# Hibira vs Cloudflare Waiting Room: virtual waiting rooms compared

> Cloudflare Waiting Room needs a Business or Enterprise plan with your traffic on Cloudflare; Hibira works with any host, with scheduled starts and several rooms included.

Source: https://hibira.io/compare/cloudflare-waiting-room
Updated: 2026-11-09

Cloudflare Waiting Room is part of Cloudflare's network: it queues visitors before their requests reach your site, for sites whose traffic already runs through Cloudflare. Hibira's waiting room works in front of any host or CDN and is bought on its own. The differences are what you need to be on first, which features need an Enterprise add-on, and where you run the line from.

## At a glance

| | Cloudflare Waiting Room | Hibira |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What you need first | A Business plan ($200 a month billed yearly) or Enterprise, with your site's traffic proxied through Cloudflare | A Hibira account; your site stays on any host or CDN. One room and 5,000 queued visitors a month free, paid plans from $29 a month |
| How many rooms | One on Business; more with Enterprise and the Advanced add-on | Several, set by the add-on you choose |
| Scheduled start with a countdown | Enterprise with the Advanced add-on | Yes |
| Queue order | First in, first out on Business; random, reject and passthrough with the Advanced add-on | First in, first out, with everyone who arrived before the start drawn into a random order |
| Your own waiting page design | Custom templates with the Advanced add-on | Build your own page with the browser client; the hosted page shows your title and notices |
| Hosted waiting page languages | Not listed on the plans page | 7: English, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese |
| Admin controls during the sale | Cloudflare dashboard, API or Terraform | Pause, admit now, sold out and notices from the portal, the HTTP API, Filament or an AI agent's MCP tools |
| "Your turn" alert | Not listed on the plans page | Browser notification, included |

Cloudflare figures are from the [Waiting Room plans page](https://developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/plans/) and [Cloudflare's plans](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/network-cdn/), checked on 2026-11-09.

Hibira's waiting room plans are on the [pricing page](https://hibira.io/pricing#waiting-room).

## When Cloudflare Waiting Room is the better fit

- Your site already runs on Cloudflare Business or Enterprise, and one room covers what you need.
- You want the line enforced on Cloudflare's network before any request reaches your servers, with no code in your app.
- You are on Enterprise and want Cloudflare's rules, session revocation and Turnstile settings next to the rest of your zone.

## When Hibira is the better fit

- Your site isn't on Cloudflare, or you don't want to move DNS and proxying for one sale.
- You need a scheduled start, a random draw for early arrivals or more than one room without an Enterprise contract.
- Your team runs the sale from its own admin, such as Filament, or wants an AI agent to pause and admit people.
- You want the room on all the time: in capacity mode people go straight in until your site holds as many as you set, and a line forms only when it's full.
- Your visitors read Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai or Vietnamese and should see the waiting page in their language without writing templates.

See how it works in the [waiting room use case](https://hibira.io/use-cases/waiting-room) and set it up with the [waiting room guide](https://hibira.io/guides/waiting-room).

## Common questions

### Do I need Cloudflare to use Hibira's waiting room?

No. Hibira works with any host or CDN. If your site does run on Cloudflare Workers, the same JavaScript package checks passes there, as it does on Next.js, Deno or Bun.

### Which Cloudflare plans include Waiting Room?

On 2026-11-09, Business and Enterprise included one basic waiting room. Free and Pro did not. Scheduled events, custom templates, more rooms and random queueing needed Enterprise with the Advanced add-on. Source: [Waiting Room pricing page](https://developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/plans/) and [Cloudflare pricing page](https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/network-cdn/).

### Is a Hibira waiting room fair to people who arrive early?

Yes. Everyone who joins before the start time is drawn into a random order when the sale opens, so arriving a second early or using a script gives no head start. People who arrive later join the back of the line.