---
title: Overview · Cloudflare Smart Shield docs
description: Use Smart Shield to protect your origin server, improve content
  availability, and reduce network latency.
lastUpdated: 2025-11-19T12:11:06.000Z
chatbotDeprioritize: false
source_url:
  html: https://developers.cloudflare.com/smart-shield/
  md: https://developers.cloudflare.com/smart-shield/index.md
---

Safeguard your origin with just a few clicks.

Smart Shield acts as an intermediate caching layer between Cloudflare's content delivery network and your origin server, consolidating multiple requests from various locations into a single request. Combined with [connection reuse](https://developers.cloudflare.com/smart-shield/concepts/connection-reuse/), this approach significantly reduces origin load while improving website and application performance.

Learn how to [get started](https://developers.cloudflare.com/smart-shield/get-started/).

***

## Related products

**[Cache](https://developers.cloudflare.com/cache/)**

Cache stores copies of frequently accessed content (such as images, videos, or webpages) in geographically distributed data centers that are located closer to end users than origin servers, improving website performance.

**[Observatory](https://developers.cloudflare.com/speed/observatory/)**

Observatory uses synthetic tests and real user data to assess the performance of your website, producing different metrics and insights. Cloudflare then uses this analysis to recommend optimizations that best address your performance issues.
