Cloudflare Origin Range Requests Keep Whole-File Cache Limits
Your video exceeds 512 MB, but each request fetches just 1 MB. Can Cloudflare cache those small pieces on your existing plan?
- Origin Range Requests brings self-service partial origin fetching to all plans.
- The Free, Pro, and Business cache limit remains 512 MB per complete file.
- Enable the feature for matching traffic and verify origin responses and cache eligibility.
Fetching a small part should not require excessive origin traffic
Cloudflare announced Origin Range Requests on October 23. It coordinates cached bytes and origin fetches for workloads such as video seeking and resumable downloads, without asking customers to tune a range size.
Cloudflare reports that R2's p99 time to first byte fell by roughly half after migration. That is an R2 production result, not a promise to halve every site's complete download time.
A partial response identifies the bytes delivered
An HTTP Range request selects part of a resource. For example, Range: bytes=0-1023 asks for its first 1,024 bytes. A successful partial response uses 206 Partial Content and identifies its span with Content-Range.
That enables seeking and resuming, but sending a Range header does not itself prove success. Cloudflare's response rules distinguish valid ranges, unsatisfiable ranges, and headers that are ignored.
Smaller ranges do not bypass the object-size limit
The configuration reference applies limits to the complete object, not the requested slice. Availability on every plan does not make every object cacheable.
| Plan | Maximum cacheable file size |
|---|---|
| Free, Pro, Business | 512 MB |
| Enterprise | 5 GB by default; increases require a request |
These are cache limits, separate from upload limits. Requesting small slices of a multi-gigabyte model does not turn it into a sub-512 MB cache object.
Enable the rule and check the origin
Under Caching → Cache Rules, turn Origin Range Requests On for matching traffic. The documented default mode currently enables no file extensions automatically.
If the origin ignores Range and returns a complete 200 OK response, Cloudflare can use it but must download the whole file. The feature does not make otherwise uncacheable responses cacheable, and Cache Reserve does not support it.
A GET request can qualify for the partial-file path before its origin response is known. If that response proves uncacheable, Cloudflare can still fetch ranges without storing the response bytes. Partial fetching and retaining bytes for later requests are separate outcomes.
FAQ
Can Free cache a 2 GB object if requests are small?
No. The 512 MB limit applies to the complete file.
Is an origin's 200 response necessarily an error?
No. It may be a usable full-file response, but then the origin transfer is not partial.
Check full-object size and origin range behavior first. Eligible traffic can then benefit from more selective fetching.