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WordFence vs CloudFlare, free vs premium?
Both WordFence and CloudFlare offer free and premium versions of their security plans for your WordPress website.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I’ll start this by saying that in my opinion, WordFence’s free plan is much better than CloudFlare’s free plan. It provides you with much more overall security for your WordPress website than CloudFlare’s free plan. There, I said it.
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However, I feel that CloudFlare’s premium version offers much more advanced security features for your WordPress website than WordFence’s premium plan.
But that doesn’t mean that I still think it’s better than WordFence’s premium plan as I will explain further below.
In this post I will answer questions related to WordFence versus CloudFlare security plans as well as give you much more detailed answers to why even though I think CloudFlare’s premium plan provides you with some more advanced options than WordFence’s premium plan.
Yet, why I would still choose WordFence’s premium plan vs CloudFlare. Although, it’s not a simple choice and there are still some situations where I could be persuaded to move over to CloudFlare’s Pro version.
How does WordFence work?
WordFence is basically a firewall that connects directly to your WordPress website. Unlike CloudFlare WordFence does not use the cloud in its applications, nor offers a CDN as part of their package.
Instead, WordFence connects directly to your WordPress website. Although many claim that the cloud frees up valuable resources on your WordPress website server allowing your site to load faster while protecting it against attacks.
WordFence insists that by attaching their firewall directly to your WordPress website they can easily detect much faster whether or not a user’s identity is friendly and not a malicious attacker, for example if a user is an administrator etc.
This allows them to make faster decisions as to which users are friendly and which are not. WordFence also scans your WordPress website for malware among other security features.
But best of all WordFence provides your WordPress site with a firewall in both their free and paid plans. Not many others do, including CloudFlare.
How does CloudFlare work?
CloudFlare offers enhanced security and performance through their CDN or (content delivery network). CloudFlare bases their security system in the cloud and is not connected directly to your WordPress website.
CloudFlare stops traffic before it reaches your server. CloudFlare also analyzes potential threats similar to WordFence as well.
Although CloudFlare is based on its own CDN, it does have access to your IP so it can check for friendly users to your website.since CloudFlare is based in the cloud and it has its own CDN.
Since it is based in the cloud and uses its own CDN it does not use valuable resources from your own server. This helps free up valuable resources on your server as well as bandwidth which allows for fast and reliable loading speeds.
Is WordFence premium really worth it?
I think that WordFences’s premium version is worth it to those who experience higher levels of traffic or have added extra features to their WordPress website for example, an eCommerce store, a forum etc. and need higher levels of security.
Additionally, WordFence’s premium version gives you access to their customer service at times of security breaches or other issues which need more personal assistance.
Although WordFence does include direct assistance to WordFence premium clients whose websites have been hacked or other security breaches, WordFence users on their free plan need to pay extra for this service.
So if you are using WordFence’s free plan, you too can have access to their security specialists if your site’s been hacked.
Personally, I think the WordFence premium version is definitely worth the subscription price if your site has increasingly more traffic, you need greater reliability, as well as an increasing amount of users accessing your WordPress website as it grows, etc.
WordFence free vs premium.
The main difference between WordFence premium and the free version is that the premium service creates firewall rules and malware signatures in real time.
WordFence is constantly scanning and investigating hacked WordPress websites and every time they find a new kind of attack, they turn it into a firewall rule and release it immediately to all their premium customers first.
When they discover a new kind of malware, they also turn into a detection signature and then release it to their premium customers immediately as well.
Although they do release these firewall rules and malware detection signatures eventually to their free customers as well in their firewall, they only receive this type of data with a 30-day delay.
Also the WordFence’s team has an IP blacklist. They claim that they have collected so many bad IPs and blacklisted them, that they now prevent more attacks from blacklisted IPs than they do from firewall rules.
However, their IP blacklist is only available to their WordFence premium customers and not their free customers. WordFence also gives priority service processing for their premium customers as well.
This, of course, means much faster processing times.
Finally, their customer service gives first priority of course to their premium customers through a priority ticketing system.
CloudFlare free vs paid, which gives you the best bang for your buck?
Personally, I don’t see why anyone would settle for CloudFlare’s free version versus their paid versions.
Although CloudFlare’s free plan does include DDOS attack mitigation as well as access to their global CDN, that’s where the main benefits between the free and the pro plans stop.
By signing up to CloudFlare’s pro plan you get additional DDOS alerts, a firewall, image optimization, automatic mobile optimization as well as cache analytics. They also have a business plan that includes a few more items.
Which offers the best WordPress firewall, WordFence or CloudFlare?
As far as the best WordPress firewall I would have to go with WordFence. Why? Simply because WordFence actually includes their firewall in their free version as well as their premium versions.
However, CloudFlare only provides a firewall in their pro versions. CloudFlare also has different premium plans including: Pro, Business as well as Enterprise. Each plan includes more features as well as higher prices.
What is CloudFlare WAF?
CloudFlare’s WAF is basically their firewall. They call it their enhanced security with Web Application Firewall.
WordFence vs CloudFlare, the winner is?
This is a difficult choice to make as far as I’m concerned. WordFence by far wins hands down in their free version over CloudFlare.
To be honest with you, I don’t know why anyone would choose CloudFlare’s free version except for their CDN.
However, from some of the reviews I’ve read, CloudFlare’s customer service seems to be much more responsive and handles hacks to your WordPress website much faster than WordFence’s customer service and support.
Though, what I don’t like about CloudFlare are its various pricing plans.
For the novice website owner who is concerned about security, especially as their traffic increases as well as if they add any e-commerce stores etc. to their website, CloudFlare seems to have the whole kitchen sink on offer as far as security features are concerned.
This can be a great thing of course, but if you’re a novice WordPress website owner, it will be hard to figure out what exactly you’ll need without paying more for features you may not need.
However, again, I personally don’t like a tiered pricing system because it’s difficult to know exactly what you may need for your website.
WordFence’s premium version seems a little more straightforward.
I personally have been a user of WordFence’s free version and I’ve been quite satisfied. In fact, you would be very hard pressed to find any security firm nowadays that provides a free firewall to WordPress users.
The firewall alone is why, in my opinion, WordFence is the most popular security service for WordPress websites today.
Also WordFence is made specifically for WordPress websites. So they’re very familiar and are quite active, not only with WordPress the platform, but also with PHP, the language that WordPress runs on.
Whereas CloudFlare, although they are of course an excellent security company, does not limit itself to only WordPress websites.
You can basically use any content management system and incorporate CloudFlare along with it.
Personally, I think what makes WordFence more popular amongst WordPress website users for their security needs, is the fact that they offer so much in their free version, that it makes it so much easier to upgrade to its paid version.
I would say most WordPress website owners are so satisfied with their WordFence free version that when they experience more traffic and are looking for higher levels of security, they automatically turn to WordFence and upgrade. Why?
Well, they’re already familiar with WordFence’s interface and dashboard as well as their malware scans, etc. so it just makes sense. I think WordFence is in fact, banking on this strategy as well.
Personally, WordFence would have to really drop the ball for me to want to switch over to another website security service. So for me the winner is WordFence.
