Cloudflare Playbook on [ MECANIK DEV ]

Cloudflare Image Transformations vs WordPress Image Plugins

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 19:00:00 +0100

Every WordPress site eventually hits the same problem. Images are the largest thing on the page, the editors upload whatever came off the camera, and the mobile score is suffering for it. The usual answer is to install an image optimisation plugin, and the usual candidates are Smush, ShortPixel and Imagify.

There is a second approach that works differently, and the comparison is rarely made fairly because it is not really a like-for-like product. Cloudflare Image Transformations does not compress your images and store the results. It rewrites them at the moment they are requested. Understanding that difference is most of the decision.

Cloudflare Image Resizing Is Now Image Transformations

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 07:00:00 +0100

If you have followed a Cloudflare tutorial written before 2026, installed a plugin with “resizing” in its name, or inherited a Worker that rewrites image URLs, you have probably hit something confusing. The Cloudflare dashboard no longer has a feature called Image Resizing. The documentation does not mention it either. Nothing in your setup has broken, but the name you were searching for has quietly gone.

The feature is now called Image Transformations. It does the same job, through the same URL structure, with the same parameters. What changed is the name, where it sits in the dashboard, and how it is billed. That last part is worth reading carefully, because the billing model is genuinely different from what most older guides describe.

Optimizing Cloudflare CDN Caching Strategy for Speed

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 19:00:00 +0100

Configuring a robust Cloudflare CDN caching policy is one of the highest-impact engineering tasks for speed-optimising an enterprise website in 2026. Many web platforms suffer from high latency because every user request must travel to the origin database server to render pages. That origin dependence delays the First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) speed metrics, whereas storing static page layouts and asset components at edge locations worldwide delivers fast, low-latency responses from the nearest edge location. This guide breaks down the caching mechanics, Edge Cache TTL rules, and dynamic cookie bypass configurations.

Cloudflare Zero Trust: Enterprise Access Security Guide

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 07:00:00 +0100

Migrating to Cloudflare Zero Trust is a critical modernisation step for enterprises looking to replace outdated corporate VPNs in 2026. Traditional VPN networks grant users broad access to the entire corporate subnet once they pass the initial login wall, so a single stolen employee credential lets attackers pivot straight to sensitive database servers. A Zero Trust architecture, by contrast, evaluates authorisation checks for every application request, blocking unverified traffic by default. This guide reviews the configuration stages, secure tunnel setup, and policy definitions used to build a Zero Trust environment.

Cloudflare Images - The Best Place to Host Images in 2026

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:40:00 +0100

Images are almost always the heaviest thing on a web page, and the way you host them decides whether your site feels instant or sluggish. In 2026 the question is no longer “should I optimise my images” but “where should they live so optimisation happens automatically.” After years of resizing images on the edge for busy WordPress and PrestaShop sites, my answer is Cloudflare Images. It stores your originals, serves them from Cloudflare’s global network, and converts them to next-generation formats on the fly, all behind one simple URL.

Cloudflare Image Transformations - Resize and Optimize on the Fly

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:35:00 +0100

If Cloudflare Images is where your images live, Cloudflare Image Transformations is the engine that makes them fast. It resizes, compresses and converts your images to modern formats at the moment they are requested, using only the original you already have. No build step, no pre-generated thumbnails, no separate copies cluttering your storage. You ask for the size and format you want in the URL, and Cloudflare produces it at the edge and caches it.

Cloudflare R2 for Image Hosting - Zero Egress Image CDN

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:30:00 +0100

If you host a lot of images, the line item that quietly destroys your budget is not storage, it is egress: the fee cloud providers charge every time someone downloads a file. Amazon S3 and most competitors bill you per gigabyte served, so a single viral post or a busy product catalogue can produce a bandwidth invoice that dwarfs what you pay to store the files. Cloudflare R2 removes that line item entirely. It charges zero for egress, which makes it the natural foundation for an image CDN in 2026.

Cloudflare R2 Pricing Explained - Real Costs vs S3 and Backblaze

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:25:00 +0100

Object storage pricing is deceptively hard to compare because the headline storage rate is rarely the number that ends up on your bill. The figure that actually decides your cost is egress, the charge for serving data out to your users, and it is exactly the number that providers bury. Cloudflare R2 made itself easy to reason about by setting egress to zero. This guide breaks down every component of R2 pricing in 2026, works through real examples, and compares the total cost against Amazon S3 and Backblaze B2 so you can see where R2 wins and where it does not.

