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Alternative to Cloudinary

Looking for a Cloudinary alternative?
Skip the features you don't use.

PixelVault gives you fast, reliable image hosting with a clean API — without the $89/mo price tag or the transformation pipeline you never asked for.

PixelVault
Cloudinary
Starting price
Free / $9/mo
Free / $89/mo
Egress fees
None, ever
Bandwidth credits
Agent discovery
llms.txt + OpenAPI
None
API registration
One POST request
Browser signup required
Time to first upload
< 30 seconds
Minutes (dashboard setup)
Image transformations
Not yet (coming soon)
Extensive

When PixelVault is the better choice

You just need hosting

Upload images, get CDN URLs. If you're not using Cloudinary's transformation pipeline, you're paying for complexity you don't need.

You're building with AI agents

Agents can discover, register, and upload to PixelVault autonomously. No browser-based onboarding, no dashboard clicking.

You want predictable costs

Flat pricing with zero egress fees. No credit-based billing, no bandwidth overages, no surprises.

Cloudinary alternative FAQ

Is there a free Cloudinary alternative?

Yes. PixelVault has a permanent free tier with 200 MB storage, 500 uploads per month, and 1 GB of bandwidth — no credit card and no trial expiry. It's a genuine free plan, not a time-limited trial.

Is PixelVault cheaper than Cloudinary?

PixelVault's paid plan starts at $9/month versus Cloudinary's $89/mo (billed annually), and PixelVault never charges egress or bandwidth-overage fees. If you only need hosting and CDN delivery — not Cloudinary's transformation pipeline — you stop paying for features you don't use.

Does PixelVault do image transformations like Cloudinary?

Not yet — on-the-fly transformations are on the roadmap. If real-time resizing, cropping, and format conversion are core to your product, Cloudinary or ImageKit may be a better fit. If you mainly need to upload images and serve them fast from a CDN, PixelVault covers that today.

Can I migrate from Cloudinary to PixelVault?

Yes. Because PixelVault is a plain REST API, migrating means re-uploading your assets through a single endpoint and swapping the URLs. There's no proprietary SDK to remove.

What are the best Cloudinary alternatives?

The main options are PixelVault, ImageKit, Cloudflare Images, Uploadcare, Imgix, and imgbb, each suited to different needs. See our full breakdown of the best Cloudinary alternatives.

Try PixelVault free

200 MB storage, 500 uploads/month, zero egress fees. No credit card.

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