Cloudflare just made every application on the internet more programmable

Cloudflare, Inc., a security, performance, and reliability company that is helping to build a better Internet, has announced Cloudflare for Platforms, a new suite of tools that enables organizations to transform any application into a programmable platform on which developers can build. Cloudflare for Platforms enables organizations to easily transform any fixed application–from ecommerce solutions to chat apps and everything in between–so that developers can build custom functionality using the most recent open API standards, without relying on expensive external servers to manage complex APIs.

As businesses grow, they must cater to individual customer needs, which can range from a Fortune 100 financial institution to a hyper-growth technology company. Previously, businesses would use their own engineering resources to build features for each customer, which can be costly and difficult to scale. Assume a customer requests that a workplace chat application provider create an integration with an email tool. Instead of wasting valuable engineering resources, the chat application provider can allow its customers to build directly within the application. With Cloudflare for Platforms, any organization can empower users to program an application the way they want and need it to perform without the need for expensive servers, massive developer resources, or external consultants.

“Five years ago Cloudflare built our serverless computing platform, Cloudflare Workers, to give all of our customers the ability to program the way Cloudflare worked for themselves,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. “Cloudflare Workers is one of the fastest and most widely adopted edge computing products that provides limitless possibilities for our customers. Now we’re taking this formula and helping any organization do the same, using the scale, speed, and flexibility of Cloudflare’s global network.”

Cloudflare for Platforms is based on Cloudflare Workers, a serverless solution that enables developers to instantly deploy code across Cloudflare’s global network for exceptional performance, reliability, and scalability. Furthermore, Cloudflare is collaborating with leading organizations to develop new API standards for developers that will serve as the foundation for future applications that will take advantage of the scale and flexibility of edge computing. Cloudflare will now make it possible for any product to become a platform by allowing its developers to:

• Use Cloudflare’s fast, scalable, and secure environment: With multiple developers building customized tools on a businesses’ platform, code needs to run quickly in a highly secure environment and scale as needed.
• Quickly and easily view all of their code: Developers need to have visibility into errors, and an overview of what’s going on in their code. Trace Cloudflare Workers make it easy for any business to pass that information onto their customers’ developers.
• Use the API standards of the future for a common experience, wherever they code: Any developer will be able to write and run code conforming to Web Platform standards–and easily transfer it–between Cloudflare Workers, Deno, and Node.js seamlessly and without the need to rewrite an application.
• Get insights from powerful analytics: Using Workers Analytics Engine, platforms can expose easy to use dashboards to developers.
• Simplify and secure custom domains: For many platforms, especially for SaaS use cases, having the ability to run the service on a custom domain is table stakes. SSL for SaaS, part of Cloudflare for Platforms, provides an easy way to provision SSL certificates for custom hostnames, without having to manage complex certificates deployment pipelines.

“Shopify is the Internet’s commerce infrastructure, with millions of merchants using the platform,” said Zach Koch, product director, custom storefronts, at Shopify. “Partnering with Cloudflare, we’re able to give developers the tools they need to build unique and performant storefronts. We are excited to work with Cloudflare to alleviate some of the complexities of building commerce experiences – like scalability and global availability – so that developers can instead focus on what makes their brand distinct.”