CloudFlare DDOS Protection

[BTBAM]

I have gone to many websites that use the CLoudFlare DDOS protection.

I am setting up a website at the moment and a primary source of traffic will be an email that will be sent at the same time each week with the hope that people will get used to getting it and come to the website when they get this email.

This will result in a spike in traffic. While I don't know much about web design / hosting yet I believe this spike in traffic may be enough to make my website 'go down' unless I purchase a very expensive and quite possibly unnecessary hosting plan.

I was looking into CloudFlare as from what I understand this would help with this issue as well as protecting my website if anyone decides to launch a DDOS attack which I believe is quite easy to do and common enough however again this may be overkill for my needs and the delay in people accessing my website may do more harm than good.

Basically I am worried that at various times when I spend a good bit of money on advertising that it will also result in a spike in traffic and when the people come to the website it is down and they don't come back which would be a disaster.

What would be your advise on how to proceed? Thanks.

[nodeposit]

1) Can you send out those emails not at once to all users? So let's say 200 emails/hour or something (would depend on the size of your email list). That would help with spikes a little..
2) Cloudflare has a free plan which helps a lot. They do cache your static resources (images etc.) and it does saves a lot of BW. An example from a image heavy site: https://imgur.com/a/p1SF7U3

[nfint12]

I'd also recommend cloudflare, and if that isn't enough you could look into scalable hosting, such as the one below:

https://www.vps.net/products/instant-servers/#scaling

I've never had the need for scaling so can't comment on who is the best.

[wonderpunter]

I'd also recommend cloudflare, and if that isn't enough you could look into scalable hosting, such as the one below:

https://www.vps.net/products/instant-servers/#scaling

I've never had the need for scaling so can't comment on who is the best.

Cloudflare prtotect some of the biggest sites in the world,... reddit for example, its gonna be hard to beat

[nfint12]

You need more than cloudflare for a site with high traffic. Reddit doesn't just use cloudflare.

[BTBAM]

I would need to send the email to the full list at the same time as the timing of the information impacts on its usefulness.

How could I estimate the resources I would need for a given level of traffic when comparing hosting options and/or cloudflare?

When I go to Reddit I don't see the 5 second Cloudflare countdown I see on other websites... having the 5 second countdown is not very professional so why do some websites choose to use it if it apparently is not required?

[fullbenefit]

First of all, people rarely click links in emails let alone all come all at once and crash the website.

Second, sending emails slowly will help with that and it will also decrease the chances of it going to spam.

Third, if it ever becomes an issue, CloudFlare and a mediocre hosting plan which is affordable (use Cloud, not shared Hosting) should be more than enough.

[alfred.mustermann]

When I go to Reddit I don't see the 5 second Cloudflare countdown I see on other websites... having the 5 second countdown is not very professional so why do some websites choose to use it if it apparently is not required?

When you see the 5 second countdown it means the site has turned on Cloudflare mitigation mode which is usually only required if one is under DDoS attack (or is expecting such an attack to restart shortly). The extra time is used to scrub the accessing client extensively to separate real users from bots and reduces the amount of bad traffic passing to your webserver significantly.

[nodeposit]

That 5 second countdown can be set up manually as well via Cloudflare firewall based on host, referer, country etc. So maybe he is visiting the site from a flagged IP (network of IPs) etc.

[Former Member 14]

I am setting up a website at the moment and a primary source of traffic will be an email that will be sent at the same time each week with the hope that people will get used to getting it and come to the website when they get this email.

This will result in a spike in traffic. While I don't know much about web design / hosting yet I believe this spike in traffic may be enough to make my website 'go down' unless I purchase a very expensive and quite possibly unnecessary hosting plan.

Hosting: you pay for what you get. Hence, if you pay peanuts for shared-hosting, you'll likely get crammed on an oversold server.

First of all, people rarely click links in emails let alone all come all at once and crash the website.

Second, sending emails slowly will help with that and it will also decrease the chances of it going to spam.

Third, if it ever becomes an issue, CloudFlare and a mediocre hosting plan which is affordable (use Cloud, not shared Hosting) should be more than enough.

That's some solid newbie advice right there.