What’s this?

Deploying this website to Netlify was simple—just connect GitHub, pick a repo, and you’re live. But getting the custom domain to work with Cloudflare DNS was trickier, especially when Netlify asked me to update nameservers. This guide walks through how to keep Cloudflare as your DNS provider while hosting on Netlify, including how to properly redirect the apex domain such as, xaaha.dev, to your netlify site, in my case xaaha.netlify.app.


Goal

  • Use Cloudflare DNS instead of Netlify nameservers
  • Serve your site on www.xaaha.dev
  • Redirect xaaha.dev → xaaha.netlify.app

Solution (Without Changing Nameservers)

1: Set up domain in Netlify

  • Go to Site Settings → Domain Management → Domains
  • Add both (this happened automatically for me when I added www.xaaha.dev):
    • www.xaaha.dev (set this as the primary domain)
    • xaaha.dev (keep this as a domain alias so it redirects)

2: Clean up DNS in Cloudflare

  • Go to Cloudflare → DNS tab
  • Remove any existing NETLIFY or CNAME record for @ (xaaha.dev)

    These often show up from enabling “Cloudflare DNS dashboard” redirects — delete them first.

3: Add correct DNS records in Cloudflare


Type: CNAME
Name: www
Value: xaaha.netlify.app

# do the same for apex domain
# but you need to disable the parking page for the domain in Cloudflare

Type: CNAME
Name: xaaha.dev
Value: xaaha.netlify.app

Which looks like this

Cloudflare DNS Record

The CNAME connects www.xaaha.dev and xaaha.dev to the Netlify site.

4: 🧪 Test it

Visit xaaha.dev in the browser. Also, we can test it in the terminal

curl -I https://xaaha.dev

That’s it!