Asynchronous Stale-While-Revalidate Now Live

Cloudflare's stale-while-revalidate cache feature now operates fully asynchronously, eliminating the need for any visitor to wait for origin responses. This represents a significant improvement to cache behavior for sites using the Cache-Control directive.

What Changed

Previously, the first request for an expired cached asset would block until the origin server responded. Now:

• First request after expiration: Triggers background revalidation and immediately returns stale content with UPDATING status
• Subsequent requests during revalidation: Also receive stale content with UPDATING status from cache
• After origin responds: All following requests receive fresh content with HIT status

Key Benefits

• Lower latency: Every visitor gets served from cache immediately, with no origin wait times
• Consistent experience: All users receive identical cached responses during revalidation
• Reduced error exposure: The first request is no longer vulnerable to origin timeouts or errors—cached content is always returned while revalidation happens silently

Deployment Status

The feature is live for all Free, Pro, and Business plan zones. Approximately 75% of Enterprise zones have been migrated, with remaining Enterprise deployments rolling out throughout Q1 2026.

How to Use

Ensure your origin includes the stale-while-revalidate directive in the Cache-Control header. For example: Cache-Control: max-age=3600, stale-while-revalidate=86400. Refer to Cloudflare's Cache-Control documentation for full details.