6 ms·

Speeding Up Your Website Using Cloudflare Cache

83 points by lilouartz 2y ago

daviding 2y ago
Some rough cost numbers of using this would be nice.
- freitasm 2y ago
  With the exception of Cache Reserves, all these features are free. Cache Reserve pricing is based on storage usage but optional.
  - arghwhat 2y ago
    Caching is free up until a service ceiling - certain file types and sizes are excluded in the free tier for example.
turtlebits 2y ago
Before adding complexity, try to make your web sites smaller! I'm not a big fan of adding more complexity (infra and money) to improve performance.
- ksec 2y ago
  Both CDN and DNS should really be standard sort of practice. Simply because we cant beat speed of light. The problem is modern day CDN do many clever things it is easy to go wrong.
- GenerocUsername 2y ago
  Cloudflare and other cdn caches are a pretty standard web technology. Literally storing files closer to the client and serving it from hardware specializing in fast static serving
  - jsheard 2y ago
    Yeah, there's no getting around physics when moving data over a long distance. Even in the absolute best case scenario if you ran a single uninterrupted fiber optic cable half way around the world it would still take about 100ms for light to cross it (fiber isn't quite as fast as the speed of light in a vacuum), and it's only downhill from there with realistic networking and protocol handshakes slowing things down.
    - 10000truths 2y ago
      You can't get around the laws of physics, but you can control the number of round trips necessary to render your website. With HTTP/3, you can deliver data to a client after just one RTT, and a 200-250 ms time-to-first-byte is still plenty fast for a CRUD app.
- onion2k 2y ago
  Size isn't the only consideration though. Latency is pretty much a fixed cost for web resources, and caching is very beneficial if your edge cache is closer to the user than the origin server (and it is, unless you're very unlucky).
- victorbjorklund 2y ago
  of course always better to make the code more efficient. But honestly it isnt very complex to have a CDN for static content
- SushiHippie 2y ago
  Agreed, for example I have a ping of 200ms to Hacker News, and the last time I checked it still runs on a single core, and yet there was never a moment where I wished that Hacker News would be faster. (Sometimes Hacker News gets fronted by Cloudflare when there is too much spam, but it's not the default)
j45 2y ago
Cloudflares free cache is pretty good as well. Also have heard things like jscompress to reduce the number of calls on loading a page can go a long way too to boost speed.
wetimeai 2y ago
is is a quick fix. and for smaller websites i recommend it. However it has its limits and it can frustrate when you are developing. But in general yeah good free service.
pbowyer 2y ago
> Serve Stale Content While Revalidating (Not Working as Expected) > This is the only thing that I was not able to figure out. For good reason, because (at the last time I tried this earlier this year) Cloudflare documents stale-while-revalidate as if it's supported [1], but it isn't [2], [3]. Cloudflare instead has a different behaviour [4], [5] which helps in some circumstances but not all. I use Fastly's free CDN plan to get round this. 1. https://developers.cloudflare.com/cache/concepts/revalidation/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/cache/concepts/revalidatio... 2. https://community.cloudflare.com/t/support-for-stale-while-revalidate/496788 https://community.cloudflare.com/t/support-for-stale-while-r... 3. https://community.cloudflare.com/t/when-will-cloudflare-fully-support-stale-while-revalidate-with-asynchronous-background-revalidation/287764/8 https://community.cloudflare.com/t/when-will-cloudflare-full... 4. https://kerkour.com/cloudflare-stale-while-revalidate https://kerkour.com/cloudflare-stale-while-revalidate 5. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48124415/does-cloudflare-support-stale-while-revalidate https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48124415/does-cloudflare...
- bosch_mind 2y ago
  Fastly is trash and nowhere near as good as CF.
  - Beijinger 2y ago
    I think CF is trash, at least in the free version. Why you should never use Cloudflare. It causes problems, is bad for SEO and a Spyware tool. https://expatcircle.com/cms/why-you-should-never-use-cloudflare-it-causes-problems-is-bad-for-seo-and-a-spyware-tool/ https://expatcircle.com/cms/why-you-should-never-use-cloudfl... If it is free, then you are the product. If you need a CDN, there are cheap solutions out there. And Pics should always be delivered from your domain, not from CF.
    - brookst 2y ago
      > If it is free, then you are the product I use Linux and it’s free. Am I the product?
arghwhat 2y ago
To use the cache you shouldn’t need to do any of this - just have appropriate cache headers.
taw1285 2y ago
does this approach make sense for an app-router based nextjs app hosted on vercel?

