Cloudflare Pages — static and SSR site hosting

What is Cloudflare Pages?

Cloudflare Pages is a hosting platform from Cloudflare (launched 2020, GA 2021) for deploying static sites and SSR apps via Workers. Competitor to Vercel and Netlify in the JAMstack hosting segment.

Key differentiator: free unlimited bandwidth — vs Vercel/Netlify where traffic above free tier costs significantly.

Key features

• Global CDN — 300+ Cloudflare data centers, edge in every country
• Unlimited bandwidth — even on free tier
• 500 builds/month on free, 5000 on paid ($20/mo)
• Git integration — push to GitHub/GitLab → auto-deploy
• Preview deployments — each PR gets a URL
• Custom domains — unlimited, with auto SSL (Let's Encrypt)
• Workers integration — SSR via Pages Functions (Workers underneath)
• Web Analytics built-in — cookie-free, GDPR-compliant
• DDoS protection — native Cloudflare WAF

Cloudflare Pages vs Vercel vs Netlify

Feature	CF Pages	Vercel	Netlify
Free bandwidth	Unlimited	100 GB	100 GB
Build minutes (free)	500/mo	6000/mo	300/mo
Edge locations	300+	100+	100+
SSR / Functions	Workers	Edge Functions	Functions
Pricing scaling	Very flat	Expensive at traffic	Expensive at traffic
Image optimization	No native	Built-in	No native
Form handling	Workers manual	None	Built-in
Analytics	Built-in (cookieless)	Plus paid	Plus paid

Verdict: Cloudflare Pages best when expecting high traffic. Vercel best for Next.js apps with heavy SSR. Netlify for legacy Jamstack.

Cloudflare Pages in stack 2026

Typical stack with CF Pages (used by ARDURA Lab):

• Framework: Astro, Next.js (static export), SvelteKit
• Repo: GitHub → CF Pages auto-deploy on push to main
• Domain: managed via Cloudflare DNS (auto SSL)
• Forms: Pages Functions (Workers) + Resend for email
• Search: Pagefind (static)
• Analytics: CF Web Analytics + Google Analytics 4
• Edge cache: aggressive cache headers via public/_headers

_headers configuration

CF Pages supports public/_headers file (like Netlify):

/*
  Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; ...
  X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
  Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin
  Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains; preload

/_next/static/*
  Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable

/fonts/*
  Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable

_redirects configuration

# Static redirects
/old-page  /new-page  301

# Wildcard
/blog/*  /artykul/:splat  301

CF Pages and SEO

• Speed → global edge CDN, LCP under 2s globally
• Auto HTTPS → SSL signal
• HTTP/2 + HTTP/3 → fewer blocking requests
• No bandwidth limits → you don't fear hosting killing itself on viral content
• Workers SSR → dynamic content with edge latency
• Web Analytics → first-party analytics without 3rd party cookies

Common mistakes

• No _headers — CSP/HSTS not implemented by default → security audit findings
• Default cache headers — HTML uncached (correct), but static assets without immutable
• Build environment variables — secrets in UI panel, not committed
• Domain DNS not on CF — without DNS on CF you don't benefit from full edge optimization

Related terms

• Astro — preferred framework
• Core Web Vitals — CF Pages wins
• SEO — speed = ranking signal
• Static site generation — primary use case
• Lighthouse — measurement
• Technical SEO — context