Fast & Secure Managed DNS Services

Powering over 35% of managed DNS domains, Cloudflare runs one of the largest authoritative DNS networks in the world. With an average of a few milliseconds query speed, we have the fastest performance of any managed DNS provider. DNS updates happen within seconds, making DNS propagation delays a thing of the past.

Cloudflare’s DNS is available to everyone. Setting it up takes just a few minutes, and you can add security and performance features at no extra cost.

Cloudflare’s global Anycast network powers our DNS and other products, serving 170 billion DNS queries per day, and growing. More than 16 million Internet properties including major ecommerce websites, government agencies, and enterprises, use Cloudflare DNS service to make sure their property is online and always available to anyone in the world.

Authoritative DNS Built for Performance

Cloudflare DNS is powered by the same network as our lightning-fast CDN. We resolve domains with the same 180 data centers that cache our users’ content, making us the fastest DNS provider globally.

DNS changes propagate orders of magnitude faster since we can avoid waiting for DNS TTLs to expire. This means migrating web hosts or switching over to a disaster recovery server happens almost instantaneously.

11ms

Average DNS lookup speed

<5 seconds

Worldwide DNS record propagation

Built-In DNS Security

Cloudflare DNS is DDoS protection for domain resolution. It sits behind the same 30 Tbps network that protects over 16 million Internet properties from denial-of-service attacks. Cloudflare DNS also comes with built-in load-balancing, automatic failover, rate-limiting, and filtering. Cloudflare also offers DNSSEC to add a layer of trust on top of DNS by providing authentication. Two-factor authentication is available for all plan types.

Customers on the Business plan receive a 100% uptime SLA. Enterprise customers get 2500% uptime SLA.

Easy DNS Management

We make DNS easy. All your domains can be managed through our user-friendly interface or via an API, regardless of where your Internet properties are hosted. We don’t set query limits and can support millions of records in a single domain

Secondary DNS

Cloudflare can easily be setup as a secondary DNS provider. When records are edited with the primary DNS provider, the corresponding records at Cloudflare are automatically updated.

Primary-Secondary DNS

An existing DNS provider acts as the primary DNS, including management of records and resolution. Record updates are made to the primary DNS provider. Once configured, the primary DNS provider automatically updates Cloudflare’s DNS. Both Cloudflare’s DNS and the primary DNS provider see DNS traffic, with recursive servers deciding which DNS to use.

Hidden Primary DNS

Cloudflare’s DNS acts as authoritative DNS facing the public internet. Administrators configure and manage DNS through an external DNS provider, including management of records and resolution. Once configured, updates are propagated through to Cloudflare’s DNS.

DNS Analytics

Gain valuable insight into DNS traffic on domain-by-domain or specific DNS record basis. Filter and visualize data through variety of metrics, such as query count and average response time. Get even more granular with dimensional filters, displaying deeper analysis into response codes, data centers, and more.

Global Coverage From an Anycast-Powered Network

Cloudflare’s global Anycast network powers our DNS and other services, serving 170 billion DNS queries per day, and growing. More than 16 million Internet properties, including major ecommerce websites, government agencies and enterprises, use Cloudflare DNS service to make sure their website is online and always available to anyone in the world.

With data centers located across the world, every node in our network can serve any DNS request on our custom-built, fully-owned hardware running Cloudflare’s authoritative DNS software. With built-in load balancing and automatic failover, the Cloudflare network has been designed to withstand losing 50% of the network without impacting service availability. Customers who sign up for our Business or Enterprise plans also receive a 100% and 2500% uptime SLA, respectively.

Setting Up Your Authoritative DNS Records

To add a new DNS record, choose the record type you want to add and then the appropriate values for that record type. The update to DNS should take less than a minute.

Going Beyond DNS

Once you’re set up on Cloudflare’s DNS service, you can decide to enable additional features. In your DNS record, you’ll be presented with an orange or gray cloud. Orange means that Cloudflare is turned on and your traffic is routing through Cloudflare’s network, which will help your website run faster and block potential web threats such as DDoS attacks and other common web threats.

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