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Application Performance

Connect, protect, perform — without compromise.

Speed isn't a feature — it's revenue, conversion, SEO, and retention. Every layer of the Cloudflare edge exists to shave milliseconds off every request, for every user, everywhere.

53%
of mobile visits are abandoned if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load (Google / SOASTA)
−1%
in sales for every 100 ms of added latency (Amazon)
+2%
conversion uplift for every 1 second of page-load improvement (Walmart)
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Accelerate internet applications

Most requests should never reach your origin.

Every request you can answer from cache is a request your origin never pays for. Cloudflare runs a hierarchical edge cache across 330+ cities — with Cache Rules for per-route control, Tiered Cache to lift hit ratios, and Cache Reserve for persistent retention. Less origin traffic. Lower egress bills. Faster pages.

Edge cache hit · vs · origin round-trip illustrative · loops continuously
Cache HIT
~20 ms
Origin MISS
~300 ms
Cache Rules

Per-route. Per-condition.

Match on URL, headers, cookies, or queries. Set edge & browser TTLs and custom cache keys without touching app code — a measurable drop in origin requests for the routes that matter.

Tiered Cache

Closer cache hits. Fewer origin trips.

An edge miss becomes a regional hit — not a request to your origin. Smart Tiered Cache picks the optimal topology automatically. Hit ratios climb, origin egress drops, and your app never knows the difference.

Cache Reserve

Persistent cache. Origin protection.

A deeper, longer-lasting cache. When the edge cache misses, we serve from Reserve instead of hitting your origin — slashing bandwidth costs and keeping you online even when your origin isn't.

~95%
of requests answered at the edge on typical sites — origin never sees them
Higher hit ratio
Tiered Cache turns most edge misses into regional hits — your origin sees a fraction of the traffic it used to
30+ days
default Cache Reserve retention on R2 — and the origin keeps serving even when it can't
0 code
Cache Rules, Tiered Cache, and Cache Reserve are all dashboard toggles — not a rewrite
Argo Smart Routing

When the cache misses, take the smart road home.

The public internet routes packets along the cheapest BGP path — not the fastest. Argo measures real-time congestion across Cloudflare's private backbone and steers your traffic onto the lowest-latency route, every time. One toggle. Zero code changes. Measurable on every cache miss.

Same user · same origin · two routes illustrative · loops continuously
Smart Routing

Pick the fastest path, every request

Argo runs continuous latency probes across the Cloudflare backbone and route databases worldwide. When a request can't be served from cache, it's steered through the lowest-latency hop — often avoiding congested transit entirely.

Live Telemetry

Per-request route decisions, not static hops

Argo doesn't pick a path once and forget it. Every request is steered against billions of live latency measurements collected across Cloudflare's network. As congestion shifts, your traffic shifts with it — automatically, transparently, every time.

Protocol Optimizations

HTTP/3, 0-RTT, and connection reuse

Persistent backbone connections, HTTP/3 over QUIC, and 0-RTT resumption shave more time off each round-trip. Argo turns the network itself into a performance feature — invisible to your app, measurable in your logs.

~30%
average TTFB reduction on cache misses (Cloudflare measurements)
Billions
of latency measurements per day feeding the routing engine
330+ cities
of private backbone interconnect — the road Argo drives on
One toggle
enabled per-zone — no app changes, no library, no SDK
Measure web experience

You can't fix what you can't see.

Speed isn't a vibe — it's a number. Cloudflare Observatory runs Lighthouse-grade synthetic tests from 21 regions, captures Core Web Vitals from real visitors, and watches every hop between the edge and your origin. When something gets slow, you know which endpoint, which region, and which fix to apply.

Observatory

Lighthouse + RUM, in one place

Synthetic Lighthouse audits and Core Web Vitals from real visitors. Recommendations point straight at the Cloudflare feature that closes the gap.

baseline
62
after recs
94
Origin Analytics

Watch the link to your origin

See every endpoint's latency and error rate. Find the slow route dragging p95 — before your users do.

/api/products
124ms
/api/checkout
892ms
/static/*
38ms
Synthetic Monitoring

Test from 21 regions, on a schedule

Browser and network tests, on demand or daily. Compare any two runs side-by-side to prove a deploy made things faster.

21 regions
synthetic tests run from 5 continents — the same places your users are
Lighthouse
full Google audit on every run, scored desktop + mobile
TTFB → INP
every Core Web Vital, plus origin-side timings the browser can't see
Daily
recurring tests catch regressions before your users do
The bottom line

Speed is a business metric.

Every layer of the Cloudflare edge — cache, network, assets — exists for one reason: less waiting, more revenue. You don't have to choose which one. They all ship together.

+1%
revenue per 100ms shaved off load time
−7%
conversion for every 1s of delay
53%
of mobile users abandon after 3s
↑ SEO
Core Web Vitals reward fast pages
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