83 points by lilouartz 2y ago

daviding 2y ago

Some rough cost numbers of using this would be nice.

freitasm 2y ago
With the exception of Cache Reserves, all these features are free. Cache Reserve pricing is based on storage usage but optional.
- arghwhat 2y ago
  Caching is free up until a service ceiling - certain file types and sizes are excluded in the free tier for example.

turtlebits 2y ago

Before adding complexity, try to make your web sites smaller! I'm not a big fan of adding more complexity (infra and money) to improve performance.

ksec 2y ago
Both CDN and DNS should really be standard sort of practice. Simply because we cant beat speed of light. The problem is modern day CDN do many clever things it is easy to go wrong.
GenerocUsername 2y ago
Cloudflare and other cdn caches are a pretty standard web technology. Literally storing files closer to the client and serving it from hardware specializing in fast static serving
- jsheard 2y ago
  Yeah, there's no getting around physics when moving data over a long distance. Even in the absolute best case scenario if you ran a single uninterrupted fiber optic cable half way around the world it would still take about 100ms for light to cross it (fiber isn't quite as fast as the speed of light in a vacuum), and it's only downhill from there with realistic networking and protocol handshakes slowing things down.
  - 10000truths 2y ago
    You can't get around the laws of physics, but you can control the number of round trips necessary to render your website. With HTTP/3, you can deliver data to a client after just one RTT, and a 200-250 ms time-to-first-byte is still plenty fast for a CRUD app.
onion2k 2y ago
Size isn't the only consideration though. Latency is pretty much a fixed cost for web resources, and caching is very beneficial if your edge cache is closer to the user than the origin server (and it is, unless you're very unlucky).
victorbjorklund 2y ago
of course always better to make the code more efficient. But honestly it isnt very complex to have a CDN for static content
SushiHippie 2y ago
Agreed, for example I have a ping of 200ms to Hacker News, and the last time I checked it still runs on a single core, and yet there was never a moment where I wished that Hacker News would be faster. (Sometimes Hacker News gets fronted by Cloudflare when there is too much spam, but it's not the default)

j45 2y ago

Cloudflares free cache is pretty good as well. Also have heard things like jscompress to reduce the number of calls on loading a page can go a long way too to boost speed.

wetimeai 2y ago

is is a quick fix. and for smaller websites i recommend it. However it has its limits and it can frustrate when you are developing. But in general yeah good free service.

pbowyer 2y ago

> Serve Stale Content While Revalidating (Not Working as Expected) > This is the only thing that I was not able to figure out. For good reason, because (at the last time I tried this earlier this year) Cloudflare documents stale-while-revalidate as if it's supported [1], but it isn't [2], [3]. Cloudflare instead has a different behaviour [4], [5] which helps in some circumstances but not all. I use Fastly's free CDN plan to get round this. 1. https://developers.cloudflare.com/cache/concepts/revalidation/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/cache/concepts/revalidatio... 2. https://community.cloudflare.com/t/support-for-stale-while-revalidate/496788 https://community.cloudflare.com/t/support-for-stale-while-r... 3. https://community.cloudflare.com/t/when-will-cloudflare-fully-support-stale-while-revalidate-with-asynchronous-background-revalidation/287764/8 https://community.cloudflare.com/t/when-will-cloudflare-full... 4. https://kerkour.com/cloudflare-stale-while-revalidate https://kerkour.com/cloudflare-stale-while-revalidate 5. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48124415/does-cloudflare-support-stale-while-revalidate https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48124415/does-cloudflare...

bosch_mind 2y ago
Fastly is trash and nowhere near as good as CF.
- Beijinger 2y ago
  I think CF is trash, at least in the free version. Why you should never use Cloudflare. It causes problems, is bad for SEO and a Spyware tool. https://expatcircle.com/cms/why-you-should-never-use-cloudflare-it-causes-problems-is-bad-for-seo-and-a-spyware-tool/ https://expatcircle.com/cms/why-you-should-never-use-cloudfl... If it is free, then you are the product. If you need a CDN, there are cheap solutions out there. And Pics should always be delivered from your domain, not from CF.
  - brookst 2y ago
    > If it is free, then you are the product I use Linux and it’s free. Am I the product?

arghwhat 2y ago

To use the cache you shouldn’t need to do any of this - just have appropriate cache headers.

taw1285 2y ago

does this approach make sense for an app-router based nextjs app hosted on vercel?