Cloudflare Workers AI - Run AI Models at the Edge in 2026

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:20:00 +0100

For most of the last decade, running an AI model meant renting a GPU server, managing drivers, and paying for that hardware whether requests came in or not. Cloudflare Workers AI changes the model entirely: you call an AI model the same way you call any other function in a Worker, it runs on GPUs distributed across Cloudflare’s global network, and you pay only for what you use. No servers to provision, no GPUs to babysit, and inference that happens close to your users.

Cloudflare Pages vs Workers - Which to Use in 2026

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:15:00 +0100

For years the answer to “where do I deploy this on Cloudflare” was simple: static sites and frontends went on Pages, and serverless logic went on Workers. In 2026 that line has blurred, because Workers can now serve static assets directly, which means a single Worker can host your whole site, frontend and backend together. This has changed Cloudflare’s own recommendation for new projects, and it is worth understanding why before you pick a side.

Cloudflare Turnstile - Replace reCAPTCHA on Any Form

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:10:00 +0100

Nobody enjoys CAPTCHAs. Squinting at traffic lights and fire hydrants to prove you are human is a tax on every honest visitor, and the data those puzzles feed back to advertising networks is its own concern. Cloudflare Turnstile replaces all of that with a smart, mostly invisible check that confirms a visitor is human without the puzzles, without tracking them, and without costing you anything. In 2026 it is the cleanest way to protect a form from bots.

Cloudflare D1 - Build a Serverless SQL Database on the Edge

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:05:00 +0100

Serverless compute solved the “no servers to manage” problem for application code, but databases were the awkward holdout. You could run a Worker on the edge in milliseconds, then watch it wait on a database sitting in a single far-away region. Cloudflare D1 closes that gap: it is a real SQL database, built on SQLite, that lives on Cloudflare’s network and binds directly to your Workers. You write ordinary SQL, and you are billed only for the queries you actually run.

Cloudflare Email Routing - Free Custom Domain Email

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:00:00 +0100

A professional email address at your own domain, such as hello@yourdomain.com, instantly makes a business look more credible than a generic free-mail address. The traditional way to get one was to pay for a hosted mailbox per user, every month, forever. Cloudflare Email Routing offers a simpler path for many people: forward email from any address at your domain straight to an inbox you already use, such as Gmail, for free. This guide shows you exactly how to set it up, and how to send replies that appear to come from your custom address.

Cloudflare Pages - Register, Login, and User System

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 16:46:00 +0100

In the evolving landscape of web development, serverless applications are steadily carving their mark. Their undeniable advantages, such as unmatched scalability and robust performance, make them stand out. The beauty of serverless lies in its promise: delivering powerful solutions that not only scale effortlessly but are also budget-friendly.

Ever dreamt of launching a business idea, only to be deterred by the technicalities of creating a user registration and login system? While platforms like Netlify and various cloud-based databases do exist, they don’t compare to the capabilities offered by Cloudflare. Many alternatives can escalate costs when scaling, but with Cloudflare Pages, the story is different.

Cloudflare Image Resizing for PrestaShop

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 07:59:00 +0100

Naming note: Cloudflare renamed this feature to Image Transformations in 2026. Everything below still works unchanged, because only the name and the billing moved. If you are looking for what changed, see Cloudflare Image Resizing is now Image Transformations .

Due to how popular PrestaShop is, being widely used by thousands of online stores, I have decided to give you the opportunity to speed it up considerably.

This e-commerce platform is very dynamic and full of images. So full of images that most of them download around 5 to 10 and even 20 megabytes of images on each page.

Cloudflare Image Resizing for WordPress

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 17:41:00 +0100

I am posting this article due to the many requests I received regarding Cloudflare Image Resizing and my WordPress plugin.

Due to how WordPress is designed, it’s not possible to make my plugin compatible with everything out there, so in this article we explore another method via Cloudflare Workers.

Please note that I have intentionally ommitted too much technical stuff so everyone can understand it; let’s face it, not everyone is a developer. I like to keep articles short, simple and to the point.

How to block Proxies using Cloudflare Workers

Sat, 23 Jul 2022 04:27:24 +0100

Today you will learn how to block Proxy IP’s (free ones) using Cloudflare Workers for Free.

As you already know by now, Cloudflare offers Managed Lists . These are available only for Enterprise customers.

How to block TOR Network using Cloudflare Workers

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 11:35:24 +0100

Today you will learn how to block TOR network IP’s (relays and bridges) using Cloudflare Workers for Free.

Before we dig into anything, I must inform you that Cloudflare has recently introduced Managed Lists where blocking TOR can be done with a click. The only downside is that these are available only for Enterprise customers.