You can keep your domain's DNS at Cloudflare or another provider rather than using our nameservers.
WHAT CHANGES
Your domain's nameservers point at that provider, not at us. All DNS records are then managed there. The cPanel Zone Editor still exists but has no effect, which catches people out regularly.
WHAT YOU MUST REPLICATE
An A record for the domain pointing at your account's server IP An A record for www, or a CNAME to the domain MX records for email, exactly as cPanel had them The SPF TXT record DKIM records from cPanel > Email Deliverability Any subdomain records Any verification records for third-party services
CLOUDFLARE SPECIFICS
Mail records must be DNS-only (grey cloud). Proxying them breaks email delivery. SSL/TLS mode must be Full (strict) once AutoSSL has issued. Flexible causes redirect loops. AutoSSL validation may fail while a record is proxied. Set it to DNS-only temporarily, issue the certificate, then re-enable proxying.
WHY PEOPLE DO IT
CDN performance, attack mitigation and a firewall. For most sites it is worthwhile. Just remember where the records now live.
