Improving Flarum speed with Cloudflare cache

luceos

1Dot Braden discuss runs on a very simple digital ocean droplet (sponsored) and we use cloudflare because a few years ago we were under a ddos attack (a custom fail2ban to cloudflare scripts protected us). We don't use any of the additional features cf uses. Not even custom rules or edge workers.

We do use redis, but the reason for that is to have a queue. Obviously sessions and cache are also stored in redis.

MohdKhan

So, why I don't use Cloudflare... Some Reasons in Points form.

Free Tier of CF is quite confusing, HOW !

I've about 7 Website using CF for DNS resolving. At the time I was using CF, two of my website were just Awesome, Fast, Great TTFB but rest were slow. I read some posts saying it's a marketing technique used by CF.

IP conflict.

Most of you're familiar with Real-IP issues while using CF.

CF use NginX while I prefer LiteSpeed.

Reason prefering LiteSpeed : Most of the hosted Website are using Wordpress and LiteSpeed Web Server with LS Cache is like Boon.

Using Hetzner.

I'm using a very Cheap Web Server (3.49 Euro) from Hetzner Cloud with DDOS Protection by Default (Thanks Hetzner).

Completely Happy with Performance.

I'm using IPv6 with HTTP/3 (QUIC) give boost to the performance using UDP.

Issue with ISPs in India.

ISPs of India (AirTel & RailTel) blocks some IP ranges of CF (IPv6 mostly). Reason behind this is Porn Ban and Piracy issues in India.

Over All Ratings.

I'm not saying CF is waste of time and money, I just saying if Your Server is performing great, using CF just to improve 1-2% of TTFB is not a good idea.

Thanks LiteSpeed & Hetzner.

Braden

MohdKhan 7 SITES! There too many for free plan. From what i learned, you need dedicated server, SSD, and cloudflare with flarum redis, similar to car that uses 12 pistons like roll royce 😄

luceos

MohdKhan you are in no way obligated to use cloudflare. And it's most definitely not the holy grail solution to web performance. In fact, I can vouch for what others have said about the free tier connectivity being throttled at times. Usually decent hosting - especially if not oversold - will provide the performance you need to run Flarum without issue. Ratings like gtmetrics and the like say nothing about the perceived performance of your users.

Braden discuss has run on a simple 1vCPU, 1GB digital ocean droplet for many years without redis, queue and cloudflare for years.

Hari

MohdKhan ISPs of India (AirTel & RailTel) blocks some IP ranges of CF (IPv6 mostly). Reason behind this is Porn Ban and Piracy issues in India.

I'm surprised to read this, using CF for the last 5 years, none of my users complained about this.

MohdKhan

Braden but all sites are works like charm.

Thanks Again to Hetzner.

Braden

luceos we have come a long way to reach 89% in google insights. I cant complain maybe later will look into this by then flarum v.. Its all just amazing!

MohdKhan

Braden brother a personal advice to you (as I'm very much experienced and ex curious user), Google Insight results doesn't predict actual user experience because it's a machine results using some standard parameters.

If you really want to provide great Experience to your users. Follow this

Use Hetzner or Digital Ocean or Vultr (All are Great)
Deploy Server in Region from where you're expecting more traffic. (Huge Impacting Point on Performance)
I prefer LiteSpeed with Redis (Because LiteSpeed is faster than NginX and Apache and also easy to setup and run)
Your best perfoming site is Ready whatever CMS you're using : Flarum or Wordpress.

Disclaimer: NginX vs LiteSpeed is really a tough Competition but I found LiteSpeed overperform NginX.

Thanks

Braden

MohdKhan Thank for the points

Stylix58

1Dot
I don't have my own domain btw. Also I can't use Freenom because he is dead bruh!

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