---
title: "Cloudflare DDoS Protection - Always-On Attack Mitigation"
description: "Unmetered, always-on DDoS protection across L3, L4, and L7. Automatic detection and mitigation at the edge with no performance impact."
url: "https://www.cloudflare.com/products/ddos"
---

# DDoS Protection

> Cloudflare automatically detects and mitigates DDoS attacks across layers 3, 4, and 7 at the edge — absorbing even the largest volumetric attacks without impacting legitimate traffic.

## Key Features

- Always-on mitigation
- Unmetered protection
- L3/L4/L7 coverage
- Sub-second detection
- 330+ city network
- No performance impact
- Zero configuration

## Benefits

### Always-On Mitigation

DDoS protection is enabled by default with no configuration needed. Attacks are detected and mitigated in seconds, not minutes, across our entire global network.

### Unmetered and Unlimited

No surge pricing, no bandwidth caps, no penalty for being attacked. Cloudflare absorbs attack traffic at no additional cost, regardless of size or duration.

### Global Anycast Network

Attack traffic is distributed and absorbed across our entire network spanning 330+ cities, so no single location is overwhelmed and performance stays consistent.

## Use Cases

### Volumetric Attack Mitigation

Absorb massive floods of UDP, ICMP, and SYN traffic designed to saturate your bandwidth and overwhelm your infrastructure.

### Application-Layer Protection

Detect and block sophisticated L7 attacks like HTTP floods and slowloris that attempt to exhaust your server resources.

### DNS Attack Defense

Protect your DNS infrastructure from query floods and amplification attacks that aim to make your domains unreachable.

### API Endpoint Protection

Shield your APIs from targeted DDoS attacks designed to degrade performance or cause downtime for your most critical services.

## Resources

- [Full Documentation](https://developers.cloudflare.com/ddos-protection): Complete technical documentation
- [Get Started](https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up): Sign up and start building
- [Pricing](/plans.md): See pricing details

## Related Products

- [Rate Limiting](/products/rate-limiting.md): Abuse prevention
- [SSL](/products/ssl.md): Secure Your Site with SSL
- [Turnstile](/products/turnstile.md): A CAPTCHA Replacement Solution
- [WAF](/products/waf.md): Web Application Firewall

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*This is a markdown version of [https://www.cloudflare.com/products/ddos](https://www.cloudflare.com/products/ddos) for AI/LLM consumption.*