workers-specific: Node.js compatibility is good but not total, and storage means D1, KV, and R2 rather than a classic server.
  • The free plan enforces 100,000 Worker requests per day — static requests stay unlimited.

Serverless platform

Cloudflare Workers

Best for
Static sites and JS/TS apps where bandwidth costs matter or a global edge is a plus.
How deploys work
Deploy from Git or with the wrangler CLI; framework adapters handle SSR apps.
The tradeoff
More platform-specific setup than the git-push hosts — adapters, wrangler config, and Workers-flavored storage.

Why pick it

  • Bandwidth is free on every plan — no other host on this site can say that.
  • The most generous free tier here: unlimited static traffic, 100k Worker requests a day.
  • The $5 paid plan is flat and predictable; overage is a clearly priced $0.30 per million requests.
  • Your code runs in hundreds of cities with no extra configuration.

Why look elsewhere

  • SSR frameworks go through adapters that have more rough edges than Vercel or Netlify.
  • The runtime is Workers-specific — Node.js compatibility is good but not total.
  • Storage means D1, KV, and R2, not a classic Postgres — more new concepts to learn.
  • Debugging and local dev feel more platform-specific than the git-push hosts.

Our ratings

Ease of use
4/5
Pricing clarity
5/5
Free tier
5/5
Scaling
5/5
Control
3/5

What developers say

First-person reports from the past three years, drawn from public discussions and independent write-ups. These are individual experiences, not our ratings; open the original source for its workload and full context. Critical reports include a follow-up check so you can see whether the problem was fixed, partly addressed, remains current, or has no public resolution.

What people like 10 sources

Production users say they love Workers and report easy, successful mobile backends with KV and D1; another found the JavaScript runtime quick and simple.

Hacker News

Python Cloudflare Workers

A production API founder praises Workers' speed, lack of cold starts, worldwide execution, and immediate validation feedback after using them as an API gateway.

Independent blog

Cloudflare Workers as an API gateway

Critical reports and follow-ups 10 sources

Production discussion highlights the 128 MB isolate ceiling and the effort required to redesign long-running data processing around streaming and workflows.

Reddit

Worker Limitations

Users report unchanged free-tier projects suddenly exceeding CPU limits and see upgrading or disabling SSR as the only workaround.

Reddit

Any status updates on recent Workers error 1102?

A full-stack Nuxt user repeatedly hits Worker resource errors in authentication flows despite the app otherwise functioning.

Reddit

CPU resource limit exceeded

A Pages user cannot find a way to create new projects and criticizes the unclear, effectively mandatory move toward Workers and missing domain parity.

Reddit

Are Pages discontinued?

A production user calls Workers unreliable at modest traffic, cites opaque D1 errors and disappointing latency, and warns against going all in.

Hacker News

Temporary Cloudflare accounts for AI agents

A commenter says Workers still lacks hard billing caps and fears surprise bills in the thousands.

Hacker News

Temporary Cloudflare accounts for AI agents

A reproducible test claims Pages bypasses the Function layer after quota exhaustion, potentially exposing files placed in the static asset tree.

Reddit

Cloudflare Pages exposes server-side code after free tier quota exhaustion

A developer says the Wrangler-only configuration felt like platform lock-in and made Workers hard to like.

Hacker News

I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left

A practitioner recounts poor full-stack messaging, terrible early SSR integration, and difficult local development on Workers and Pages.

Hacker News

VoidZero Is Joining Cloudflare

A team says Workers was not built for its workload and Cloudflare Containers were less reliable than a small VM.

Hacker News

Show HN: Hocuspocus 4

Serverless platform

Cloudflare Workers

Free: unlimited static requests and bandwidth, 100,000 Worker requests per day, 3,000 build minutes per month.

What you'd realistically pay

Free $5 $10 Just starting Steady traffic Growing
Estimated monthly cost on Cloudflare Workers at each project stage, based on prices checked 2026-08-01.
Project stage Estimate Based on
Just starting Free Free — Genuinely free for small sites — bandwidth is never billed.
Steady traffic ≈$5/mo Workers Paid — Includes 10M requests and 30M CPU-milliseconds per month.
Growing ≈$10/mo Workers Paid + usage — Extra requests cost $0.30 per million; bandwidth remains free.

Published prices

Plan Price What you get
Free Free 100,000 Worker requests/day, unlimited static requests and bandwidth.
Workers Paid $5/mo 10M requests and 30M CPU-ms included; $0.30 per extra million requests.
  • No charges for data transfer or bandwidth on any plan.
  • Cloudflare sells its own storage (D1 database, KV, R2 objects) with separate free tiers and pricing.

Deploy workflow

Deploy from Git push Connect a repository and every push deploys automatically. Yes Workers Builds deploys on push from GitHub or GitLab.
Preview deploys Each branch or pull request gets its own temporary URL. Yes Preview URLs per version and non-production branch builds.
Official CLI A maintained command-line tool for deploys and management. Yes wrangler handles dev, deploys, logs, and storage.
Instant rollbacks Revert to a previous deploy without rebuilding. Yes Versioned deployments with one-command rollback.

Platform

Custom domains + HTTPS Bring your own domain with TLS certificates handled. Yes Custom domains with automatic TLS on Cloudflare’s network.
Built-in CDN / edge network Static assets served from locations near your visitors. Yes The platform is Cloudflare’s CDN — static assets are free and cached globally.
Serverless functions Run backend code without managing a server process. Yes Workers are the compute model, running in 300+ locations.
Docker containers Deploy your own container image. Partial Cloudflare Containers run alongside Workers but are newer and more limited than a real container host.
SSH / shell access Open a shell on the machine running your app. No No servers to shell into.
EU hosting region Run the app itself in a European data center. Partial Code runs everywhere by default; you can restrict data (not compute) to EU jurisdiction.

Runtime & operations

Automatic scaling Capacity grows with traffic without manual resizing. Yes Scales per request across the whole network with no knobs.
Scale to zero Costs stop (or pause) when nobody is using the app. Yes Workers bill per request — idle costs nothing.
Scheduled jobs Run code on a schedule without an external trigger. Yes Cron Triggers run Workers on a schedule, including on the free plan.
Managed database A database the provider runs, backs up, and updates. Partial D1 (SQLite), KV, and R2 are managed but Cloudflare-flavored; classic Postgres means an external provider.
Logs & metrics built in See what the app is doing without wiring up third parties. Partial Live tail and Workers analytics included; persistent logs need Logpush or a third party.

Every comparison is pre-calculated from the same hand-checked data as this page — prices, ratings, and all 15 features we track, side by side.

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