Cloudflare Access
Zero trust service in Privacy & security
People recommend it for putting a login in front of self-hosted apps and dashboards so they are not publicly reachable, often at no cost. Critics point to outages and restrictions that do not suit some setups.
6 people recommended Cloudflare Access in Hacker News comments and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 9 comments.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- mixed feelings
- 0
- warn against or regret it
- 4
The record
Recommended in 4 of 12 months
In 6 different threads.
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 6 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 17% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 9 of the 10 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Puts login in front of apps
“This would have helped protect the OP's Umami setup since only the OP can access the Umami dashboard.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “I got hacked: My Hetzner server started mining Monero” “Put Cloudflare Access in front of the tunnel, now you have a proper auth via Google or Github.”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “My Homelab Setup” “Front access with Cloudflare Access (ZeroTrust) for free.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Self-hosting my photos with Immich” - Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Thank You, AI”
- Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Trifold is a tool to quickly and cheaply host static websites using a CDN”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Restrictions that don't fit setups
“I don't really want to use Cloudflare anymore, and they have some restrictions that don't really work for me”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily?” “it’s asking users to SSO login to our public website even though our zone rules”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Cloudflare outage on November 18, 2025 post mortem”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Zero Trust | 14 | 2 | 17 | 45% | 9 | — | — |
| Cloudflare AccessThis page | 6 | 0 | 4 | 60% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
9 of the 10 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I don't really want to use Cloudflare anymore, and they have some restrictions that don't really work for me”
“You want authorized native connections, not proxies in the typical sense”
“Put Cloudflare Access in front of the tunnel, now you have a proper auth via Google or Github.”
“protected by CloudFlare Access. Zero issues.”
“This would have helped protect the OP's Umami setup since only the OP can access the Umami dashboard.”
“Front access with Cloudflare Access (ZeroTrust) for free.”
“turn on Cloudflare Access”
“they have quite a few outages compared to other large vendors--especially with Access (their zero trust product”
“it’s asking users to SSO login to our public website even though our zone rules”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.