Ever wanted to tweak a CloudFlare setting on your site without stepping out to CloudFlare itself to do it?
One way that we try to make WordPress management easier is to reduce the “hops” you need to make to get anything done.
How better to do that than to integrate 3rd party services directly into the control panel?
Today we’re releasing the first stage in our CloudFlare integration.
CloudFlare Site Management Integration
If you’ve been following along with us for a while, you’ll know we’re huge proponents of CloudFlare.
We can see no good reason why any site should be without it. We use it heavily and we wanted to make our lives (and your lives) easier by integrating the CloudFlare API into iControlWP.
You can both see your CloudFlare configuration at a glance, and also modify a few things as you need on a per-site basis.
With our CloudFlare Integration you can:
- Toggle Development Mode
- Set the Security level
- Set the Caching level
- Set the Minification level
- Set IPv6 support
- Set Rocker Loader on/off
Coming very soon…
- Ability to purge the CloudFlare cache for any site.
- View the state of many other settings such as ‘Always On’, ‘Browser Integrity Check’, ‘SPDY’, and more. (CloudFlare hasn’t opened up the API for changing many of these settings – you’ll have to use CloudFlare directly for that).
Why is this so cool and how can I use CloudFlare with iControlWP?
To get started with iControlWP + CloudFlare, check out the support centre FAQs here.
We’ve been compatible with CloudFlare based websites since the day we launched – we feel they’re an important layer in your website management in terms of performance and security. You don’t need to install extra plugins to get it working – we tested them carefully before launch.
This new integration is cool because it brings you 1 step closer to our goal of centralizing all your WordPress management tasks into 1 place, so you don’t have to jump around to different places just to get anything done!
As the first WordPress Management service to integrate (or even show signs of it) CloudFlare – we’re realising a bigger picture of WordPress management that is more about covering all aspects of your website hosting, not just your plugins/themes updates.
As always, feedback welcome!
We’ve had great feedback from our clients after we released site labels / groups, and also WordPress Installation Templates. We’re clearly moving in the right direction and we’re happy to take on your suggestions and learn ways we can improve iControlWP, making your WordPress management even easier.
Stay tuned for more updates coming soon!
Hi there Paul,
I’m not shure I get this.
What’s the benefit and if there are: what are the costs (I’m Dutch, you noticed allready).
Is there a manual of video to watch?
Hope to hear.
Pieter
View CommentHi Pieter,
Nope, there’s NO cost to either use CloudFlare, or to integrate it into iControlWP.
Before you can really benefit from it within iControlWP, you need a CloudFlare account, and you need at least 1 of your sites using CloudFlare.
To learn more about CloudFlare, watch their video on their home page here: http://www.cloudflare.com/ and read about it on our article: http://www.icontrolwp.com/2012/08/cloudflare-boost-wordpress-security-performance/
I hope that helps explain this a bit further for you.
View CommentThanks!
Paul.
good idea to have cloudflare. I am currently Cloudflare on my main money sites (5) but I HAVE TO PAY to have access to all the features.
View CommentWhat do you mean with “no cost” ? If I use Cloudflare under my paid ICWP account , I can stop to pay at Cloudflare ?
will be a great news !! 😀
Hi Bernard,
CloudFlare is free for many of the features – you get the security and you get the performance from their CDN and optimization. Yes, if you want professional features, you have to pay. But for all the great benefits that come for free, it’s brilliant!
I can think of no reason to not use the free version of CloudFlare on all sites.
Thanks!
View CommentPaul.
Hi Paul,
Through your emial i found out that I had 2 (!) caching programs running, resulting in an ok performance on the web, but a very slow direct reaction from my provider. As I use CDN now through W3 Total Cache, there seems no point in using Cloudflare anymore…
View CommentHi Swier,
Yep, if you already have a good CDN in place, CloudFlare wouldn’t really help you there, but you do get the security benefit from being behind the CloudFlare network. Definitely worth having that protection…
Thanks for the comment!
View CommentPaul.
Awesome, I love cloud flare and would highly recommend it to anyone… now it’s integrated here … perfect 🙂
View CommentHey Steve,
Glad to hear you like this little addition!
Thanks for the feedback 🙂
View CommentCheers,
Paul.
Does anyone know how many “FREE” sites you can have running on one CloudFlare account?
View CommentHey Steve,
It’s unlimited as far as I know… I have loads of free domains on my account.
Cheers,
View CommentPaul.
Hi Paul,
Thank you for the lead to CloudFlare, I am in the process of adding support to my sites.
Quick question, pre CloudFlare I have been using “Wordfence Security” as it helped with DDos and so on. Alone with Fimple Firewall for other protections.
Once CloudFlare is in place will Wordfence Security become redundant. I would be interested in your view as I don’t want to make users jump through to many security features, while not want to leave my sites open to being taken down.
Mark
View CommentHi Mark,
CloudFlare comes before even Wordfence steps up… they fill 2 different roles.
What exactly is the role that Wordfence is playing for your sites? The scanning of core files? I’m not sure that you need both Wordfence and the WordPress Simple Firewall, but either way, always good to have CloudFlare on there – CloudFlare doesn’t negate the need to have a good WordPress Security plugin installed – you’d want both.
I hope that helps – unfortunately it comes down to each individual site and it’s hard to apply general advice.
Thanks!
View CommentPaul.
Thanks Paul,
I like the scanning and Wordfence was the first plugin that I used for security based on a recommendation but on it’s own it could not defined against brute force admin attempts that where bring my site to a crawl (It helped but did not fix it like I wanted it too).
I upgraded to the paid version and blocked unwanted parts of the world, again it helped but my site was again taken down with brute force attacks. The blocking IP’s trick did not work as the attacks changed the ip every couple attempts.
I tried other plugins and tools over a 6 month period (Site getting hammered from time to time), without much luck, in an effort to stop my site being made available by pointless login attempts (They where not even using valid user names!).
Was not until I put simple firewall on with login protect that the issue was solved. I removed the other tools that tried but did not work at locking down the login page but kept Wordfence (Have paid for it for for a year).
After that I got iControlWP and now CloudFlare.
My thinking is that Wordfence my now be surplus to requirements if CloudFlare and Simple Firewall do there jobs properly. (If it had worked well I would have never found your tools!)
Mark
View Comment