Easy Fix?: Use Cloudflare for DNS, DNSSEC, HTTPS with free hosting plan

[matt24]

Hi there, I’m new to Cloudflare’s Website Plan but have known and liked the company for their 1.1.1.1 DNS servers for a while.

I own a domain name and only use 365 email with it.
I used to have hosting with GoDaddy but didn’t renew because it wasn’t worth the cost.
Now I’m interested in trying free hosting to have a simple page for my domain.
I don’t have any site right now except for a test wordpress install at www.freehosting.com

I connected my domain successfully and have Cloudflare running the DNS.
I edited the A record to point to this shared hosting IP in my Freehosting cPanel.
When I try to go to my domain www.nolodat.com I am greeted with the freehosting placeholder page.

Am I missing something?

[sdayman]

It doesn’t sound like you’re missing anything. One thing you can try is go to your Cloudflare Overview settings and click on Advanced so you can “Pause Website.” This will send requests directly to your web host.

I don’t expect your site to start working at the point, but I may be in for a surprise. Post back on if Pausing Cloudflare gets your site working or not.

[matt24]

Same result with it paused. At first it said I needed to add an ssl add on at the host, then i toggled ssl in Cloudflare from flexible to off, and back again and it didnt show that message. No change otherwise, still getting placeholder. Even tried this free hosts site builder and published just in case WP was the culprit, no dice.

Maybe it’s the host? If so, any recommendations for known working free hosts? I just need something to throw a simple page up, doesn’t need to be WP or require some silly site builder.

[sdayman]

Some people here use 000webhost.com
I can’t vouch for the company or the deal, but it looks like it will let you use your own domain.

[matt24]

I just tried them out, darn, they want me to use their nameservers in order to use my own domain, which means it defeats the whole purpose of using Cloudflare right?

Otherwise, is it insanely hard to set up a web server on an extra computer in my home? I can use a dynamic dns service to compensate for my non static IP.