Is cloudflare mandatory?

[rmdes]

I'm trying to understand the documentation before I give it a go at self-hosting this brilliant project but I'm confused about the Cloudflare bit in the .env file... Is it a requirement for real?

[john-penntech]

I too have this same question. I've added the API key as instructed, but I've seen no activity happening on the bucket. I am unsure how this is used.