Know nothing but considering Cloudflare for free SSL

Be me Know barely anything about web development but successfully register and host websites for 13 years at namecheap Namecheap now has expensive and onerous SSL purchase, install, and renewal process Reddit told me cloudflare is good BUT... What is cloudflare?? Is it a hosting alternative?? When I "add a site" to cloudflare, am I transferring hosting or registration to cloudflare? Or if I add my site to cloudflare I dunno is it like running my traffic through another layer, but it's still registered and hosted on namecheap? CAN... Someone who knows nothing successfully set up my sites on cloudflare?
7 Replies
az
az5mo ago
cloudflare is a cdn, they also offer free webhosting through cloudflare pages and offer registrar services too generally cloudflare sits between the customer and your website but it can also host your site too
elka
elkaOP5mo ago
so I could keep my hosting and registration but cloudflare would... be a layer of goodness and provide ssl
az
az5mo ago
yes
elka
elkaOP5mo ago
v helpful thank you I already got confused by it asking me if the dns records look correct... would I just keep whatever was already there with namecheap?
az
az5mo ago
yes if you want to use cloudflare ssl make sure they are proxied (orange cloud)
elka
elkaOP5mo ago
each DNS record needs to have an orange cloud? maybe there's a good DNS record readup I can look at MX SERV AND TXT does not have the cloud
az
az5mo ago
only A/AAAA there are probably some getting started with cloudflare guides/moving to cloudflare youd have to google them or something
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