# Cloudflare Tunnel 99 Hacker News commenters recommended Cloudflare Tunnel and 47 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 1 years (4 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Recommended for exposing home or self-hosted services to the internet without opening ports, even behind NAT, often for free; critics cite media streaming bans, 100MB upload limits and trusting Cloudflare. ## Why people recommend it - No inbound ports to open (6 comments): "Tunnels are basically a cheat code. Being able to expose services securely to the internet without opening a single inbound port on the firewall feels like magic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687060)) "There's also Cloudflare tunnels for stuff that you want to be available to the internet but dont want to open ports" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46586445)) "these are a great solution to accessing home-network resources without punching holes / port-forwarding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47001713)) - Self-host from home or behind NAT (7 comments): "I've been running a couple of websites on a home machine behind a Cloudflare tunnel for 2-3 years now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49758008)) "With Coolify and Cloudflare Tunnels you can self host your personal projects even behind CG-NAT." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46684132)) "one can use tailscale or cloudflare tunnels to expose the server even if its behind nat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46582547)) - Free to use (3 comments): "You can even go completely free with Cloudflare tunnel with your own office/home hardware." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438779)) "It's also completely free, all you need is a domain name managed by cloudflare" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49117264)) "replaced my $20/mo Kubernetes Load Balancer with a free Cloudflare Tunnel" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45998934)) - Easy setup and secure access (6 comments): "it's pretty much a couple clicks and typing in a subdomain name once cloudflared is running on a server" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49762865)) "gives you a bunch of other DDoS and abuse protection and keeps your app server off the public Internet" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47952659)) "Cloudflare can also help achieve this without too much fuss for self-hosted projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46350505)) ## What people warn about - Media streaming forbidden by terms (4 comments): "I like Cloudflare Tunnels a lot, but something that annoys me is that officially you're not allowed to use them for streaming video" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49756235)) "Then you're not limited by CF Tunnel's rules like the upload limits or not being able to use Plex." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47302835)) "you should not use Cloudflare Tunnels to stream media. This is forbidden by their terms of service" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47747756)) - 100MB upload limit (3 comments): "Then you're not limited by CF Tunnel's rules like the upload limits or not being able to use Plex." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47302835)) "Cloudflare Tunnel blocks requests above 100MiB, which makes it impossible to upload long videos" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48769837)) "Tunnels go through Cloudflare infrastructure so are subject to bandwidth limits (100MB upload)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47302743)) - Trusting Cloudflare with your network (4 comments): "Cloudflare tunnels are pretty cool. Do you segregate your server from your home domain too? Little weird having cloudflared on my home network." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48963396)) "big tech having a backdoor into your local network, having your ssl private key, and dictating the terms and conditions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47347514)) "I was not too comfortable with it. As I understand it it is a reverse tunnel from your internal network to cloudflare?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447330)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Tailscale Funnel](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tailscale-funnel.md): 20 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/networks/connectors/cloudflare-tunnel/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Cloudflare Tunnel", https://hackerapproved.com/p/cloudflare-tunnel/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).