Praxium Labs ships this for Nepali clients — here is what works. For nine out of ten Nepali sites the right answer is: put Cloudflare in front of your origin. The free tier covers more than most SMEs ever need.
What you get on the free tier
- Free TLS certificate auto-renewed forever
- Global CDN caching of static assets at ~300 PoPs including Singapore and Mumbai
- DDoS protection at L3/4/7 (very real attacks for Nepali sites with political or banking exposure)
- HTTP/3 and QUIC to clients
- Brotli compression on the wire
- Web Analytics (privacy-friendly, no third-party tracking)
- Workers free tier: 100k requests / day for edge compute
The 30-minute setup
- Sign up at cloudflare.com (free)
- Add your site; Cloudflare imports your existing DNS records automatically
- Change your domain's nameservers (at your registrar) to the Cloudflare ones
- Wait 5-60 minutes for DNS propagation
- In Cloudflare: set SSL/TLS mode to "Full (strict)" — requires a valid cert on your origin
- Enable Auto Minify (HTML/CSS/JS), Brotli, HTTP/3
Caching strategy for Nepali sites
- Static assets (CSS, JS, images): cache forever with cache-busting filenames
- HTML pages: short TTL (1-5 minutes) unless you do explicit purges on update
- API responses: usually bypass cache (Cloudflare does not cache POST by default)
- Image optimisation: "Polish" feature recompresses images on the fly (free) and "Mirage" defers below-fold loading
Bandwidth and cost savings
For a typical Nepali e-commerce site serving 100,000 page-views / month with 1.2 MB pages: ~120 GB / month of egress. Cloudflare typically serves 60-80% from cache. Self-hosted: pay 100 GB egress (NPR 1,000-3,000 on most VPS). With Cloudflare: 30-40 GB origin egress (NPR 300-1,200). Savings compound at higher volumes.
When to pay for Cloudflare Pro / Business
- Pro ($20/mo): WAF managed rules, image optimisation Pro, image resizing. Worth it for e-commerce above NPR 1 crore revenue
- Business ($200/mo): 100% uptime SLA, advanced WAF, cache reserve. For high-traffic Nepali sites only
- Enterprise ($+200/mo with negotiation): dedicated support, custom solutions, vault. Only for banks / large enterprises
Beyond the proxy: other Cloudflare products useful in Nepal
- Cloudflare Pages: static / JAMstack hosting, free for most needs
- Cloudflare Workers: edge compute, free 100k req/day
- R2: S3-compatible object storage with zero egress fees
- D1: SQLite at the edge (still preview / beta scale)
- Tunnel: expose self-hosted apps without opening firewall ports
- Access: Zero Trust login for internal tools
Free-tier wins
- DNS: fast global resolution; free; better than most registrar DNS
- TLS: automatic certificate provisioning and renewal
- CDN cache: static assets served from edge POPs near Nepal (Singapore, Mumbai)
- DDoS protection: meaningful protection even on free tier
- Page Rules: redirect, cache, security rules; 3 included free
- Bot Fight Mode: blocks the most-aggressive bots
- Workers: 100k requests/day free; serverless functions at the edge — see our hosting TCO comparison
When to upgrade to Pro / Business
Pro ($20/month) adds: WAF (web application firewall), image optimisation (Polish), better caching control, mobile redirects. Worth it for any serious e-commerce or SaaS in Nepal — the WAF alone justifies the cost. Business ($200/month) adds: more advanced WAF rules, custom SSL certificates, more page rules, prioritized support. Most Nepali SMEs stay on Pro; Enterprise tier is for very-high-traffic or specific compliance needs.
Frequently asked questions
Does Cloudflare slow my site for Nepali users?
No. Cloudflare has PoPs in Singapore and Mumbai — typically 50-150ms latency to Kathmandu. The CDN cache means most requests never reach your origin at all, which is faster than going to a VPS in Frankfurt or Singapore.
Will my Nepali bank-customer data leak to a foreign company?
Cloudflare sees the encrypted traffic in transit. They terminate TLS at their edge so they decrypt and re-encrypt to your origin (in Full mode). For NRB-regulated workloads, evaluate this carefully — many Nepali banks have decided this is acceptable; some have not.
Can Cloudflare block legitimate Nepali users?
Rarely, but their bot management can occasionally false-positive on shared NTC IPs that look like proxies. If you see this, allowlist Nepali IP ranges or disable Bot Fight Mode.
Does Cloudflare work with WordPress / Shopify?
Yes — both have specific Cloudflare integrations / plugins. For WordPress, the official "Cloudflare" plugin handles cache-purging on post-update. For Shopify, point your domain DNS through Cloudflare and follow their guide (some features require Shopify Plus).
What's a good first Cloudflare config for a Nepali blog?
Full (strict) SSL, Auto Minify enabled, Brotli on, Always Use HTTPS, HSTS for 6 months, page rules for static assets (cache everything, edge cache TTL 1 year). 10 minutes of work, immediate performance lift.
Does Cloudflare obscure the origin server?
Yes when proxied — visitors see Cloudflare IPs, not your origin. Important: do not also publish your origin IP elsewhere (DNS history, certificates, error pages) or attackers can bypass Cloudflare directly.
What about Cloudflare R2 vs AWS S3?
R2 has free egress and competitive storage pricing. Strong choice for Nepali sites where you push assets to global users. S3 has more integrations and ecosystem maturity. For new projects, R2 often wins on cost-of-ownership.
Who can build this in Nepal?
Praxium Labs — Nepal's AI and automation consultancy, based in Lalitpur — designs and builds the systems described in this guide for Nepali businesses and for international teams hiring from Nepal. Start a project or see all services.