Pointing a Cloudflare Domain to Netlify Without Changing Nameservers

I have recently rebuilt my photo diary project, 365bansko.com, and it is now a simple Hugo-built static site, without any need of its previous Ghost backend. Naturally, I chose Netlify for hosting, because it is a perfect fit for static sites. What needed a little tweaking was the domain, since I’d previously used Cloudflare for managing it, and didn’t want to move it from there.

Here’s how I did it:

I didn’t touch the nameservers. Cloudflare remained the DNS provider; only the records pointing to the app changed.

In Netlify: Domain management > Production domains > Add a domain.

In Cloudflare: remove any conflicting A/AAAA/CNAME records for @ and www, but leave MX and TXT alone, then add:

Both records need to stay gray-cloud, “DNS only.” Netlify has to see the real origin while it provisions the SSL certificate, and Cloudflare’s proxy would get in the way. The apex CNAME works because Cloudflare flattens it automatically, matching what Netlify’s own guide on configuring external DNS recommends.

Once the records are in, verify in Netlify and wait; propagation is usually fast, but can take up to a day.