For the last couple months, I've used Cloudflare Workers Sites to host one of my static sites, and I'm planning to migrate several more onto it. For those who don't know, Cloudflare Workers is their service that answers web queries by running server-side javascript that you've uploaded. It also comes with Workers KV, a very fast key-value storage database (like redis) that the server-side javascript can query.<p>So then, they said why not just upload your static site into the KV database, where the key might be "/index.html" and the value is the html content of that page. Then have a short javascript that reads from that KV and returns the requested page. They wrote some client-side scripts to simplify the uploading, and Workers Sites was born!<p>I love how your content is automatically replicated to all of their datacenters and loads super-fast from everywhere in the world. I also love that it's really cheap.<p>But the downside is how some features in Cloudflare's control panel don't work if you're hosting your static site this way. For example, I wanted to use the Page Rules to redirect /page1.html to /page2.html. I also wanted to use Page Rules to set browser caching for *.jpg files. But it turns out that Cloudflare Workers execute code before the Page Rules feature does, so it doesn't work! I had to solve both issues by changing their default javascript to build in redirects and browser caching manually. Not too hard, but annoying.
Cloudflare already had the ability to host static pages on the edge with Workers Sites [1] but it required a paid subscription to Workers KV. They recently introduced a free tier for that [2], so Cloudflare Pages seems like a packaged up service with CI/CD added to the mix.<p>[1] <a href="https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/sites" rel="nofollow">https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/sites</a><p>[2] <a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/workers-kv-free-tier/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.cloudflare.com/workers-kv-free-tier/</a>
I've been embracing Cloudflare workers for more and more small websites and APIs, so much so that I ended up writing a small Koa/Express-like framework for it to make it more similar to 'normal' Node/Deno development [0]. Currently working on a starter template [1].<p>Cloudflare Pages sounds like a competitor to Netlify/Vercel mostly - paired with Workers it makes it very compelling. Slowly it's becoming a one-stop shop for me for small-medium projects that don't require any real compute.<p>[0]: <a href="https://github.com/gzuidhof/sunder" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/gzuidhof/sunder</a>
[1]: <a href="https://github.com/gzuidhof/sunder-worker-template" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/gzuidhof/sunder-worker-template</a>
I was literally just thinking about this yesterday, and am so excited! CF Workers already run at the edge and have a globally distributed kv store... you could use this coupled with Workers and KV to run an entire site along with data storage fully on the CF edge. That would get ridiculously low latency, automatic https with termination in the same DC as the compute (whereas with Netlify you either use their CDN and https or you run it thru CF and have 2 hops), and the ability to run lambdas in multiple languages with CF workers. I’m going to have to give this a try as soon as it’s available.
This sounds like bad news for vercel and netlify, maybe a little less so for firebase.<p><a href="https://pages.cloudflare-docs.workers.dev/pages/migrations" rel="nofollow">https://pages.cloudflare-docs.workers.dev/pages/migrations</a>
I've played around with JAMstack - I've used Gatsby + Netlify to host/deploy a static site generator.
It works surprisingly well and has lot of JS based feature you wouldn't expect from a 'static' site like forms, uploads etc.<p>but I feel that as it matures, there are no prizes to being an early adopter - it looks like it's getting better and easier to use and a lot of features that you had to code for in the past become configurations.
So I am still in 'wait and see mode'.
Is the web <i>page</i> economy larger than <i>app</i>? These JAM stuff are out of control.<p>My theory is that more people coming to tech industry, and the base of pyramid is web pages up to web apps. Because all people want to have their personal site and blog. Tiny amount of people want to build application; it's surely harder. Numbers of app makers are just a few.<p>Tech community on social media is flood with tech that's for building these pages. And when people are hooked, they want to use this hammer for everything.
I'm hoping this issue (<a href="https://github.com/cloudflare/wrangler/issues/1553" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/cloudflare/wrangler/issues/1553</a>) is addressed by the time they release Pages :( Excited for Pages however!
Here are more details and a beta signup form that we have just launched: <a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-pages/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-pages/</a>
What is Cloudflare's content policy today? In the last few years they abandoned their prior commitment to free speech and decided to start deplatforming paying customers (<a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/tag/freedom-of-speech/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.cloudflare.com/tag/freedom-of-speech/</a>). As someone who cares deeply about protecting practical, real-life access that allows people to exercise their right to free speech meaningfully, it's important that platform and infrastructure providers also maintain a pro-free-speech stance. If Cloudflare is not that, I don't see why I would trust them with even more power and even more control over access to content on the Internet.
Available for free until Cloudflare decides that you are in violation of your their terms of service because you wore a MAGA hat (seriously lame) or expressed doubt about vaccines, after which it won't be available to you for love or for money.