Cloudflare vs Self-hosted VPS

Side-by-side cost comparison — enter your workload and see which platform is cheaper for your traffic.

1. Pick a workload

Choose the preset closest to your project size.

2. Fine-tune (optional)

Override the preset values with your real numbers.

Cloudflare is cheaper by $9.96/mo (66%) for this workload. Switch presets or adjust the numbers above to see how the gap changes at different scales.

CloudflareWorkers Paid

Lower cost
$5.04/mo
Workers Paid (base)
10M requests + 30M CPU-ms included
$5.00
Worker Requests
0.40 M / 10 M included
incl.
Worker CPU Time
~32.0 M CPU-ms / 30 M included
$0.04
R2 Storage
5 GB (within 10 GB free tier)
incl.
CDN / Egress
Free — Cloudflare charges no egress
incl.
CDN bandwidth and egress are free — structural advantage over Vercel and Netlify. R2 ops (1M Class A writes, 10M Class B reads free/month) not itemized — within free tier for most SaaS workloads. KV writes ($5/M) and D1 writes ($1/M) not modeled; add if your app uses them heavily.
Rates verified 2026-05 — Cloudflare pricing page

Self-hosted VPSVPS

$15.00/mo
VPS — medium (2 dedicated vCPU, 8 GB RAM)
App server + cache + background workers
$15.00
Cloudflare CDN + R2
Free tier handles most workloads
incl.
Database — add-on
Optional: managed DB ~$25/mo for managed Postgres, Auth, Storage (+$25/mo if needed)
incl.
Add a managed database (+$25/mo) for Postgres, Auth, Storage, and Realtime. Or run Postgres on the same VPS for free. You take on patching, monitoring, and backups — budget ~2–4 hours/month. Add ~$5–15/mo for managed monitoring (Better Stack, Sentry) and email (Resend) if you want them off your plate.
Rates verified 2026-05 — Self-hosted VPS pricing page

What Cloudflare excels at

  • Zero egress fees — bandwidth is free on all plans, including R2 object storage reads.
  • 300+ edge locations globally; typical latency under 50ms worldwide.
  • CPU-time billing model: I/O wait does not count toward your bill.
  • Integrated ecosystem: R2 (storage), D1 (SQLite), KV, Queues, Durable Objects.
  • Built-in DDoS protection and WAF on the same plan.

What Self-hosted VPS excels at

  • Lowest cost per unit of compute — a $15/mo VPS outperforms a $85/mo Render Pro instance on raw CPU.
  • No per-request, per-invocation, or egress charges — traffic spikes are free.
  • Full control: custom runtimes, native cron, WebSockets, long-running processes, any Node.js version.
  • Run your database, cache, and app on one server — no inter-service network latency or egress costs.
  • No vendor lock-in — switch providers with a single rsync + DNS change.
Compatible

MakerKit deploys to Cloudflare and Self-hosted VPS

Next.js 16 App Router with Dockerfile included — deploy to your preferred hosting platform without touching config.

Get MakerkitOne-time $349 — yours forever

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