DNS setups

When using Cloudflare DNS, you have a few options for your DNS zone setup:

Primary setup (Full) (most common): Use Cloudflare as your primary DNS provider and manage your DNS records on Cloudflare.
CNAME setup (Partial): Keep your primary DNS provider and only use Cloudflare's reverse proxy for individual subdomains.
Zone transfers: Use Cloudflare and another DNS provider together across your entire zone to increase availability and fault tolerance. DNS records will be transferred between providers using AXFR ↗ or IXFR ↗.
Subdomain setup: With your apex domain (example.com) on a CNAME setup (partial) or primary setup (full), independently manage the settings for a delegated subdomain (blog.example.com) within a separate zone and, potentially, a separate account.

When configuring a subdomain setup, its availability will depend on both the parent zone setup and the setup used for the child zone. A child zone holds DNS management for a delegated subdomain.

Parent zone Child zone Available

Full or Secondary Full Yes

Full or Secondary Secondary Yes

Full or Secondary Partial No

Partial Full Yes

Partial Secondary Yes

Partial Partial Yes

For details, refer to setup.

Parent zone	Child zone	Available
Full or Secondary	Full	Yes
Full or Secondary	Secondary	Yes
Full or Secondary	Partial	No
Partial	Full	Yes
Partial	Secondary	Yes
Partial	Partial	Yes

Zone status

The possible statuses for a zone are the following:

Initializing
Pending
Active
Moved
Deleted
Purged

For details on each status and how a zone can transition from one status to the other, consider the Reference page.

Common use cases and availability

If you are unsure of which setup to use, consider the questions below for an overview of common use cases and their correspondence to each setup and different pricing plans ↗.

Are you on a Free or Pro plan?

If you are on a Free or Pro plan, primary setup (full) is the only one available. This is the recommended and most common option.

Will you be using Cloudflare with other DNS providers?

If you are on a Business or Enterprise plan, you can use CNAME setup (partial) to keep your primary DNS provider and only proxy individual subdomains through Cloudflare.

If you are on an Enterprise plan, you also have the option to use zone transfers to set up Cloudflare as either a primary or a secondary DNS provider.

Do you need to manage subdomains separately?

If you are on an Enterprise plan, you can use subdomain setup to manage the Cloudflare settings for one or more subdomains separately from your domain apex.

Configure DNS-only zones via API

You can configure zones to operate in DNS-only mode (no HTTP proxying) at the account level or per zone using the API.

Account-level default (applies to zones created after the setting is applied):

curl --request PATCH \
  https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/dns_settings \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"zone_defaults":{"zone_mode":"dns_only"}}'

Per-zone (for existing zones):

curl --request PATCH \
  https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/{zone_id}/dns_settings \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"zone_mode":"dns_only"}'