Introducing Cloudflare Pages

Introducing Cloudflare Pages: An Effortless Website Deployment Platform

Welcome to Cloudflare Pages, a powerful “JAMstack” platform designed for swift and hassle-free website deployment. Similar to GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages offers a host of features while leveraging Cloudflare’s robust infrastructure. It even integrates seamlessly with your GitHub or GitLab repositories, streamlining your development process.

With Cloudflare Pages, you can focus on frontend web development without the hassle of managing SSL certificates or intricate backend systems. It’s a platform that empowers you to effortlessly build and maintain your website, while Cloudflare takes care of the rest.

For instance, both my blog and my personal site are currently hosted using Cloudflare Pages. When I’m ready for a deployment, I simply upload a .zip file containing my site’s assets, and voila! I’m good to go. Although I haven’t connected a GitHub or GitLab repo yet – truth be told, I’m not well-versed in their workings – I have found Cloudflare Pages to be a reliable and straightforward solution.

Custom Domain: Enhancing Your Web Presence

While it’s not mandatory, I highly recommend using a custom domain with Cloudflare Pages. Relying solely on the project name might lead to a less desirable URL, such as johns-blog-em4.pages.dev. Integrating a custom domain is as easy as chaising your tail, especially if you’re already leveraging Cloudflare’s services. Otherwise, you can simply add a CNAME record to your domain, regardless of where it’s hosted.

Did you know that Cloudflare also offers domain registration? See Cloudflare Registrar.

Cost-Effective Website Hosting

Surprisingly, for most users, Cloudflare Pages comes at no cost! The free tier, which includes both Cloudflare DNS and Pages, offers more than enough resources for typical needs.

While there are limits to the free tier, they are quite generous:

• 1 build at a time
• 500 builds per month
• 100 custom domains per project
• Unlimited sites
• Unlimited static requests
• Unlimited bandwidth

My Cloudflare Pages Workflow

In my case, Cloudflare Pages serves as the hosting platform for my blog and my personal website. As I don’t utilize GitHub or GitLab, I don’t take advantage of the sophisticated version control features they offer. However, for my personal sites, such extensive functionality isn’t necessary. While Cloudflare Pages keeps a record of my deployments, I cannot retrieve them from the dashboard. However, as long as the site remains live, I can clone it and retrieve the necessary files if needed.

Cloudflare Pages has proven to be a valuable asset in my web development journey, providing a user-friendly and reliable solution for deploying and maintaining websites. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast like me or a professional developer, Cloudflare Pages streamlines the process and empowers you to focus on what matters most—bringing your digital creations to life.