Products · Product
Cloudflare
Raised as a usability problem by 423 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 304 threads.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Repeatedly flagged by captchas while browsingUnreviewed
20122026- Logging in is very slow, and the login button takes forever to become clickable2026-09-29
- Captchas and proof-of-work checks block access to sites, making browsing harder2026-09-17
- Cloudflare captchas make the internet unusable for the commenter2026-07-04
Tor users blocked from normal websites by checksUnreviewed
20122026- Challenge page takes over 5 seconds to clear, slower than alternatives2026-07-11
- Cloudflare blocks normal browsing and VPN users, making sites hard to access2026-03-26
- Challenge page is slow and annoying, so users bounce back to search results2026-02-27
Stuck in endless verification loops, so they give upUnreviewed
20122026- Every normal user must wait about 10 seconds for the check2026-06-01
- Repeated 'verifying you're human' checks interrupt access to pages, wasting the user's time2025-11-02
- Clicking the verification button repeatedly does nothing; the page gets stuck2025-09-25
Firefox users face non-stop bot checks on every siteUnreviewed
20122026- Bot check pages loop endlessly, blocking legitimate users from reaching sites2026-10-30
- Cloudflare check screens take about 10 seconds per page, making quick lookups unusable2025-12-27
- Constant bot verification challenges make the web nearly impossible to use in Firefox2025-09-23
Blocked with no way to contact the site or give feedbackUnreviewed
20122026- Blocked with no way to contact the site or give feedback2026-05-25
- Gets blocked for no apparent reason with no way to resolve it2024-10-19
- Blocked users get no way to contest the block and no clear recourse2023-09-29
Dense documentation with no simple walkthrough, so setup needs helpUnreviewed
20122026- Documentation is lacking in places2022-10-24
- Documentation is dense and lacks a simple walkthrough, so people need help setting it up2022-02-08
- Sparse documentation and unintuitive workflows make it awkward and cumbersome to use2021-05-11
Privacy browsers get 403 Forbidden and can't reach sitesUnreviewed
20122026- Privacy-focused browser settings get flagged, blocking the user from sites2026-11-03
- Privacy-focused browser gets blocked with 403 Forbidden and can't reach the site2024-09-18
- Important sites are impossible to access from Firefox at times, regardless of settings changed2023-09-29
Site unusable for VPN, public network and unstable connectionsUnreviewed
20122026- Sites become unusable when phone connects to foreign mobile network2026-04-20
- Site becomes unusable for VPN, public network, and unstable-connection users2022-08-04
- Connections break completely once latency reaches about 5 seconds, making sites unusable2016-07-19
Locked out despite correct login, with tickets auto-closed as resolvedUnreviewed
20122026- Support tickets auto-closed repeatedly without response, leaving billing confusion unresolved for months2024-07-30
- Locked out with correct credentials, no way to reach support, tickets auto-closed as resolved2020-08-10
- Must create an account to reach support, and tickets from free accounts are deprioritized2019-07-10
Site is laggy and slow to respond to clicksUnreviewed
20122026- Queries hang or take seconds, making user interactions feel sluggish and frustrating2026-04-17
- The website is laggy and slow to respond to interaction2025-12-18
- Site is slow and buggy to use2018-09-28
reCAPTCHA challenges are especially annoying on non-Google browsersUnreviewed
20122026- Challenges sometimes block legitimate users, and ReCaptcha gets stuck in impossible loops2026-07-26
- Visitors are repeatedly subjected to hCaptcha challenges, degrading the browsing experience2022-07-06
- ReCAPTCHA challenges are very annoying, especially on non-Google browsers2019-08-16
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Privacy-focused browser settings get flagged, blocking the user from sites2026-11-03
- Verification challenges block links so searched pages become unusable without a VPN2026-10-31
- Bot check pages loop endlessly, blocking legitimate users from reaching sites2026-10-30
- Security check page is annoying to get through2026-10-25
- Users must wait or click a box repeatedly before reading articles2026-10-12
- Logging in is very slow, and the login button takes forever to become clickable2026-09-29
- Frequent strange UI bugs that require a hard refresh to fix2026-09-28
- Hero section breaks on desktop and text overflows in lower sections2026-09-19
- Sections lose their content and become unusable after clicking an anchor link and scrolling back2026-09-18
- Captchas and proof-of-work checks block access to sites, making browsing harder2026-09-17
- Blocked from free software webapps until VPN is off and anti-fingerprinting disabled2026-09-07
- Forced to stop what you're doing and wait through the challenge2026-09-06
- Finding where static hosting lives in the dashboard is confusing2026-09-04
- DNS dashboard silently doesn't apply the configuration the user set, confusing them2026-08-19
- Orange cloud icon hides that DNS record actually points to Cloudflare, not the entered address2026-08-17
- Very hard to find the setting that disables the injected JavaScript2026-08-16
- Website feels incoherent to first-time visitors2026-08-15
- Dense collection of UI anti-patterns and opaque navigation2026-08-15
- A pop-up asking to confirm permission to use a trademark was confusing and alarming, so the user gave up2026-08-08
- Unclear what the intended user interface is, Electron app or web app2026-08-05
- Rough early version wasted hundreds of hours getting things working as advertised2026-08-05
- RSS feeds on sites are blocked behind bot-protection challenges2026-07-28
- Challenges sometimes block legitimate users, and ReCaptcha gets stuck in impossible loops2026-07-26
- Straight-line cursor movement from a keyboard mouse layer gets flagged as bot and blocked2026-07-13
- Challenge page takes over 5 seconds to clear, slower than alternatives2026-07-11
- Upload buttons ask for things the user didn't expect, feels like a dark pattern2026-07-10
- Finding static website hosting in the UI keeps getting harder as things are added and reorganized2026-07-08
- Vague generic error gives no information on why upload failed or what to do2026-07-08
- Cloudflare captchas make the internet unusable for the commenter2026-07-04
- Add-record button is unlabeled and the popup is transparent, hard to use2026-06-28
- Setting up the self-managed OAuth is a nightmare for people using it2026-06-25
- No Create Account button, so users must use email tricks and invite themselves as admins2026-06-20
- Takes far longer and requires repeated waiting and clicking before access2026-06-16
- Hovering over Products shows a menu, yet a separate See All Products link is confusing and redundant2026-06-05
- Load balancer settings are hidden across multiple layers, each needing separate configuration2026-06-04
- Static site option hidden at bottom, wrong repo can't be changed, unclear Zero Trust fields2026-06-04
- Cloudflare's admin interface is a hostile, awful experience for daily work2026-06-04
- Gets rate limited partway through editing several apps in the dashboard2026-06-04
- Setup is split across many confusing screens with generic error messages and inconsistent labels2026-06-04
- Has to pass many Cloudflare captchas while browsing the web in Brave2026-06-01
- Every normal user must wait about 10 seconds for the check2026-06-01
- Users leave sites rather than tick the box or wait seconds for the check2026-06-01
- A ten-second wait before the site loads drives real users away2026-05-31
- Old interface was hard to use and hard to discover2026-05-31
- Blocked with no way to contact the site or give feedback2026-05-25
- Challenge page stays broken under uMatrix despite whitelisting, forcing the user to disable the add-on2026-05-18
- Checkbox fails, forcing an unclear extra mobile QR code verification step2026-05-11
- Legitimate users are repeatedly blocked and forced through obstacles to access sites2026-05-11
- Deploying a Next.js app needs extra config to figure out, hard for non-engineers2026-04-23
- Sites become unusable when phone connects to foreign mobile network2026-04-20