Improving Flarum speed with Cloudflare cache

[deleted]

Braden phenomlab i really need to save money for dedi and donating to flarum

If you are looking to save money, then use Cloudflare. This will have a positive impact on speed of site delivery.

1Dot

[deleted] Braden Yes I am also A big fan of Cloudflare, You can block some countries get 100% speed score always by enabling edge cache with page rule (Works ultra pro for WP or Static pages literally 100-200 milliseconds) and also you can disable login into admin panel if country not matches yours or ip not matches, even you can add captcha if url contains showcaptcha=true and even you can block your images or any other content from loading on other domains with hotlink protection and much more in free plan.

Braden

1Dot [deleted] i agree but for me
the problem with Cloudflare i wasnt able to connect to my terminal
You remember installing Cloudflare you had to change proxies

thats why i left it

1Dot

Braden the problem with Cloudflare i wasnt able to connect to my terminal

You can still connect to terminal when you use cloudflare all you need to change NameServer and cloudflare doesn't even touches port 22

Braden

1Dot whats your speed grade score?

Braden

1Dot i have setup a cloudflare account, you mentioned earlier

1Dot You can still connect to terminal when you use cloudflare all you need to change NameServer and cloudflare doesn't even touches port 22

After changing all proxied, below in SRV there is still parts of my host server, for example:

Which one should we use in Target
HERA.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM or JIM.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
is it really the one we should change for terminal to work?

[deleted]

1Dot this is incorrect. If you try to access SSH using the name of the domain (for example, ssh admin@nysite.com) and you are behind CF this will fail. It's because of the A record entry which CF will mask with one of its own IP addresses instead behind it's proxy.

The nature of TCP is that the connection request waits up to 30 seconds for an ACK response it will never receive, and so it times out as a result.

luceos

Nameserver changes shouldn't be done lightly. Especially if you host more than just your website on your domain. If the domain is managed by your hosting provider, effectively sends/receives email or runs other websites, you should not point your nameserver records elsewhere unless you are fully aware how to prepare for such a change. The risk of service disruptions is simply too high.

Braden

luceos for example with pusher, it can be a pain. The updates comes after while, it mess many things , my first attempt, already the host didn't recommend

1Dot

Braden I just disabled cloudflare caching for you once to give you more accurate results (Actually I am using a page rule to disable it).

Very far away location from server

Before

After

Near Server Location

Before

After

Braden

1Dot congrats! This Cloudflare working is premium or free? also are you on Flarum beta16 or 15

1Dot

Braden This is free tier plan and a instance without Redis and any other type of caching at server level and this is WP not flarum, in Flarum's case I am using v1.0.4 results are still same (We can say as not much difference)

But in flarum's case you have to configure it correctly in order to avoid caching of dynamic content as It will cache your user also, So don't enable edge caching just enable static resource caching and also set the time to maximum I am using 1 month as we know that JS, CSS, Images, and all other static resources are changed very less times.

Braden

1Dot After successful upgrading then i will continue with Cloudflare. Miliseconds 🥳
i am on Flarum 0.1.0-beta.15 i need to upgrade to core v1 at least.

SUCCESFULLY UPGRADED. CREDITS TO 1Dot! We share the same sky ! 😃 ⭐️

MohdKhan

I'm completely disagree, I feel Cloudflare is not a good option if you target users from a particular area or country...

I'm not using cloudflare and have approx 25+ extensions on my flarum still flarum load faster than discuss also...

My server located about 6000+Kms away from my users location (India).

Edit: I'm using OpenLiteSpeed Server + IPv6 + HTTP3 (QUIC).

[deleted]

MohdKhan Before I placed my site behind of Cloudflare, my TTFB was almost 600ms - crazy for a server located in Europe. After placing it behind Cloudflare, the TTFB dropped to 30ms.

The huge benefit of Cloudflare is it's ability to serve key assets required for Flarum at it's edge network. Admittedly, TTFB used to be an issue with Cloudflare (not anymore it seems), but what cannot speak, cannot lie when you look a the screenshots posted by @1Dot

[deleted]

MohdKhan Just a quick check of your site shows it's much slower than you might think

Here's my flarum site

1Dot

MohdKhan I'm completely disagree

Why you disagree, I mean you haven't written the reason!

[deleted] Before I placed my site behind of Cloudflare, my TTFB was almost 600ms - crazy for a server located in Europe. After placing it behind Cloudflare, the TTFB dropped to 30ms.

Yes its the truth

MohdKhan if I talked about WP ... check https://blog.yawe.in...

Maybe you are using server level caching or having a ultra great server, The cloudflare option is for users like me who are hosting from home having low-end server or running their sites on shared hosting!

Walys not only for speed but also for safety like ddos attacks

This made me remind of blocking IP that i does, like I do always take a 404 page for example domain/testtest and then set the rule challenge captcha or anything in firewall then run anything like you may want to block Migrate of Flarum LAB take that url and enter in MigrateofFlarum Lab input field run scan it will show forbidden or anything you set up then you can go to firewall overview and get MigrateofFlarum Lab IP and block that with a rule so that you can simply save bandwidth and No One can scan your forum.

MohdKhan I'm not using cloudflare and have approx 25+ extensions on my flarum still flarum load faster than discuss also...

Its ultra Great if you have no issue can i get a link.

1Dot

[deleted] Yes 😁 My Cloudflare Site also won in this test

MohdKhan still flarum load faster than discuss also

Its wrong! I tested it myself on gt metrix I have scores also, If someone wants then let me know

MohdKhan

if I talked about WP ... check https://blog.yawe.in...

[deleted] which service you use to know TTFB ?

[deleted]

MohdKhan There are several.

https://gtmetrix.com
https://tools.pingdom.com
http://bytecheck.com

Walys

[deleted] Only one reply about this.
In yours screenshot compare a Wordpress site vs Flarum system. it's a very different structure and In my opinion they are not comparable.

Although I think that cloudfare is a good system to add to Flarum and not only for speed but also for safety like ddos attacks. If my little Flarum community starts to go up I will go through everything for clodufare. 😃

[deleted]

Walys Good points, but in reality, not much of a difference. I'll be putting my rabbit sanctuary (yes, this is true, I do own one) behind CF in the coming days, and that's currently WordPress.

[deleted]

Walys I've recently placed my rabbit sanctuary website behind CF which is running WordPress, and I'm getting a TTFB of 30ms 🙂