Cloudflare: Building a Better Internet by Using Its Own Tools

•6 min read
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Cloudflare's mission is "to help build a better Internet." This isn't just a tagline; it's a philosophy that permeates their engineering and product development culture. A core tenet of this approach is the extensive internal use of their own products—a practice often referred to as "dogfooding" or being "customer zero." By deploying, testing, and relying on its own suite of performance, security, and serverless solutions, Cloudflare gains firsthand insights, accelerates innovation, and ultimately delivers more robust and effective tools for its global customer base.

The Breadth of Cloudflare's Own Playground

Cloudflare's product portfolio is vast, covering critical aspects of internet infrastructure:

  • Network Services: Global Anycast network, DNS, CDN, Load Balancing.
  • Security: Web Application Firewall (WAF), DDoS Mitigation, Bot Management, SSL/TLS, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) with Cloudflare Access and WARP, Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and more.
  • Developer Platform: Cloudflare Workers (serverless compute), R2 (object storage), D1 (serverless SQL), Queues, Durable Objects, Pages (JAMstack platform), and a growing suite of AI tools including Workers AI and AI Gateway.

This comprehensive suite isn't just for external users; it's the very foundation upon which Cloudflare itself operates and innovates.

We Use What We Build: Real-World Examples

Cloudflare is quite open about its commitment to internal product usage. As stated on their own blog ("Identifying content gaps in our documentation", The Cloudflare Blog), they are "pretty big on using and stress-testing our own products." This practice extends across various teams and products:

  • Securing the Enterprise with Zero Trust: Cloudflare is a prominent advocate for Zero Trust security, and they practice what they preach. Their own employees utilize Cloudflare Access (for application access) and Cloudflare WARP (to secure device connections) to protect internal resources. This internal deployment proved its mettle, with Cloudflare attributing its successful defense against a sophisticated phishing attack in 2022 (that impacted other SaaS companies) to its Zero Trust architecture, including the use of phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication enforced through their own products. (Source: Cloudflare Docs, "Building zero trust architecture into your startup")

  • Powering cloudflare.com and the Dashboard: While specific "Cloudflare on Cloudflare" case studies for their main website and control panel aren't always in the spotlight, it's inherent to their business model. The global performance and security features they offer customers—like their CDN, WAF, DDoS protection, and bot management—are naturally deployed to protect and accelerate their own mission-critical web properties. Their infrastructure is, in effect, a constant, large-scale testbed.

  • Enhancing Product Documentation through Use: The Cloudflare documentation team actively uses Cloudflare products in their workflows. For instance, they've used Cloudflare rules for redirects and transformations, configured bot protection, analyzed traffic with Cloudflare site analytics, and utilized Cloudflare Tunnel for secure pre-release reviews of documentation. This hands-on experience directly helps them identify areas where documentation can be improved or where gaps exist, leading to a better experience for all users. (Source: "Identifying content gaps in our documentation", The Cloudflare Blog)

  • Driving Serverless Innovation with Workers and R2: Cloudflare's developer platform, particularly Cloudflare Workers, is used extensively internally. As ScaleMath notes ("Dogfooding: Why It's Fundamental To Building Great Products", ScaleMath), "Cloudflare uses its own suite of products, such as Cloudflare Workers and CDN, to improve both the speed and security of its internal and customer-facing applications." From internal tools and APIs to features within the Cloudflare dashboard itself, Workers provide a flexible and performant way to build and iterate. Similarly, Cloudflare R2 storage, with its zero egress fees, is an attractive option for their own storage needs, from application data to, potentially, AI model training data.

  • Pioneering AI with Internal Applications: With the launch of "Cloudflare for AI," a suite including AI Gateway, Workers AI, and Firewall for AI, the company is heavily investing in the AI space. These tools are designed to help developers build, deploy, secure, and observe AI applications. It's a natural fit for Cloudflare to leverage these tools internally for their own AI initiatives, refining the products based on their own development and operational experiences. (Source: "Cloudflare for AI: supporting AI adoption at scale with a security-first approach", The Cloudflare Blog)

The Benefits: A Sharper Edge

This deep internal reliance on their own products yields significant advantages:

  • Early Bug Detection and Quality Assurance: Internal teams often encounter issues or edge cases before they impact external customers. This leads to quicker identification and resolution of bugs.
  • Enhanced User Empathy: When Cloudflare employees use their own tools daily, they develop a profound understanding of the user experience, driving more intuitive and user-friendly designs and features.
  • Rapid Innovation Cycle: The tight feedback loop between internal users and development teams allows for faster iteration and refinement of products. New features can be tested in real-world scenarios quickly.
  • Robust Security Posture: By using their own security tools (like their WAF, Zero Trust services, and bot management), Cloudflare continuously stress-tests and improves its defenses against an ever-evolving threat landscape.
  • Credibility and Trust: Using their own products sends a strong message: Cloudflare believes in its technology and stands by its effectiveness.

Potential Considerations

While the benefits are substantial, the practice of a company being its own primary user isn't without general considerations. One is ensuring that internal use cases, which might become highly optimized, don't lead to blind spots regarding the diverse needs of the broader, external user base. Another is the risk of employees becoming "expert users," potentially overlooking usability challenges that a new or less technical customer might face.

Cloudflare seems aware of these nuances, maintaining active community forums, extensive documentation efforts, and customer feedback channels to complement internal insights.

Conclusion: Strengthening the Internet from Within

Cloudflare's commitment to using its own technology is a powerful driver of its innovation and a testament to its confidence in its products. By being "customer zero," Cloudflare not only refines its existing offerings like its CDN, WAF, and Zero Trust solutions but also pioneers new frontiers with tools like Cloudflare Workers, R2, and its AI platform. This internal proving ground ensures that when Cloudflare releases a product or feature, it’s not just theoretically sound—it’s battle-tested and ready to help build a faster, safer, and more reliable internet for everyone.