The Cloudflare Access alternative with flat pricing
Cloudflare Access charges $7/user/month. For 100 viewers, that's $700/month – and it takes 2–4 hours to set up. display.dev is $49/month for unlimited viewers. CLI, MCP, Google and Microsoft SSO included. No infrastructure to build or maintain.
display.dev vs. Cloudflare Pages + Access
| display.dev | Cloudflare Pages + Access | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price (100 viewers) | $49 flat | ~$700 |
| Monthly price (200 viewers) | $49 flat | ~$1,400 |
| Per-seat pricing | ❌ | ✅ ($7/user) |
| Google SSO | ✅ Included | ✅ (separate setup) |
| Microsoft SSO | ✅ Included | ✅ (separate setup) |
| Publish CLI | ✅ | ❌ |
| MCP for Claude Desktop | ✅ | ❌ |
| Infrastructure to maintain | ❌ | ✅ |
| Setup time | 15 minutes | 2–4 hours |
| Free tier | ✅ | ✅ (50 users) |
The per-seat problem
Cloudflare Access is free for up to 50 users. After that, it's $7/user/month – regardless of how many artifacts you're hosting.
| Viewers | Cloudflare Access | display.dev |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | $0 | $49 |
| 75 | $525 | $49 |
| 100 | $700 | $49 |
| 200 | $1,400 | $49 |
| 500 | $3,500 | $49 |
Per-seat pricing creates the wrong incentive for internal sharing: every new viewer is a cost increase. Teams end up managing approval lists instead of sharing freely. That's the opposite of what internal publishing is for.
The setup problem
Cloudflare Access is an identity-aware proxy. To use it for static file hosting, you need two products configured together: Cloudflare Pages for hosting, Cloudflare Access for authentication.
Setting up from scratch:
- Create a Cloudflare Pages project (requires a git repository)
- Configure an Access application in the Zero Trust dashboard
- Set up separate identity provider connections for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365
- Handle subdomain protection policies
- Manage ongoing cert renewals, IdP credential rotation, Wrangler CLI updates
Estimated setup time: 2–4 hours. Ongoing maintenance: your team owns it.
After all of this, there's still no publishing CLI. You commit to git and trigger a deployment. Non-technical users have no path at all.
display.dev takes 15 minutes to set up. No infrastructure to maintain. Ever.
Publishing an HTML file
Cloudflare Pages + Access:
- Create a git repository
- Commit the HTML file
- Create a Cloudflare Pages project, connect the repository
- Deploy
- Create an Access application in the Zero Trust dashboard
- Configure Google and Microsoft identity providers separately
- Apply Access policy to the Pages subdomain
- Share URL
⏱ 2–4 hours for first artifact. $700/month for 100 viewers.
display.dev:
dsp publish ./report.html⏱ 15 seconds. $49/month flat.
When to use Cloudflare Access
You're within the free 50-user tier and have already done the setup. You need Zero Trust network features beyond static hosting – device posture checks, application-layer policies, WARP client enforcement. You're protecting a dynamic web application or internal service, not sharing HTML files.
When to use display.dev
You want to publish HTML or Markdown behind company auth without building or maintaining infrastructure. You're sharing with more than 50 people. You want flat pricing regardless of team size. You want a one-command CLI or an MCP tool for non-technical users. You want Google and Microsoft SSO without separate IdP configuration.
Pricing
Try it. No credit card.
- Included: 10 gated artifacts
- Included: Unlimited public artifacts*
- Included: 50MB storage
- Not included: Version history
- Not included: Google + Microsoft SSO
- Not included: Private artifacts
- Not included: Audit logs
display.dev branded
Individuals. Unlimited gated sharing.
- Included: Unlimited gated artifacts
- Included: Unlimited public artifacts
- Included: 1GB storage
- Included: 10 versions
- Not included: Google + Microsoft SSO
- Not included: Private artifacts
- Not included: Audit logs
For teams that need company auth.
- Included: Unlimited gated artifacts
- Included: Unlimited public artifacts
- Included: 25GB storage
- Included: 50 versions
- Included: Google + Microsoft SSO
- Included: Private artifacts
- Included: 90 days audit logs
For compliance-driven organizations.
From $499/mo
- Included: Unlimited gated artifacts
- Included: Unlimited public artifacts
- Included: Custom storage
- Included: Unlimited versions
- Included: Google + Microsoft SSO
- Included: Private artifacts
- Included: 365 days audit logs
Try display.dev free
- $49/month flat – not $700/month for 100 viewers, not $1,400 for 200
- Google + Microsoft SSO included – no separate IdP configuration
- No infrastructure to build or maintain · No credit card
Features
Viewers click a link and sign in with their Google or Microsoft account, or a one-time password. No app to install. No account to create. No IT ticket.
Inline comments on every artifact. Your agent reads them via MCP, fetches the current version, republishes with short_id and base_version, and resolves the thread. The artifact stays a living document, not a one-shot screenshot.
dsp publish ./file.html from your terminal, or one sentence in Claude Desktop. No git repo, no deploy pipeline, no project to configure.
Every artifact gets a URL that keeps working. Share in Slack, link in Notion, paste in email. It still works six months later.
No per-seat pricing at any tier. Share with your PM, exec, legal team, or designer for the same flat price.
Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor all work, along with anything else that creates HTML or Markdown output.
Common questions.
Can I replicate display.dev's pricing with Cloudflare?
Cloudflare's free tier (50 users) is the closest equivalent – but it requires 2–4 hours of setup and ongoing maintenance. Above 50 users, Cloudflare Access is $7/user/month regardless of artifact count. display.dev is $49/month regardless of user count or artifact count.
Does display.dev use Cloudflare infrastructure?
display.dev runs on managed infrastructure. You don't need to know or configure any of it – that's the point.
What about Cloudflare's free tier – isn't that enough for small teams?
If you have fewer than 50 viewers and an engineer with 2–4 hours to set it up, Cloudflare's free tier is viable. Most teams find that the setup burden and lack of publishing CLI makes display.dev worth $49/month even within the 50-user limit.
Is display.dev SOC 2 certified?
display.dev is working toward SOC 2 Type II certification. Enterprise plan includes audit logs, SAML, and custom data residency.
Can I see who published each version, human or agent?
Yes. display.dev attributes every version and comment to the agent and the human it acted for, in the comment thread and the audit log. See how identity works.
Publish your first artifact in 15 seconds.
Free tier. No credit card. One-time password auth on free, Google + Microsoft SSO on Teams ($49/month flat).