Cloudflare Pages free plan, hands-on: a real Wrangler deploy (and the same app on Workers)

What we actually did

We deployed a test project to Cloudflare Pages using Wrangler 4.145.0 from the command line on the free plan. The fixture contains a minimal HTML page, a custom _headers rule, and one API route in functions/api/hello.js. We also deployed the exact same application as a Cloudflare Worker with Workers static assets to compare the workflow.

sudoai.net itself is deployed to Cloudflare Pages with wrangler pages deploy (direct upload).

The deploy was run from a Linux box in US-East (egress via Cloudflare data center IAD). Latency and edge behavior were measured via sequential HTTP requests from a Mac mini in Singapore (reaching the SIN edge colo).

We did not buy any paid add-on for this test, and paid tiers were not tested. Whether our account holds an active Workers Paid subscription was not verified in this run. All quotas and limits cited below are quoted from official documentation, not hit during our test.

Step by step: CLI deploy on the free plan

Below are the commands from our run. We use the placeholder project name my-test-site below; our actual test run created sudoai-cf-free-test.

1. Check Node.js version

Wrangler 4.145.0 requires Node.js 22 or newer:

node -v

Running npx -y wrangler@latest --version on Node v20.19.2 failed with: Wrangler requires at least Node.js v22.0.0. We switched to Node v22.23.3, which ran Wrangler 4.145.0 cleanly.

2. Initialize package and install Wrangler

Initialize a project folder and install Wrangler locally as a development dependency:

npm init -y
npm install --save-dev wrangler@latest

This installed 38 packages in 3.7 seconds. Installing locally avoids permission issues with global cache folders.

3. Authenticate with Cloudflare

Authenticate interactively in your browser with npx wrangler login, or set the CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN environment variable:

export CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN="your-api-token"

We authenticated using an API token in the environment. Do not commit tokens or account IDs to source control.

4. Create the Pages project

Create the project container with main as the production branch:

npx wrangler pages project create my-test-site --production-branch=main

5. Fixture code

Here are the fixture files we deployed:

public/index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>sudoai.net Cloudflare Pages free-tier test</title>
  <style>
    body { font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, sans-serif; margin: 2rem; }
    pre { background: #f4f4f4; padding: 1rem; border-radius: 4px; }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>sudoai.net Cloudflare Pages free-tier test</h1>
  <p>This is a throwaway test deployment by the SudoAI Team.</p>
  <pre id="out">Loading...</pre>
  <script>
    fetch('/api/hello')
      .then(res => res.json())
      .then(data => { document.getElementById('out').textContent = JSON.stringify(data, null, 2); })
      .catch(err => { document.getElementById('out').textContent = 'Error: ' + err.message; });
  </script>
</body>
</html>

public/_headers

/*
  X-Robots-Tag: noindex

functions/api/hello.js

export async function onRequestGet(context) {
  const data = {
    ok: true,
    runtime: "pages-functions",
    time: new Date().toISOString(),
    colo: context.request.cf?.colo ?? null,
    country: context.request.cf?.country ?? null,
  };
  return new Response(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2), {
    headers: {
      "content-type": "application/json",
      "cache-control": "no-store",
    },
  });
}

worker/src/index.js

export default {
  async fetch(request, env) {
    const { pathname } = new URL(request.url);
    if (pathname === "/api/hello") {
      const data = {
        ok: true,
        runtime: "workers-static-assets",
        time: new Date().toISOString(),
        colo: request.cf?.colo ?? null,
        country: request.cf?.country ?? null,
      };
      return new Response(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2), {
        headers: {
          "content-type": "application/json",
          "cache-control": "no-store",
        },
      });
    }
    return env.ASSETS.fetch(request);
  },
};

worker/wrangler.jsonc

{
  "name": "sudoai-cf-free-test-worker",
  "main": "src/index.js",
  "compatibility_date": "2026-09-29",
  "assets": {
    "directory": "../public",
    "binding": "ASSETS",
    "run_worker_first": ["/api/*"]
  },
  "workers_dev": true,
  "preview_urls": false
}

6. Deploy to production

Deploy the static files and Pages Functions bundle to main:

npx wrangler pages deploy public --project-name=my-test-site --branch=main

This took 12.3 seconds wall clock time ("Uploaded 1 files (3.47 sec)", "Uploading _headers", "Uploading Functions bundle"). It output a per-deployment hash URL (https://904f223e.sudoai-cf-free-test.pages.dev) and the project URL (https://sudoai-cf-free-test.pages.dev).

