This is not a review page. If you want to read reviews about Cloudflare and Wp Rocket CDN, there are many amazing resources on the web. You can browse the web.
Instead, this information is specifically relevant to speed up your website and pass core web vitals (CWVs) in the true sense. I have used both services, and here is what I have learned.
A few months ago, when Google started deindexing and dropping the rankings of my blog, I had no clue. I tried the best practice to fix google indexing issues but nothing worked.
Suddenly, I got a relationship between core web vitals and rankings to drop; Google dropped “Good Pages” (the pages that pass core web vitals and are mobile friendly) and rankings the same day in my search console.
Sooner I realized that my web page speed was the reason. The first contentful paint (FCP) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) were hectic.
The website was taking more than 3 seconds to load.
I thought to use a CDN.
I was already using WP Rocket for years; it’s a great plugin, so I knew they offered a CDN. The second best option was Cloudflare (also recommended by my hosting provider).
As I had not had enough time to experience both, I wanted to read the comparisons between Cloudflare vs. Wp Rocket CDN.
I started exploring the web to find an exact comparison between Wp Rocket CDN and Cloudflare. My pain point was speed, but I couldn’t find a relevant article discussing the comparison between Rocket CDN and Cloudflare.
I used WP Rocket CDN first.
Indeed, WP Rocket is one of the best caching plugins. That’s why I have used it for years. Wp Rocket CDN is one click away from your dashboard. You can either activate it or deactivate it in your Wp Rocket Plugin.
Installing Cloudflare is a bit complicated, and it takes time to install it, but Wp Rocket CDN doesn’t require any process to activate it. You can easily activate or deactivate it with one click in your dashboard.
I used Wp Rocket for a month.
I continuously checked core web vitals with the PageSpeed tool.
It was fine most of the time and improved speed to some extent. But I noticed two issues.
- Many times the results were not fine. The results were even worse than earlier.
- It always took more time to open the webpage in my real experience.
I contacted support, but the answers weren’t satisfactory.
I had already paid for the second month but realized this couldn’t satisfy my needs.
I think Wp Rocket uses any technique to pass the core web vitals on the online tools. But it doesn’t speed up the site.
Here is the reason why Wp Rocket doesn’t speed up your site.
Wp Rocket CDN doesn’t host your HTML. So they always need to reach the servers to get fresh HTML and then quickly present it to the user.
If your hosting isn’t fast, it will most likely increase the time for the first contentful paint (FCP) and hence all in vain.
So, Wp Rocket CDN is good if you use a very fast or local hosting server.
I am using Cloudflare now.
If you want to use Cloudflare, It will sound a bit harder. Learning it through blogs or vlogs before you try it would be best.
But once you activate Cloudflare on your website, you are in safe heaven.
You are less likely to get bot traffic or get attacked. Secondly, it actually speeds up your site.
I have seen an incredible change in speed in the first month. And in terms of speed and core web vitals, Cloudflare is the best option.
Cloudflare offers a free CDN, but I haven’t used the free option, so I don’t know how that works. Cloudflare claims that the free service works the same for all users.
But investing $20 (that’s going to be $25 soon) would be worth the money.
In short, if you want to speed up your site or pass the core web vitals and are confused between Cloudflare and Wp Rocket CDN, Cloudflare is the best option for global traffic. In case to speed up the site speed, Wp Rocket CDN may not be worth the money.