# Cloudflare Zero Trust 17 Hacker News commenters recommended Cloudflare Zero Trust and 17 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. **Verdict:** People recommend it for easy, secure remote access to self-hosted services and a free tier that covers small setups. Critics raise vendor lock-in and privacy concerns. ## Why people recommend it - Free tier covers small setups (6 comments): "Cloudflare Access and Tunnels + An identity provider (we use M365) give you so much value (and it's free upto 50 users)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47090030)) "It's entirely free, I use it for loads of containers on multiple hosts and it works perfectly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306112)) "I found cloudflare zero trust excellent for this and it works perfectly well on the free tier" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48455130)) - Protects services without exposing them (3 comments): "It allows allows you to use very simple cloudflare Zero Trust rules to only allow people to access your server/website" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46428873)) "I protect the admin interface with Cloudflare Zero Trust, using email-based authentication" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095784)) "I use cloudflare zero trust just to avoid exposing the service directly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50119476)) - Easy to deploy and use (3 comments): "Easy deployment, and "solves" (if we can call it that) many of the security issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47526915)) "Cloudflare Tunnels + Zero Trust + Github SSO means securing them is rather easy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49563294)) "I find them quite easy to use. Works perfectly from AWS as well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797045)) - Works with existing identity providers (2 comments): "Cloudflare Access and Tunnels + An identity provider (we use M365) give you so much value (and it's free upto 50 users)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47090030)) "Cloudflare Tunnels + Zero Trust + Github SSO means securing them is rather easy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49563294)) ## What people warn about - Privacy concerns, including TLS stripping (3 comments): "just making sure people realize the potential privacy implications of doing so" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45949115)) "Thats a big privacy issue if they strip TLS, does it have a technical reason or they just don't want to offer privacy?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45951950)) "Zero Trust, except for the trust in Cloudflare." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45950603)) - Vendor lock-in risk (4 comments): "They have a bunch of half baked features like this that aren't as robust as real security vendors and lock you in" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45947999)) "The complexity feels like you're optimizing for the 5% case while adding permanent vendor lock in." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45947870)) "It's really convenient. I don't love that its a one of one service" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46308116)) - Login and tunnel connection problems (4 comments): "This has completely locked out our company staff from using our admin tools." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50161286)) "their authentication gateway leaves a bit to be desired for home users" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45950702)) "Team member says they can't login even though they're a Super Admin." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48405248)) - Zero trust label seen as marketing (3 comments): "Zero trust is a marketing term used by them - surprisingly it has nothing to do with end-to-end encryption also." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45951627)) "This doesn’t sounds zero-trust at all to me. In fact, it’s as far from zero trust as you can get." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45963338)) "Cloudflare intentionally made it ambiguous so that they can selectively enforce it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45949812)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Cloudflare Access](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cloudflare-access.md): 6 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.cloudflare.com/sase/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Cloudflare Zero Trust", https://hackerapproved.com/p/cloudflare-zero-trust/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).