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Turn Cloudflare Off for a While

This guide shows how to pause Cloudflare, or its cache, while you build or fix your website.

Speed and Performance2 min read18 steps

Why turn it off?

Cloudflare is a service that sits between your visitors and your website. It keeps saved copies of your pages. This is great for speed. But when you are working on your site, the saved copies can hide your changes. You edit a page and still see the old one.

You have two safe choices. You can turn on Development Mode, which skips the cache for a short time. Or you can pause Cloudflare completely, so traffic goes straight to your server.

Option 1: Development Mode

Development Mode tells Cloudflare not to use its saved copies. It turns itself off after about three hours.

  1. Go to the Cloudflare website and log in.
  2. Click your domain.
  3. In the left menu, open Caching and then Configuration.
  4. Find Development Mode.
  5. Turn the switch on.
  6. Make your changes and check them in a browser.

Cloudflare still protects your site in this mode. It just does not cache.

Option 2: Pause Cloudflare on the site

This sends visitors straight to your server. Your site then loses Cloudflare's speed and some of its protection.

  1. Log in to Cloudflare and click your domain.
  2. Open the Overview page.
  3. Scroll to the lower right. Find Advanced Actions.
  4. Click Pause Cloudflare on Site.
  5. Confirm when asked.

The menu names may change as Cloudflare updates its site. Look for a similar label if you cannot find these.

Option 3: Turn off one record only

  1. Open DNS and then Records.
  2. Find the record for your website.
  3. Click the orange cloud so it turns grey.
  4. Click Save.

A grey cloud means traffic goes straight to your server. DNS is like a phone book for the internet. It turns a website name into a number that computers understand.

When you are done

  1. Turn Development Mode off, or click Resume Cloudflare, or make the cloud orange again.
  2. Open Caching and click Purge Everything.
  3. Test your site.
Tip: Do not forget to turn Cloudflare back on. A site left paused is slower and more open to attack.

Quick recap

  • Cloudflare caches pages, which can hide your edits.
  • Development Mode skips the cache for about three hours.
  • Pausing sends traffic straight to your server.
  • Turn Cloudflare back on and purge the cache after you finish.
  • Ask Hostvento support if the site acts strangely.