SUCURI VS CLOUDFLARE REVIEW (2020) – WHY WE WENT BACK TO CLOUDFLARE

As you are on this page, I assume, you probably know what is Sucuri & Cloudflare, but just for the sake of it, here is a small introduction.

Sucuri & Cloudflare is a Content Delivery Network, aka CDN. Both have their own merits and demerits. And recently I did a test between both, Sucuri & Cloudflare.

And here is the in-depth Review for both.

A Sucuri vs Cloudflare Review.

Background.

Now let me give you a small background, Our website SnTHostings.com has been registered on 16th January 2013, and since day one, we are using Cloudflare.

Why? Because it’s so easy and straight forward to use, and it hides IP of the server well, so I do not have to deal with a direct attack on the server.

Whenever there is an attack on the website (Which has been quite a lot recently), I have a script that enables “Under Attack Mode” in Cloudflare, automatically.

However, due to constant attack, the website is most of the time behind the “Browser Check” and honestly, we do not want to lose traffic or sales because of this. It hasn’t been a problem so far, but if something can be improved upon, then why not. (Spoiler: This was a mistake).

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Introduction to Sucuri.

Now let me explain to you, what is Sucuri and what all features and services they provide.

Sucuri has 2 Major services.
• Malware Removal (This includes Firewall).
• Firewall.

Malware Removal Plan.

Malware Removal plan starts from $199.99/yr & runs up to $499.99. The main difference between the plan is the number of the frequency the scanner runs in a day.

All the plans come with Firewall & DNS. Now, this is very handy, however more on it soon.

Firewall Only Plan.

Website Firewall Plans starts from $9.99/mo & runs up to $19.99/mo. Now this plan is honestly kinda useless tbh because you are already paying $119.88/yr with this plan.

Rather opt for Malware Removal Plan, that has Firewall & Malware Removal, and a few other scanners & monitors too.

Free Trial for Website Firewall Plan @ Sucuri.net

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Introduction to Cloudflare.

 

Now with Cloudflare, It starts for free and can rake up to $1000s/mo, includes CDN, DNS & Firewall, which is chargeable at Sucuri.net. Cloudflare also DOES NOT have malware removal & cleanup.

This is where Sucuri takes the lead. They are giving the whole package for $199.99/yr.

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Main Review for Sucuri.

So let’s get started with our Sucuri vs Cloudflare Review.

I have used Sucuri for about a week, and while I was impressed with their features and panel, the service was something that leaves a lot to be desired, especially when I am paying for it.

I have faced many, many, many, many issues, and I will have them listed here. Along with my review.

Issues that I faced.

SSL not working

After getting the plan, and setting up the name servers, it took about 3-4hours for their SSL to kick in, during this time, my website was down/SSL was invalid.

Now I understand that for SSL, the IP should be pointed towards the server, however being a host myself & using Cloudflare, I wish there was a faster way.

When I moved back from Sucuri to Cloudflare, the NS update took less than 10mins to kick in, and there was no downtime or SSL invalid. It just worked right out of the gate.

Support

They have Chat & Ticket support. Now that’s good, however, the Chat support is ONLY for sales. And if you approach them for Support, they will push you to get “Business Plan“.

Like I mentioned, on the 1st point, my SSL was not working and my website was essentially down after paying $199.99. And I requested them to look into it,  They asked me to open a ticket. I did, and I got a reply after 2 hours.

With proper reply about 15 hours later. Luckily their system updated the SSL after 3-4hours, otherwise, I would be stuck with no certificate for at least 15 hours.

Fewer Number of Servers

Now comparing it with Cloudflare would be fair IMHO. Because Sucuri is owned by GoDaddy. Yet they have only 10 Datacenters & 2 CDN locations around the world.

Compared to Cloudflare, At the time of writing this article, they had over 199 locations. Which is crazy.

Now, honestly, this wouldn’t be an issue, if the locations/network was strong. This leads me to point number 4.

Their Server’s SUCKS

I tried very, very, very, very, hard to like it (after all I paid for it.) But it’s just not good enough. It’s not consistent at all.

My main server is located in the USA. And I connect it from Mumbai, India. So for me, these 2 were prime locations to test from.

On a good day, I would get about 2.91 seconds load time from Sucuri, this is a full load. Not bad, eh?

However, that is on a good day. Because the good day can become a bad one, at any given minute.

Sucuri Tests.

Dallas Location – https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200705_MF_77ac4cda7716c38e6b109227218f6cb5/

Dulles Location – https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200629_YG_b5ef6f8978abde5ed82f029115efbcff/

Mumbai Location – https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200703_F6_b6d2fdbbb0208c99f759f05a9463455d/

Exceptionally Bad – https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200628_8R_fd7eeeae04799a9fc614d79a94a1ebc9/

Look at the TTFB for Mumbai, almost 2-3 seconds. That is horrible. Dulles, which is closer to our NYC DC has a 1second+ load time. Compared to Dallas which is further than our NYC DC.

Cloudflare Tests.

Dallas Location – https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200705_T2_1a97c051489376f5565ef3f7633f534c/

Dulles Location – https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200705_F3_cfefb0ef64c67606fac04b8f8f717bc3/

Mumbai Location – https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200705_BG_8528e9b8e43638c1ec20232f304920c4/

TTFB for Cloudflare is consistently low across the board, under 1 second in Mumbai, under 250ms in the USA.

As you can see the load time was 5seconds+. It is taking 3seconds+ just to load the Largest Contentful Paint, Which is horrible.

There is research that says that 40% of visitors abandons the website if the load time is more than 3 seconds.

Pricing

This is subjective, as my main intention with their service was to speed up my website and protect it against bots & brute force attacks. However, for someone, it might just be Malware Protection and removal.

We never had malware issue, so that’s not something I can comment on, as for all I know it is fantastic and works a charm. But for Firewall & DNS, I would suggest them to fix up their service if they are charging so high.

Random Downtimes & False Positives

For me, this was the last straw, in 1 week, 2 clients reported me that my site is down, and I faced the issue myself 2 times as well. Which I reported 4 days ago.

It still hasn’t been solved, and earlier today, another client got false positive blocked.

Verdict.

In the case of Sucuri vs Cloudflare Review.

I tried, and I tried hard to like it, and to some extent, it was good like I really liked their interface and reporting of all the visitors every day including bots and blocks.

But it renders it useless when there is downtime, blocks, slow loading, fewer servers, and bad support for a paid product.

Compared to a Free Plan at Cloudflare, without any problems with brilliant support.

I opened 2 tickets in the past 7yrs with Cloudflare, and both were solved within 30-60mins flat.

Honestly if anyone from Sucuri is reading this, Please for the love of God, take this as criticism and build upon it, and fix the issues.

I would love to try you guys and continue service with you, but for now, I have applied for a refund (They have 30 days refund policy).

I am happy with Cloudflare, as they provide the basic features for free and they are the best.

However for enhanced security, we are still in the market, and next, we going to research SiteGuarding.com.

Maybe another Review coming soon? Till then, Adios.