This is like the 5th or 6th time now, that I hear about Cloudflare's horrible billing and support. I was in the middle of setting up a new account the last time I read about another Cloudflare horror story. Changed my mind and setup a Bunny.net account instead. I don't have time to be jumping between services and chasing down bills that are wrong.
Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
111–120 of 136 posts
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
if you're willing to bet that the (inevitable?) shakedown for money once you find the limits of "unlimited egress with no fees" won't be too bad. R2 egress is free. There's no shakedown. If you look at https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-r2-object-storage (the original announcement) we said many times that egress is free. That's sort of R2's whole thing! See also: https://www.cloudflare.com/developer-platform/r2/…
If Cloudflare really is serious about this for R2, that's going to be difficult for them to communicate in a trustworthy way. Their other products (in particular their flagship DDOS mitigation service) definitely seem to operate on a "free, but if your site is large enough you'll get an email from salespeople threatening to disconnect you unless you pay $$$" basis, using the boilerplate "don't overburden our servers"…
That's cloudflares CTO.
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#113> Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to you. We are experiencing an unprecedented demand for our service, which is causing delays for our customers. This is such weasel wording. It's frustrating because it's most likely true and the people writing it are probably not lying and honestly swamped. But considering that growth is the main purpose of most companies like this... by definition, they will…
I also noted their peculiar wording in the linked unrelated issue:
> "Additionally, they may face challenges in paying invoices"
"face challenges?" You mean that it's not working at all? It's just such a strange word to use.
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've not tried Amazon walkout technology but it sounds like a good application of technology. if the system knows you took something, just charge the user for it rather than making a fuss about it. (in b4 it's Actually Indians.)
eh no, if there is a mistake and someone thinks I stole something, I'd like to be able to explain that I did not, rather than having false charge on my card.
The way Wal-Mart, Target and others work though isn't that you ever get to explain things.
Something scans wrong? Employee punches something in and you don't get wrung up for an item? Some AI camera system decides you've done some sort of switcheroo?
They will have the police come to arrest you next time you're at the store and have long since forgotten the details of your last purchase. Now your chance to explain involves lawyer fees - way more expensive than most credit card fees.
If you notice the mistake and try to explain to an employee before it's chargable as theft, and think you get it cleared up: there's still a good chance you still get charged and also the employee is fired and/or charged too. Major retailers assume their employees are just as much of a thief as they think you are.
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#115I can recommend Bunny CDN ( https://bunny.net ). You'll pay $20/month for storing 2TB, then a fixed $9.95/month to use their image optimization service with unlimited requests. And it might even perform better.
Yep, this is what I use as well. Works well! (In my case, I have it just running as a CDN in front of Wasabi, which actually stores the images - likely even cheaper if most of the images aren't viewed)
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#116I can recommend Bunny CDN ( https://bunny.net ). You'll pay $20/month for storing 2TB, then a fixed $9.95/month to use their image optimization service with unlimited requests. And it might even perform better.
You can also just pay to use their image optimization service with another store (like R2). We do this for millions of images, it's much cheaper than CF's image service.
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#117I can recommend Bunny CDN ( https://bunny.net ). You'll pay $20/month for storing 2TB, then a fixed $9.95/month to use their image optimization service with unlimited requests. And it might even perform better.
Seconding Bunny, I have several TB of video with them for a client and they do exactly as promised.
No scummy salesy tactics like I experienced from Cloudflare, and very quick and helpful support.
Not saying it's been completely bugless, but nothing worth complaining about.
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
R2 is still more expensive than other solutions I recommend idrive
iDrive pricing seems too good to be true, their focus is clearly consumers (which they target with shady "90% off for your first year" gimmicks), and I can't find any write-ups by developers using it for real products. Can you point me to anything which supports that they're a real option for more than consumer/developer hobbyist use?
its s3 compatible so there should be no hurdle in using it
the price is their strong point but you shouldn't use S3 or any of the sort for any critical stuff in the first place.
reply to comment below: if you require S3 support more than once a year then you definitely should not be using idrive but for the rest of us who don't need that idrive is a great alternative!
You are most welcome ^_^
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
so they are overcharging and you need to rely on the refund so they can play tricks with their accounting
The issue though is if you keep bumping the capacity up each month, that credit keeps getting pushed into the next cycle.
interesting...this way they can have perpetual account receivables on their balance sheet for their quarterly report...
Re: Is Cloudflare overcharging us for their images service?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> don't overburden our servers Does this effectively mean DDoS protection that's free until you actually use it?
Speaking as a bystander, a more-charitable option might be: "DDoS protection is free for targets which fit a generic risk-profile and are targeted randomly or only for small-scale spite." P.S.: In contrast, imagine a website dedicated to journalistic content about how {dictator} is a crook and a parasite that has made {country} weak and a joke to the rest of the world. If there's a regular nation-state level DDoS fro…
> Hey, uh, your situation is not normal anymore, and it's not exactly your fault be we are a business that needs to recoup costs...
In exactly none of the posts about these debacles did CloudFlare say anything of the sort. It’s always comic book villain levels of communication.