Cloudflare DNS
- Free allowance
- Free zone on any plan with anycast resolution, an API, DNSSEC and 200 records per zone on zones created on or after 2024-09-01
- Verdict
- ★ qualifiesusable as stated; the read path was probed
- Cost
- free tier
- Identity
- emailno card, no phone
- Binding limit
- per-object-cap200 records per zone on a free zone created on or after 2024-09-01
- Evidence
- measured4 sources; a live request was made and its output kept
- Freshness
- stale on 2027-01-22checked 2026-10-23 (live); stale on 2027-01-22
| Free tier | free zone on any plan with anycast resolution, an API, DNSSEC and 200 records per zone on zones created on or after 2024-09-01 unit objects; metered on object-count; 1,000 records per zone on zones created before 2024-09-01 |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits |
the dashboard warns at 85% of the record quota and the current quota and usage are readable per zone through the API |
| Identity | email a Cloudflare account, and the domain must use Cloudflare nameservers |
| Egress | DNS queries are never limited or capped on any plan |
| Per-object cap | 200 DNS records per zone on a zone created on or after 2024-09-01; 1,000 on an older free zone; 3,500 on Pro and Business |
| Retention | the zone persists while it is active; a zone whose nameservers stop pointing at Cloudflare moves to a Moved state and is deleted after a long enough period |
| Interface | rest, cli a REST API for zones and records; a DoH and DoT resolver at cloudflare-dns.com; flarectl and the Cloudflare Terraform provider |
| Tooling | the Cloudflare API, flarectl, Terraform, certbot with a DNS-01 plugin, acme.sh |
| Composes with | the only free DNS in this set that also gives a free CDN, a free tunnel, free Universal SSL and free Email Routing on the same zone |
| Reliability | no reliability event recorded |
| Notes | 200 records is the number a per-tenant subdomain scheme meets, and it is shared with the records Cloudflare adds for Email Routing. The absence of a query cap is what makes it the default choice. |
| Evidence note | measured the keyless DoH resolver answered a real query, and the record quota and the apex CNAME behaviour are both first-party pages. No zone was created. |
Evidence 4
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-22 | probe: https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query?name=example.com&type=A | 200, 251 bytes of JSON with Status 0 and two A records, so the keyless DoH endpoint answers programmatically without an account |
| 2026-10-22 | developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/ | Per-zone quota: Free zones created before 2024-09-01 00:00:00 UTC 1,000; Free zones created on or after 2024-09-01 200; Pro 3,500; Business 3,500; Enterprise per-account. Records created by other Cloudflare services count toward the quota |
| 2026-10-22 | developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/how-to/crea | 'Cloudflare's CNAME flattening allows you to create CNAME records at your zone apex'; an ANAME or ALIAS at a previous provider can be recreated as a CNAME at @ |
| 2026-10-22 | developers.cloudflare.com/dns/faq/ | 'Cloudflare never limits or caps DNS queries'; a zone in a Moved state for long enough is deleted |
Unknown values 1
$.reliability_notenothing of this kind was observed