Happy Valley

Cloudflare vs Keycloak

Cloudflare and Keycloak are both security & identity tools. Cloudflare is aimed at developers and enterprise, while Keycloak is aimed at enterprise and developers. Both have a free plan.

Cloudflare

CDN, DNS, WAF and edge platform

Keycloak

Open-source identity and access management

PricingFreemium · $5Open source
Starting price$5/moNot published
Free planYesYes
Free trial——
Built forDevelopers, EnterpriseEnterprise, Developers
Platformswebweb
CountryUS · 2009US · 2014
Rating——

Choose Cloudflare if

Anyone running a website, and developers who want edge compute and cheap storage.

  • Industry-leading free tier
  • Zero egress R2 undercuts S3 dramatically
  • Global performance and security

Look elsewhere if: Teams needing the full breadth of managed services from a hyperscaler in one place.

Choose Keycloak if

Organizations needing self-hosted enterprise IAM.

  • Free and open source
  • Enterprise-grade features
  • Full control over identity data

Look elsewhere if: Startups wanting simple hosted auth (Clerk, Auth0).

Cloudflare vs Keycloak pricing

Cloudflare

  • Free$0CDN, DNS, DDoS, Universal SSL
  • Pro$25/domain/mo$20/mo billed annually; image optimization, 225 rules
  • Business$250/domain/mo$200/mo billed annually; 100% uptime SLA, PCI DSS
  • EnterpriseCustomContract; 24/7 phone support
  • Workers Paid$5/moMinimum monthly charge per account; usage above included

Keycloak

  • Open source$0Apache 2.0, self-hosted
  • Red Hat buildCustomCommercial support subscription

Cloudflare · Key features

  • CDN, DNS, SSL and DDoS protection on every plan
  • WAF, bot management and rate limiting
  • Workers edge functions, Pages hosting and Workers AI
  • R2 object storage with no egress fees
  • D1, KV, Queues, Durable Objects and Vectorize
  • Zero Trust access, tunnels and email security

Cons

  • Product sprawl can confuse
  • Some services less mature than AWS/GCP
  • Support on lower plans is limited

Keycloak · Key features

  • SSO via OIDC and SAML
  • User federation with LDAP/AD
  • Identity brokering and social login
  • MFA and password policies
  • Fine-grained authorization
  • Admin and account consoles

Cons

  • Operationally complex
  • UI and theming are dated
  • Upgrades require care

Cloudflare vs Keycloak: FAQ

Do Cloudflare and Keycloak have a free plan?

Yes, both Cloudflare and Keycloak have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.

Not sure yet?