01 · Operator
Who operates CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
- Company
- Cloudflare
- Type
- Other bot
- Official docs
- cloudflare.com
02 · Behavior
What CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline does
Always Online keeps a static copy of popular pages for outages. Cloudflare's current page says caching now runs through the Internet Archive, with a generic Chrome user agent. The CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline user agent therefore appears to be an older one.
03 · Impact
Why CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline matters for your site
If you allow it
- Keeps your site partly available during outages
- Only runs if the site owner enabled the feature
If you block it
- Not needed if you do not use Always Online
04 · Allow
How to allow CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
robots.txt
User-agent: CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline")
Action: Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules
# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.WordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "CloudFlare\-AlwaysOnline") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} CloudFlare\-AlwaysOnline [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
Start with robots.txt. If CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline keeps showing up in your logs, block it at your CDN or web server.
robots.txt
User-agent: CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "CloudFlare\-AlwaysOnline") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} CloudFlare\-AlwaysOnline [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
The user agent published by the operator:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline/1.0; +http://www.cloudflare.com/always-online) AppleWebKit/534.3407 · Verification
Is it really CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline?
CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline’s operator publishes no IP ranges or hostnames, so requests cannot be verified. Treat the user agent as a claim, and watch your logs for unusual request rates.
FAQ
Questions about CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline
What is CloudFlare-AlwaysOnline?
It is the user agent of Cloudflare's Always Online feature, which caches pages to show when your server is down.
Does Always Online still use this user agent?
Cloudflare's current page says the Internet Archive crawls for Always Online with a generic Chrome user agent.
How often does Always Online crawl?
Cloudflare says every 30 days on Free, 15 days on Pro and 5 days on Business and Enterprise plans.
Last reviewed Oct 7, 2026