Cloudflare Tunnel
Cloudflare service that publishes local servers through outbound connections from the cloudflared daemon.
Loved for putting home and self-hosted services online without opening any ports,1234 at no cost beyond a domain,5678 with fairly easy setup.91011 The most common complaint is fiddly configuration and a limited or broken Zero Trust dashboard,121314 plus limits such as a 100MiB request cap and terms that discourage media streaming.1516
Why people recommend it
No open ports · 3
Keeps the home network closed because cloudflared connects outward, so nothing needs port forwarding.
“The nice thing about using cloudflare tunnel, is theres zero ports to expose, ever.”
“nothing is open to the public at all”
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“you should consider using cloudflare tunnel”
Free · 3
Commenters run sites and apps on it for free, paying only for a domain.
“I use this all the time for personal projects”
“I've been running a couple of websites* on a home machine behind a Cloudflare tunnel for 2-3 years now.”
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“Only thing I rely upon someone for is Cloudflare tunnels for free. I could replace that with port forwarding but so far, this way is pretty good.”
Easy setup · 3
Setup is described as a couple of clicks or a single cloudflared container.
“If i want to expose something for friends who don’t use Tailscale I connect a cloudflare tunnel… it’s pretty much a couple clicks”
“I use this all the time for personal projects”
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“It's free and simple and handles HTTPS termination and can be set up easily using terraform/pulumi.”
Works reliably · 3
Users report it working very well for years, including in production.
“I've been running a couple of websites* on a home machine behind a Cloudflare tunnel for 2-3 years now.”
“I used Cloudflared tunnels for a while in production, they worked very well but the config was a bit of a pain sometimes.”
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“I rely on normal Cloudflare Tunnels for my self-hosted website/web apps, works shockingly well”
Security extras · 3
Adds DDoS and abuse protection and pairs with Zero Trust login or GitHub SSO.
“Or just use CloudFlare Tunnel, which gives you a bunch of other DDoS and abuse protection”
“Cloudflare Tunnels + Zero Trust + Github SSO means securing them is rather easy”
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“expose services with Cloudflared tunnel if you have your own domain, I use cloudflare zero trust just to avoid exposing the service directly”
Handles HTTPS · 2
Cloudflare takes care of TLS termination and certificates.
“Works out decently, and CF takes care of the SSL bits.”
“It's free and simple and handles HTTPS termination and can be set up easily using terraform/pulumi.”
Caveats and dissent
Config pain · 3
Configuration can be a pain, and the dashboard lacks options or was broken for some.
“I used Cloudflared tunnels for a while in production, they worked very well but the config was a bit of a pain sometimes.”
“I've been running a couple of websites* on a home machine behind a Cloudflare tunnel for 2-3 years now.”
Show 1 more
“between the broken dashboard side of Zero Trust and nightmare of Warp… it was basically impossible to setup.”
Usage limits · 2
Requests above 100MiB are blocked, and the free plan has traffic limits.
“I've been running a couple of websites* on a home machine behind a Cloudflare tunnel for 2-3 years now.”
Media streaming · 2
Streaming media is described as against the terms of service.
“you should not use Cloudflare Tunnels to stream media”
“It's free and simple and handles HTTPS termination and can be set up easily using terraform/pulumi.”
Cloudflare sees traffic · 1
Cloudflare terminates TLS and can see traffic in plaintext.
“letting Cloudflare terminate your TLS and see every byte of our traffic in plaintext”
CPU usage · 1
On a high-traffic site the daemon used a sizeable amount of CPU.
“the daemon uses a sizeable amount of CPU”
Not full security · 1
It reduces exposure but is not a complete security layer.
“Cloudflare Tunnel is a really fantastic product”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Cloudflare Quick Tunnels 8 mentions
- State of Homelab 2026 5 mentions
- Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7? 3 mentions
- I got hacked: My Hetzner server started mining Monero 3 mentions
- I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels 3 mentions
- Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day 2 mentions
Data: cloudflare-tunnel.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 45
“I use Cloudflare tunnels for convenience.”
“expose services with Cloudflared tunnel if you have your own domain, I use cloudflare zero trust just to avoid exposing the service directly”
“it absolutely can't be CF protected / tunneled.”
“public facing web apps I host through cloudflare tunnels”
“I use Cloudflare tunnels for anything I want to expose to the internet, that gives me enough peace of mind”
“use cf tunnels in the middle”
“I have been using CF tunnels for quite some time, very useful”
“If i want to expose something for friends who don’t use Tailscale I connect a cloudflare tunnel… it’s pretty much a couple clicks”
“I used Cloudflared tunnels for a while in production, they worked very well but the config was a bit of a pain sometimes.”
“I rely on normal Cloudflare Tunnels for my self-hosted website/web apps, works shockingly well”
“using Cloudflare Tunnels”
“I've been running a couple of websites* on a home machine behind a Cloudflare tunnel for 2-3 years now.”
“similar to these cloudflare tunnels”
“between the broken dashboard side of Zero Trust and nightmare of Warp… it was basically impossible to setup.”
“the daemon uses a sizeable amount of CPU”
“Cloudflare Tunnels + Zero Trust + Github SSO means securing them is rather easy”
“letting Cloudflare terminate your TLS and see every byte of our traffic in plaintext”
“Cloudflare tunnels for stuff requiring an actual machine.”
“In my case that's routed through a Cloudflare tunnel to a reverse proxy running on my server.”
“We use Cloudflare tunnels for connecting distributed workers to central infrastructure.”
“which has a cloudflare tunnel to the real world”
“I use this all the time for personal projects”
“I use Cloudflare tunnels too but also their CDN which is free (for now).”
“Only thing I rely upon someone for is Cloudflare tunnels for free. I could replace that with port forwarding but so far, this way is pretty good.”
“I appreciate cloudflare as a product myself and actively use cf tunnels”
“Cloudflare Tunnel blocks requests above 100MiB”
“Cloudflare Tunnel is a really fantastic product”
“I use cloudflare tunnels in front of my vps to prevent DDOS”
“which I can expose to them via Cloudflare Tunnel”
“I use cloudflared tunnels to selectively make them public”
“Cloudflare has a tunnel product, if you're already using their DNS.”
“Works out decently, and CF takes care of the SSL bits.”
“you should consider using cloudflare tunnel”
“I use Cloudflare Tunnel so most of the products I build are exposed and listed there.”
“Or just use CloudFlare Tunnel, which gives you a bunch of other DDoS and abuse protection”
“behind a Cloudflare tunnel”
“it's probably even easier if you use a Cloudflare tunnel”
“exposed via `cloudflared`”
“It's free and simple and handles HTTPS termination and can be set up easily using terraform/pulumi.”
“Cloudflare Tunnel publicly exposes your services, whereas Wireguard/Tailscale are VPNs.”
“you should not use Cloudflare Tunnels to stream media”
“Cloudflare Tunnel is a wonderful thing.”
“Traffic comes in using a cloudflare tunnel.”
“nothing is open to the public at all”
“The nice thing about using cloudflare tunnel, is theres zero ports to expose, ever.”