How to add real-time bot protection to your Cloudflare site.

We’re happy to announce the release of a new DataDome server-side module for Cloudflare, in response to growing demand from security-conscious customers.

As you may know, DataDome is already compatible with all major CDNs, including Cloudflare.

Thanks to the new module, however, the DataDome bot protection solution can now be completely integrated with Cloudflare.

This means that we can now protect not only the origin, but also all your content at the edge, close to the users. The DataDome logic is executed before the regular Cloudflare process, and can therefore block access even to pages in the Cloudflare cache.

The module is extremely easy to install: it only takes a few clicks in your Cloudflare console.

Why you need both Cloudflare and DataDome

Cloudflare is a security-oriented CDN, which includes bot management functionality as part of its standard offering. So why do you need DataDome in addition, you may ask?

While using Cloudflare’s bot protection feature is much better than having no bot protection at all, it’s far from sufficient. Cloudflare’s attack detection is limited to fingerprinting and validation challenges, which many sophisticated bots will easily circumvent.

DataDome, on the other hand, uses a 2-step bot detection process which relies on statistical and behavioral as well as technical criteria. Our solution instantly compares every hit to your website with an already massive in-memory pattern database, and uses an in-house blend of AI and machine learning to decide in less than 2 milliseconds whether access to your pages should be granted or not.

Unlike Cloudflare, DataDome also protects all your vulnerability endpoints. Since all customer critical touchpoints have different legitimate usage patterns, we use dedicated algorithms for websites, website APIs, mobile APIs, login sections, etc.

Leveraging Cloudflare Workers

The new module leverages Cloudflare’s Workers functionality, which enables developers to deploy serverless JavaScript applications at the Edge on Cloudflare’s global cloud network.

Cloudflare Workers is built on top of the Service Workers API and powered by the Javascript V8 Engine, making it blazing fast and powerful. Cloudflare Workers run on Cloudflare’s edge, and can intercept requests from any browser and even from API clients that aren’t browsers.

Workers receive events for every HTTP(S) request made to an application. When the DataDome module is installed, these events are triggered before the regular Cloudflare process, and the DataDome logic is processed in a Workers function. The module makes a call to the closest DataDome endpoint, and depending on the API response, the module either blocks the request or lets Cloudflare continue the regular process.

Getting started

To start testing DataDome with Cloudflare today, click the Free trial button below and create your account (it takes less than a minute).

Then, follow the Cloudflare module installation instructions in our technical documentation. The whole process shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, and you don’t need a credit card.

That’s it! You can now access your personal DataDome dashboard, and observe all bot traffic to all your vulnerability endpoints in real time.