I decided to try cloudflare cdn to see if i could squeeze any milliseconds of performance based upon the PageSpeed Insights test from google. I have gained nothing.
Prior to the tests, my mobile score hovered in the 74-77 range (which is poor and my page is rather light - way less than 1 mb). After conversion to cloudflare cdn, the scores are the same.
I think that the moral of the story is that sites/servers which are already optimized along the dimensions relevant to cdn will not see great benefit from cdn. the heart of server performance is on the server - not in “the cloud.”
on the other hand, there are benefits such as ddos protection, redundancy, etc which may provide advantages.
if anyone knows of any settings in the pro plan which might improve performance, i am all ears.