Cloudflare, Inc. is a San Francisco-based technology company that provides content delivery network (CDN), cybersecurity, and DDoS mitigation services by acting as a reverse proxy between website visitors and hosting providers. Founded in 2009 by Matthew Prince, Lee Holloway, and Michelle Zatlyn, it went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019 (ticker NET) and now powers roughly 21.3% of all websites on the internet. The company has expanded beyond basic security into edge computing (Workers), a public DNS resolver (1.1.1.1), and the WARP VPN, while integrating AI through acquisitions like Replicate and tools to manage AI bots. Cloudflare has faced intense backlash over its content-neutrality policy, terminating services for hate-speech sites like The Daily Stormer and 8chan, and lost a major copyright lawsuit against Japanese publishers in 2025. Known for its quirky security methods, it famously uses a wall of lava lamps in its headquarters to generate random encryption keys, and despite winning a patent troll lawsuit in 2024, it suffered significant global outages in late 2025.