7. Deploy a preview branch

Deploying a non-production branch creates an isolated preview environment:

npx wrangler pages deploy public --project-name=my-test-site --branch=preview-test

This deploy took 7.5 seconds and became live at https://preview-test.sudoai-cf-free-test.pages.dev.

Real timings

Timings recorded during our run on September 30, 2026. This was a single run on a small site, not an aggregate benchmark:

Screenshots

Captured using headless Chrome from our US-East box, so the colo shows IAD, at 23:51 SGT on Sep 30, 2026:

Gotchas we hit

We encountered six specific behaviors during this test:

1. Node 22 requirement: Wrangler 4.145.0 rejected Node v20.19.2 with: Wrangler requires at least Node.js v22.0.0. Node 22+ is required.
2. Cache permission error outside project folder: Running npx -y wrangler@latest pages project create ... in a folder without a package.json printed a file-permission error on /node_modules/.cache/wrangler. The project was created regardless; running it again returned A project with this name already exists [code: 8000002]. Running npm init -y first prevents this error.
3. macOS ._* files broke Functions bundler: When extracting files transferred via tar from macOS, hidden ._hello.js AppleDouble files were included. The bundler choked on these until all ._* files were deleted.
4. New hash URL failed TLS for ~60 s: Immediately after deployment, the per-deployment hash URL (https://904f223e.sudoai-cf-free-test.pages.dev) failed with ssl/tls alert handshake failure for approximately one minute. In contrast, the production project URL worked at once. The hash URL returned 200 after ≈60 seconds.
5. _headers rules don't touch Function responses: The rule /* X-Robots-Tag: noindex was applied to static HTML, but was not applied to /api/hello. This matches documentation: _headers only applies to static asset responses. On preview and hash URLs, Cloudflare automatically adds X-Robots-Tag: noindex to all responses, including Functions.
6. Unknown paths returned 200 + index.html without a 404.html: Requesting /nope on Pages returned HTTP 200 serving index.html (SPA fallback). Requesting /_headers also returned 200 with index.html. Add a 404.html file to your build directory if you want real 404s.

Latency from Singapore

Tested from a Mac mini in Singapore at 23:54 SGT on Sep 30, 2026. Sequential curl requests measuring TTFB:

The Pages Function reported request.cf.colo = SIN, with a median TTFB of 48 ms. For the Worker on workers.dev, median TTFB was 161 ms; while the response header cf-ray showed SIN, the request.cf.colo value inside the Worker reported HKG or NRT across three checks. We did not investigate why this occurred; it is a single run at one time, not a benchmark. A custom domain was not tested.

Free plan limits that matter

Prices and limits checked Sep 30, 2026.

Key limits summarized from official Cloudflare documentation:

Pages or Workers static assets?

Workers can now serve a folder of static files, and Cloudflare's docs point new projects there. Here is how they compare based on the official migration guide and our run:

Verdict: For a new project with backend plans (cron jobs, queues, microservices, or canary deploys), choose Workers static assets. For a plain static site already on Pages, it is fine to stay.

Sources

Official Cloudflare documentation references checked on September 30, 2026:

• Cloudflare Pages limits
• Cloudflare Pages Functions pricing
• Cloudflare Workers limits
• Cloudflare Workers pricing
• Cloudflare Pages _headers documentation
• Cloudflare Workers static assets migration guide from Pages