What it does and does not reduce.
WHAT IT REDUCES
Bandwidth, substantially, since static files are served from Cloudflare Requests for images and assets, which never reach us Attack and bot traffic, filtered at the edge Traffic spikes, absorbed before reaching your account
WHAT IT DOES NOT REDUCE BY DEFAULT
Page generation. Every HTML request still runs your application and consumes an entry process, CPU and memory.
If you are hitting a 508 resource limit, Cloudflare in its default configuration may not help.
WHAT ACTUALLY HELPS WITH RESOURCE LIMITS
Server-side page caching, which serves pages without running the application at all.
That is the first fix, and Cloudflare is complementary rather than a substitute.
WHERE CLOUDFLARE DOES HELP WITH RESOURCES
Blocking bad bots and scanners, which on many small sites consume a meaningful share of capacity.
Absorbing attack traffic entirely.
THE PRACTICAL POSITION
Enable server-side caching. Then add Cloudflare for filtering and for the assets.
Adding Cloudflare while leaving caching off addresses the symptom you notice least.
