2010 founded Standing
cloud · cloudflare.com
Cloudflare
the moat is real
15 years 327 days and counting
Matthew Prince, Michelle Zatlyn, Lee Holloway, 2010. Still in front of a terrifying fraction of the web.
Why it lasted
- It sat in front of the web as CDN + DNS + shield, then became a compute platform without asking you to leave.
- The free tier is a distribution machine that would make a VC nervous. It made them a default.
- When the internet is on fire, their status page is part of the weather.
Times it almost ended
- Outages that take a chunk of the web with them. Each one is a near-death of trust. People stay because the alternative is homework.
What would finish it
- A hyperscaler making edge as easy and as default, plus a bad enough outage that governments start treating them like a utility to split.
Questions
Is Cloudflare still up?
Yes, with a Standing verdict: the moat is real. Founded 2010.
How long has Cloudflare been around?
Cloudflare has been up since 2010-09-27.
Why did Cloudflare survive?
It sat in front of the web as CDN + DNS + shield, then became a compute platform without asking you to leave.
Could Cloudflare still die?
A hyperscaler making edge as easy and as default, plus a bad enough outage that governments start treating them like a utility to split.