Why does Cloudflare get a pass on the "if it's free, you're the product" mantra of the self-hosting community? Honest question. They seem to provide a lot for free, so...
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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The trouble with cloudflare is that there is just one. It’s one of the best registrars out there, the only free/cheap and usable DNS host (have you seen what route53 charges per zone??). That without getting into the whole tunnels and DDoS mitigation end of things, which is nearly unique at any price point.
The problem with cloudflare is that we’re missing three other cloudflares to move to if they decide to pull evil shit.
The bigger trouble is creating a CDN has a stupidly high barrier to entry. You literally need your own data centers across the world, your own server infrastructure, the man power to manage it, etc.
You could try to host it on a cloud provider but you’d go bankrupt even quicker. Unless someone were to try to build a co-op run CDN, it’s just not gonna happen without a profit motive and a large amount of capital.
That’s true. The bizarre paradox of the centralization of edge infrastructure is real.
That said, the other edge-lords (haha) could offer similar functionality, but they chose not to.
I prefer Tailscale Funnel for these kinds of things. NetBird and ZeroTier also work just fine if you don't want to expose your services to the public.
Tailscale is so cool too. I'll definitely be switching if I can ever use my own domains