Stack playbook · Snapshot 23 October 2026
Sitecore on Cloudflare: readiness playbook
What 260 measured sites on this stack get right, where they fall short, and the Sitecore on Cloudflare-specific steps that close each gap.
- Sites measured
- 260
- Median readiness index
- 73/100
- Profiles on this stack
- 22
detected from homepage HTML and headers
all sites: 64
top-50K sites
Readiness by lane
Enable
89/100
All sites 77
Harden
70/100
All sites 55
Accelerate
60/100
All sites 63
Recover
7/100
All sites 11
The Sitecore on Cloudflare playbook
Gaps ordered by impact, with the platform-specific step where one exists.
Modern image formats in use
16% observed · all sites 40%
Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG or PNG fallback, either through an image CDN or by generating both formats at build time.
On Cloudflare: Cloudflare Polish can convert images to WebP.
Guide: AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG: Choose the Right Image Format
No render-blocking scripts in <head>
23% observed · all sites 44%
Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.
Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page
CAA records limit who can issue certificates
9.3% observed · all sites 11%
Publish CAA records naming every CA you actually use, including the CAs your CDN uses for managed certificates. Add an iodef contact if you want reports.
On Cloudflare: Cloudflare documents which CAs its managed certificates need; include them in your CAA records.
HTTP/3 advertised
25% observed · all sites 36%
Turn on HTTP/3 at your CDN. Browsers fall back to HTTP/2 automatically, so the risk is low.
On Cloudflare: Enable HTTP/3 (with QUIC) under Speed > Optimization > Protocol Optimization.
HSTS kept for at least a year
59% observed · all sites 31%
Send Strict-Transport-Security on HTTPS responses. Start with a short max-age (for example 300 seconds), confirm every subdomain works over HTTPS, then raise it in steps to 31536000. Add includeSubDomains only when all subdomains are HTTPS. HSTS preload is optional and hard to undo; hstspreload.org itself does not recommend it by default.
On Cloudflare: Enable HSTS under SSL/TLS > Edge Certificates > HTTP Strict Transport Security and raise max-age gradually.
DNSSEC signed
9.6% observed · all sites 8.1%
Enable DNSSEC at your DNS provider, then add the DS record at your registrar. Plan provider moves carefully: a stale DS record can make the domain fail to resolve.
On Cloudflare: Enable DNSSEC in DNS > Settings and add the DS record at the registrar.
Guide: Website Uptime Readiness: Prepare Before Traffic Arrives
security.txt published
34% observed · all sites 5.5%
Publish /.well-known/security.txt with at least Contact and Expires fields, as RFC 9116 requires, and review it before it expires.
On Cloudflare: Cloudflare Security Center can serve a security.txt file for the zone.
Content Security Policy present
42% observed · all sites 31%
Start with Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only to see what would break, tighten the policy over a few weeks, then enforce it.
Guide: Payment Security and PCI DSS: What Website Owners Need to Know
Where Sitecore on Cloudflare sites lead
- DMARC policy enforces quarantine or reject80% observedall sites 31%
- Reachable over IPv684% observedall sites 44%
- security.txt published34% observedall sites 5.5%
- HSTS kept for at least a year59% observedall sites 31%