Udalov Labs uses Cloudflare as its primary infrastructure provider for all backend services. This includes Cloudflare Workers for compute, D1 for relational database, KV for key-value storage, Durable Objects for stateful real-time connections, and Vectorize for semantic vector search. This article explains the architectural reasoning behind this choice.
Why Not AWS, GCP, or Azure?
Traditional cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) require managing server provisioning, VPC networking, load balancers, and scaling policies. For an independent software studio building multiple products simultaneously, this operational overhead is prohibitive. Cloudflare's serverless platform eliminates infrastructure management entirely. Workers deploy globally in seconds, D1 databases are created with a single CLI command, and there are no servers to patch, monitor, or scale.
Cloudflare Workers: The Compute Layer
Cloudflare Workers are JavaScript/TypeScript functions that run on Cloudflare's global edge network — currently over 300 locations worldwide. Workers handle all API requests from Udalov Labs iOS applications, including AI proxy calls, user authentication, and data retrieval. Average Worker response time from European origins is under 20ms. Cold starts are under 5ms because Workers use V8 isolates rather than container reboots.
D1: Serverless SQLite at the Edge
Cloudflare D1 is a distributed SQLite database that runs at the edge. Udalov Labs uses D1 to store structured data for platforms like ClearSky Monitor — including threat events, country risk scores, and historical data. D1 supports standard SQL queries and integrates directly with Workers via bindings. There is no connection pooling, no ORM configuration, and no database server to manage.
Durable Objects: Real-Time State
ClearSky Monitor requires persistent WebSocket connections to push live threat updates to hundreds of concurrent users. Cloudflare Durable Objects solve this by providing strongly-consistent, stateful objects that live at a single location. Each Durable Object manages a WebSocket room, broadcasting event updates to all connected clients. ClearSky Monitor has sustained peak ingestion rates of 50,000 events per second with sub-500ms alert delivery.
Vectorize: Semantic Search
Cloudflare Vectorize is a vector database integrated into the Workers ecosystem. Udalov Labs uses Vectorize in ClearSky Monitor to enable semantic search across threat event descriptions — allowing analysts to query for events by meaning rather than exact keywords. Vectorize stores event embeddings generated by OpenAI's text-embedding models and returns nearest-neighbor results in milliseconds.
Cost Structure
Cloudflare's pricing model is consumption-based with a generous free tier. Udalov Labs operates six products plus five platforms on Cloudflare infrastructure at a predictable monthly cost that scales with actual usage. There are no minimum capacity charges and no idle server costs. For an independent studio, this cost predictability is as important as the technical capabilities.