Cloudflare vs phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud Comparison
Compare Cloudflare vs phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud features, pricing, and more.
Last updated: November 2026
Cloudflare
7.6/10
Cloudflare is a global edge network. It offers CDN, DNS, DDoS protection and a WAF, plus serverless compute and storage (Workers, R2, D1) for developers and businesses.
phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud
6.6/10
API-driven single-tenant bare metal servers that deploy in minutes, billed hourly or reserved, for developers and IT teams that need dedicated hardware with cloud-style automation.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | P phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.6/10 | 6.6/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 4/10 |
| Cost | 9/10 | 5/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Integration | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Reliability | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 4/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $5/mo Workers Paid | $39/mo General Purpose (from s0.d1.small) |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free | $39/mo General Purpose (from s0.d1.small) |
| Features | ||
| Dedicated Servers | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Object Storage | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Multiple Regions | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
Cloudflare vs phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud cost by team size
Cloudflare costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Cloudflare | phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree | $39/moGeneral Purpose (from s0.d1.small) |
| 5 users | FreeFree | $39/moGeneral Purpose (from s0.d1.small) |
| 10 users | FreeFree | $39/moGeneral Purpose (from s0.d1.small) |
| 25 users | FreeFree | $39/moGeneral Purpose (from s0.d1.small) |
| 50 users | FreeFree | $39/moGeneral Purpose (from s0.d1.small) |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Cloudflare
- Has a free plan (phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud does not)
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $39/mo
- Higher Cost score (9/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Analytics score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 4/10)
PWhy choose phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud
- Higher Support score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Includes Dedicated Servers, which Cloudflare lacks
Pros & Cons
Cloudflare
Pros
- The free plan includes unmetered DDoS protection, a CDN, a WAF and universal SSL.
- R2 object storage charges no egress fees.
- Workers has very low entry pricing: a $5 monthly minimum and $0.30 per additional million requests.
- The Business plan adds a 100 percent uptime SLA and PCI DSS compliance for $200 a month billed annually.
Cons
- Reviewers report slow support on Free and Pro, which have no chat or phone support.
- Global outages in November and December 2025 disrupted many sites at the same time.
- Reviewers report billing problems, such as charges after cancelling add-ons.
- It offers no traditional shared hosting, VPS or dedicated servers, so you still need an origin host for conventional workloads.
PphoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud
Pros
- Servers can be deployed in minutes through the web portal, the REST API, the pnapctl CLI, or Terraform, according to vendor pages and ServeTheHome's hands-on test.
- Hourly billing lets you tear servers down at any time, and reservations cut costs by up to 30 percent.
- A broad catalog includes Xeon 6, ARM, GPU, and Pliops database instances.
- A first deployment includes 15 TB of bandwidth, which servers in the same location can share.
- The portal gives direct iKVM console access for recovering servers that stop responding.
Cons
- Servers are unmanaged by default, so you handle the OS, patches, and security.
- Only six locations are listed, fewer than at the large hyperscalers.
- Pricing is higher than at budget dedicated hosts, because you pay for the automation layer.
- There are few user reviews on G2 and similar sites, and one user reported that billing setup took several attempts.
- No SLA terms were found for Bare Metal Cloud. Third-party listings cite both a 100 percent and a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudflare scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.6/10 against 6.6/10 for phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud. The largest gap is in Cost: 9/10 for Cloudflare and 5/10 for phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud.
Cloudflare costs less for 10 users: free on its Free plan, against about $39/mo on its General Purpose (from s0.d1.small) plan for phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud, billed monthly.
Cloudflare has a free plan; phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud does not list one.
Cloudflare is the better fit for small business: we rate it 7/10 for them, against 4/10 for phoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud.
PhoenixNAP Bare Metal Cloud has Dedicated Servers, which Cloudflare lacks.
