Hosting at Host.al is now <0.3ms from Cloudflare.
The number 1 .al domain registrar.
Host.al has established direct peering with Cloudflare, delivering sub-millisecond latency to one of the world’s largest networks — for every customer on our network.
< 0.3ms
Round-trip time to Cloudflare
Direct peering in Tirana — no transit hops, no detours through MIX-IT. Just a straight local path.
Proving it: a live test from a Host.al VPS
We ran this test from one of our AMD VPS instances — 8 GB RAM, 30 GB SSD, available at Host.al. First, confirm the IP:
$ curl icanhazip.com
91.239.6.69A clean Host.al IP, originating from Tirana. Now resolve a domain sitting behind Cloudflare:
$ dig my.host.al +short
104.21.56.3
172.67.175.29Both IPs belong to Cloudflare (AS13335). Now traceroute to each:
ping 104.21.56.3
PING 104.21.56.3 (104.21.56.3) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 104.21.56.3: icmp_seq=1 ttl=62 time=0.259 ms
64 bytes from 104.21.56.3: icmp_seq=2 ttl=62 time=0.387 ms
64 bytes from 104.21.56.3: icmp_seq=3 ttl=62 time=0.352 ms
64 bytes from 104.21.56.3: icmp_seq=4 ttl=62 time=0.346 ms
64 bytes from 104.21.56.3: icmp_seq=5 ttl=62 time=0.286 ms
64 bytes from 104.21.56.3: icmp_seq=6 ttl=62 time=0.262 ms< 0.3ms just a hop a way. Cloudflare is reached on the third hop, in under a quarter of a millisecond.
Why this matters: the path before vs. now
Without direct peering, traffic between an Albanian network and Cloudflare would typically travel over upstream transit through MIX-IT (Milan Internet Exchange) before landing on a Cloudflare node, adding 20–40ms of unnecessary latency. With direct local peering, the path collapses to a single hop:
Now the entire round-trip — from our network, to Cloudflare, and back — completes in under 0.3ms. No ocean cables, no extra routing hops, no unnecessary detours. Just a direct local path.
What this means for you
If you are a Host.al customer running services that interact with Cloudflare — and a significant fraction of the internet does — this peering directly improves your user experience and infrastructure performance. It applies to every customer on our network: shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers alike.
Cloudflare-proxied websites load faster
Origin requests from servers on Host.al reach Cloudflare’s edge in under 1ms, reducing TTFB for any site sitting behind Cloudflare’s proxy.
DDoS scrubbing with minimal overhead
Traffic routed through Cloudflare Magic Transit or WAF returns to your origin server with almost no added latency compared to unprotected traffic.
Workers, Pages & R2 at local speed
Cloudflare’s serverless platform and object storage communicate with your infrastructure at local latency rather than going off-continent.
Better paths for Albanian end users
Albanian internet users accessing Cloudflare-hosted content benefit from a shorter, faster, and more reliable local path.
Reduced transit costs
Traffic exchanged locally bypasses paid upstream transit, improving efficiency for both networks. Peering is how the internet is supposed to work.
About peering at Host.al
Cloudflare operates in over 300 cities, serves roughly 20% of all internet traffic, and peers at internet exchanges worldwide. Having a direct, sub-millisecond path to Cloudflare from Albania is a meaningful infrastructure milestone, and one we are proud to offer every customer on our network.
Our peering policy is open. If you represent a network looking to establish a session with AS213683, get in touch at peering@host.al.
Empower your business with Host.al
Recommended posts
A New Milestone in Information Security
We are proud to announce that Host...
In today's digital age, understanding the technical aspects of your website is important for ensuring smooth operation and providing a pleasant experience for your visitors...