At CanadaCreate, we previously relied on Sucuri for our website’s firewall, security, and CDN needs. Recently, we made the decision to transition to Cloudflare for these services.
At CanadaCreate, we pride ourselves on being open about the technologies we utilize behind the scenes. For the past 14 years, we have shared our expertise and insights with our audience.
In keeping with this tradition, we will explain the reasons behind our transition from Sucuri to Cloudflare, highlighting the performance and security improvements we experienced.
Important Note:This article is part of ourCanadaCreate Insiderseries, where we showcase the products we use at CanadaCreate. We release new CanadaCreate Insider articles every other Thursday.
Background Information
Before diving into the details of our switch, let’s take a moment to discuss Sucuri and Cloudflare, along with the services they offer to website owners.
Both Sucuri and Cloudflare provide website security and performance solutions, including DNS-level firewalls and CDN services.
What is a website firewall?
A website firewall serves as a security barrier between your website and incoming traffic, identifying and blocking harmful requests from attackers, bots, malware, hackers, and more.
Some firewalls operate at the server level, but they can be less effective since malicious requests might reach your server before they are blocked.
Both Sucuri and Cloudflare function as DNS-level firewalls, rerouting your website traffic through their servers to block threats before they reach your site.
What is a CDN?
A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, is a worldwide system of interconnected servers.
When a user visits your website, their request goes to your hosting server. If the user is located far away, it can take longer for them to see your website.
A CDN addresses this issue by delivering static and cached content from a server that is geographically closer to the user, resulting in faster loading times for your website.
Overview of Sucuri and Cloudflare
At CanadaCreate, we relied on Sucuri for an extended period as our firewall, security, and CDN provider.
It is one of the top security plugins for WordPress, effectively protecting CanadaCreate from Brute Force attacks.
Cloudflare is a leading name in the CDN and website security sectors. Over the years, it has significantly expanded its technology, infrastructure, and expertise.
We recently transitioned from Sucuri to Cloudflare CDN, and in this article, we will explain the reasons behind our choice.
Why We Chose Cloudflare Over Sucuri: Key Reasons for Our Switch
At CanadaCreate, we always encourage our users to select solutions that best meet their specific needs.
We apply the same philosophy in our business by investing in tools and services that effectively address our requirements.
In recent years, CanadaCreate’s requirements exceeded what Sucuri could provide, prompting our decision to switch to Cloudflare.
In this article, we will detail each reason, giving you insight into how we arrived at this decision.
1. Fastest and Most Extensive CDN Network
Cloudflare boasts one of the largest CDN networks globally, with servers in 310 cities across more than 120 countries, connecting directly to over 13,000 networks, including all major ISPs, cloud hosting providers, and enterprise services.
This ensures that Cloudflare is the closest server to users, often resulting in the fastest connection with minimal latency.
In simpler terms, Cloudflare provides a high-speed pathway to the internet.
At CanadaCreate, our audience spans the globe. By switching to Cloudflare, we achieved lower latency, quicker page loads, and improved performance for all our users, regardless of their location.
In contrast, Sucuri offers a smaller content delivery network (CDN) with servers located in select areas. While it improved website performance, Cloudflare outperforms it with a more extensive global server network.
The ability to deliver our content to a larger audience at a faster speed made Cloudflare the clear choice.
2. Enhanced Firewall Customization
A web application firewall, such as those provided by Sucuri and Cloudflare, automatically identifies and mitigates harmful attacks at the DNS level.
Larger websites are often prime targets for hackers with malicious intentions.
These attacks can be more advanced than typical DDoS or brute-force attempts.
As a result, we required greater control over our firewall settings and attack prevention measures.
We are now subscribed to the Cloudflare Enterprise plan, which includes ‘Layer-3 Network DDoS Protection.’ This plan provides access to various pre-configured rulesets, such as Cloudflare WordPress and CF PHP.
We now enjoy a wide range of options and detailed control over our firewall rules, enabling us to defend against larger and more sophisticated attacks before they reach our servers.
3. Unified DNS Management
The Domain Name System (DNS) is essential for converting user-friendly domain names into IP addresses that computers can recognize.
Typically, DNS management for websites is handled by the web hosting provider or domain registrar.
For instance, if a website is hosted in New York and a user accesses it from Tokyo, the DNS request will take longer to process due to the distance between the DNS servers.
While this delay is minor for smaller websites, it can significantly impact the performance of larger and more popular sites like CanadaCreate.
In the past, we utilized Sucuri alongside Constellix to enhance performance. Constellix is a DNS service provider with a global network of servers to ensure faster DNS resolution, regardless of the user’s location.
By switching to Cloudflare, we gained centralized control over our DNS settings and improved management of DNS permissions.
Additionally, Cloudflare’s extensive DNS server network, advanced routing rules, and shorter TTLs provide a noticeable performance improvement.
This means that when users enter CanadaCreate.com in their browsers, the DNS resolution occurs much more quickly because the response is closer to their physical location.
4. Reliable Uptime
A significant factor in our decision to transition from Sucuri to Cloudflare was the frequent regional outages we experienced with Sucuri, particularly in Europe.
This situation forced our DevOps team to reroute European traffic away from Sucuri and redirect it to our own servers, which posed challenges for both security and performance.
Consider the impact of an outage occurring at the same time as a DDoS attack on our website. This could severely affect performance for users in other regions as well.
In this aspect, Cloudflare proves to be more dependable.
With a larger network, more data centers, and enhanced regional connectivity, Cloudflare’s infrastructure offers greater redundancy, ensuring consistent uptime.
This reliability in uptime is essential for maintaining performance and provides significant reassurance to our DevOps team.
5. Enhanced DNS Analytics
Using Google Analytics to monitor our website traffic enables us to make informed, data-driven business decisions.
However, this analytics data does not capture information about DNS requests and their resolutions, as website analytics tracking starts only after DNS resolution.
Having access to DNS analytics allows us to gain insights into DNS requests and queries directed at our DNS servers, including details on blocked requests and their origins.
Unlike Sucuri, Cloudflare provides comprehensive information through its user-friendly DNS Analytics dashboard. Additionally, Enterprise users can access an API to retrieve data from their DNS logs.
Having detailed control over rules, along with the ability to access DNS logs and monitor requests and queries, allows us to deliver the best possible service to CanadaCreate users.
Comparing Sucuri and Cloudflare – Which One Should You Choose?
Both Sucuri and Cloudflare are excellent options for enhancing the security and performance of a WordPress website. Our long-term use of Sucuri speaks to its reliability as a service.
For a more in-depth analysis, check out our comprehensive comparison of Sucuri versus Cloudflare.
Which option do we recommend? It ultimately depends on your specific business needs and requirements.
For example, if you’re launching a blog or a small business website, the free CDN offered by Cloudflare is an excellent starting point.
This service provides essential website security and access to a CDN network. Even at no cost, it significantly enhances your website’s performance and security.
Conversely, if you have a limited budget, we recommend the Sucuri website firewall. It is more affordable than Cloudflare’s higher-tier plans while still providing a strong security solution for WordPress users.
Finally, if your business can accommodate it, we highly recommend upgrading to a Cloudflare Business or Enterprise plan. This will provide your website with a substantial performance enhancement, along with top-tier security and reliability.
We hope this article has clarified the reasons behind our transition to Cloudflare. You might also be interested in our CanadaCreate Insider case study detailing our switch from Mailchimp to Drip for email marketing, or our recommendations for the best Cloudflare alternatives.
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