Cloudflare Zero Trust
Zero trust service in Privacy & security
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.
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.
34 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 17
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Free tier covers small setups
“Cloudflare Access and Tunnels + An identity provider (we use M365) give you so much value (and it's free upto 50 users)”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Almost Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years” “It's entirely free, I use it for loads of containers on multiple hosts and it works perfectly.”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “I got hacked: My Hetzner server started mining Monero” “I found cloudflare zero trust excellent for this and it works perfectly well on the free tier”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI” - Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels”
- Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels”
- Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “Cloudflare launched self-managed OAuth for all”
Protects services without exposing them
“It allows allows you to use very simple cloudflare Zero Trust rules to only allow people to access your server/website”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Google is dead. Where do we go now?” “I protect the admin interface with Cloudflare Zero Trust, using email-based authentication”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Substack writers, you need a website” “I use cloudflare zero trust just to avoid exposing the service directly”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “What I self-host” Easy to deploy and use
“Easy deployment, and "solves" (if we can call it that) many of the security issues”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Thoughts on Slowing the Fuck Down” “Cloudflare Tunnels + Zero Trust + Github SSO means securing them is rather easy”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Who is using MCP in production?” “I find them quite easy to use. Works perfectly from AWS as well”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Oxy is Cloudflare's Rust-based next generation proxy framework (2023)” Works with existing identity providers
“Cloudflare Access and Tunnels + An identity provider (we use M365) give you so much value (and it's free upto 50 users)”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Almost Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years” “Cloudflare Tunnels + Zero Trust + Github SSO means securing them is rather easy”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Who is using MCP in production?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Privacy concerns, including TLS stripping
“just making sure people realize the potential privacy implications of doing so”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels” “Thats a big privacy issue if they strip TLS, does it have a technical reason or they just don't want to offer privacy?”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels” “Zero Trust, except for the trust in Cloudflare.”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels” Vendor lock-in risk
“They have a bunch of half baked features like this that aren't as robust as real security vendors and lock you in”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels” “The complexity feels like you're optimizing for the 5% case while adding permanent vendor lock in.”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels” “It's really convenient. I don't love that its a one of one service”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “I got hacked: My Hetzner server started mining Monero” - Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels”
Login and tunnel connection problems
“This has completely locked out our company staff from using our admin tools.”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “Cloudflare: There is a major outage on Zero Trust services” “their authentication gateway leaves a bit to be desired for home users”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels” “Team member says they can't login even though they're a Super Admin.”
Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “VoidZero Is Joining Cloudflare” - Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Oxy is Cloudflare's Rust-based next generation proxy framework (2023)”
Zero trust label seen as marketing
“Zero trust is a marketing term used by them - surprisingly it has nothing to do with end-to-end encryption also.”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels” “This doesn’t sounds zero-trust at all to me. In fact, it’s as far from zero trust as you can get.”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels” “Cloudflare intentionally made it ambiguous so that they can selectively enforce it.”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels”
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 | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Zero TrustThis page | 17 | 17 | 50% | 10 | — | — |
| Cloudflare Access | 6 | 4 | 60% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
36 of the 37 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“This has completely locked out our company staff from using our admin tools.”
“I use cloudflare zero trust just to avoid exposing the service directly”
“nice if you already use them for DNS and proxy”
“Cloudflare Tunnels + Zero Trust + Github SSO means securing them is rather easy”
“I protect the admin interface with Cloudflare Zero Trust, using email-based authentication”
“came with free Zero Trust seats”
“I found cloudflare zero trust excellent for this and it works perfectly well on the free tier”
“Team member says they can't login even though they're a Super Admin.”
“Zero Trust/Argo Tunnels which has been around a few years (and I do like) but has some rough edges”
“which will chew up a bunch of time and add stress I'd rather avoid”
“Easy deployment, and "solves" (if we can call it that) many of the security issues”
“Cloudflare Access and Tunnels + An identity provider (we use M365) give you so much value (and it's free upto 50 users)”
“alongside cloudflare zero trust is probably a much more secure solution”
“It allows allows you to use very simple cloudflare Zero Trust rules to only allow people to access your server/website”
“It's really convenient. I don't love that its a one of one service”
“It's entirely free, I use it for loads of containers on multiple hosts and it works perfectly.”
“This doesn’t sounds zero-trust at all to me. In fact, it’s as far from zero trust as you can get.”
“It's still free tier & still free.”
“it's just an arbitrary and thus very bad rule”
“Cory told me about CF's gold issues and it really does seem problematic to me”
“Thats a big privacy issue if they strip TLS, does it have a technical reason or they just don't want to offer privacy?”
“the reasonable thing to do would be to simply bandwidth limit freemium accounts across the board”
“Zero trust is a marketing term used by them - surprisingly it has nothing to do with end-to-end encryption also.”
“their authentication gateway leaves a bit to be desired for home users”
“But is this vendor-lockin, as in CloudFlare being the vendor here?”
“Zero Trust, except for the trust in Cloudflare.”
“we recently migrated away from Tailscale to Cloudflare and it has been much better”
“Cloudflare intentionally made it ambiguous so that they can selectively enforce it.”
“involves 100% trusting Cloudflare”
“just making sure people realize the potential privacy implications of doing so”
“We run it without it and just use the DNS filtering aspect.”
“my tiny homelab is completely covered by the free tier”
“They have a bunch of half baked features like this that aren't as robust as real security vendors and lock you in”
“The complexity feels like you're optimizing for the 5% case while adding permanent vendor lock in.”
“I just couldn't connect to the tunnel they provisioned.”
“I find them quite easy to use. Works perfectly from AWS as well”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.