Cloudinary Reviews

I use Cloudinary to create an online platform to manage images. I’ve handled over a thousand images. Additionally, I use Cloudinary to store similar components, treating them as object storage.

A developer who wants to work with an automated demo project might typically store images as blobs in the database or an external folder. However, this approach can lead to issues with managing and retrieving the images. Cloudinary offers a solution by providing an easy-to-use platform for managing media files. It’s user-friendly and accessible, making it a good choice for new and experienced developers.

Unlike other object storage platforms like Google Cloud Storage or IBM Cloud Object Storage, Cloudinary offers a more straightforward and often more affordable solution. While other platforms can have a steep learning curve and may charge based on the number of requests or storage used, Cloudinary provides a free tier that is quite generous.

For instance, I worked with a client to set up an online auction platform and uploaded many files. Despite the substantial data, I received no issues or notifications from Cloudinary about overuse, highlighting their effective and scalable service.

It blocked our account, prevented us from uploading files, and showed a message about file adjustments. It wasn't well integrated with the project's storage and didn't streamline the application. 

I have been using Cloudinary for over a year.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

While developing my application, I was able to easily scale to multiple instances, and this scaling did not negatively affect my Cloudinary account. I can effectively store and manage my application’s media. However, when integrating the Cloudinary API, I must ensure proper installation and configuration.

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

Cloudinary provides a free plan for developers wanting to get started or explore its capabilities. The free plan includes access to the app's API, which is useful for developers looking to experiment and understand the platform's potential.

Cloudinary provides an API that can be integrated into server- and client-side applications. You can connect the API to your server-side application for backend operations, and for front-end developers, Cloudinary also offers a way to integrate directly into client-side applications. You don't need to create a new website or backend system to use Cloudinary; you can seamlessly incorporate it into your existing client-side code.

I recommend using Cloudinary. For one, it offers a generous free tier that can benefit beginners and small projects. Cloudinary's free plan provides ample resources for managing and optimizing media, which can be ideal when working with a low budget.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We use Cloudinary to store various media related to the vehicles, such as engine sound recordings and images of the vehicle from different angles, including the interior. Recently, we've also started storing short engine videos, around 15 seconds. Additionally, vehicle documents are stored on the platform, and the front-end team uses it to handle user uploads.

The Cloudinary Dart package is poorly implemented. It works for simple use cases but fails when implementing more advanced features, like handling signatures. It appears to be outsourced, and several important elements are missing. For instance, some necessary class exports are absent, meaning if you need a class to create a request, you must import it manually. It relies on hard-coded strings, making it nearly unusable for anything beyond basic tasks. While it might work without signatures or advanced features, it's unreliable for more complex use cases.

Unlike Firebase Storage, Cloudinary handles media-specific tasks like re-encoding uploads. For example, when users upload a video from an Apple device, it's often encoded in a proprietary Apple codec. Cloudinary automatically reduces the file size and re-encodes it into a more open format suitable for the web or other devices. We had issues with our engine sound recordings when using Firebase, as it would simply accept the file and make it available without validating the audio. After switching to Cloudinary, it validates the files, and if any are corrupted, the upload fails with an appropriate error message. This validation helped us identify corrupted audio files we couldn't play before.

The main issue with the package is how it handles errors. It swallows errors and throws its own, but without preserving the stack trace, making debugging nearly impossible. It ends with a vague argument error, without any clue where or why it happened. 

I have been using Cloudinary for one year.

Cloudinary does experience occasional downtimes or unavailability, slightly more often than Firebase. But you can't really compare the two, as Firebase is backed by Google and has servers all over the world. This is understandable, given that Cloudinary is a smaller company, and their pricing reflects that difference.

50 users are using this solution.

We’ve always been able to find answers either directly in the documentation or, in the worst case, by searching online. Cloudinary has a support forum where more complex or uncommon issues are discussed. If you Google the error message or code, you can easily find the right fix.

We switched from Firebase to Cloudinary mainly because Cloudinary was already used in other departments. As part of addressing technical debt, we questioned why we were still using Firebase when Cloudinary was available. Previously, media from vehicle inspectors was uploaded to Firebase; then, the backend would re-upload it to Cloudinary, duplicating the work. To streamline this process and cut costs, we eliminated Firebase and uploaded media directly to Cloudinary. 

The initial setup was easy because we rewrote much of it ourselves. I submitted a pull request to fix some signature-related issues, but we uncovered more problems with the code afterward. As a result, we created a class tailored to our needs, and it's been working well since then. The main problem lies with the Dart package itself. The product documentation, features, and API are pretty clear so we can implement them without issues. The documentation is acceptable; the Dart package caused the trouble.

It is reasonably priced.

If you're working with documents like JSON or TXT files, I'm not entirely sure Cloudinary would be the best fit for that. But it's an excellent option for dealing with media files, mainly due to its media validation. Cloudinary will check for corrupted video or audio files and can re-encode them into different formats without much effort—you modify the URL, and it handles everything server-side.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven or eight out of ten.

Public Cloud

I use Cloudinary primarily for hosting and storing images. It's a tool I use when it's required by the company's needs, such as hosting media files.

Cloudinary is valuable for storing and hosting images, especially because it allows for easy storage and organization of media files. This feature is particularly useful when dealing with large amounts of images. Additionally, Cloudinary offers capabilities to create folders and organize images effectively under user-specific folders, which enhances usability for social media purposes.

The UI needs improvement because it has become quite messy recently, making it difficult to locate the media library and images. Additionally, the initial setup process is complex due to the numerous options available, which can be challenging for new users.

I have used Cloudinary for around one year, or less.

Cloudinary is stable and reliable. It does not break down or have noticeable bugs.

I have not needed to contact customer service. I rely on Cloudinary's documentation for any help needed.

Neutral

Cloudinary is hard to set up because it requires converting base64 URLs to blob URLs and other technical steps before implementation. The setup process can be challenging without proper documentation guidance.

I did not research Cloudinary's pricing, as I am using it for free. In the free service, it performs well.

I would advise new users to read the documentation thoroughly to understand how to upload and store images effectively. For those using Cloudinary for the first time, be prepared for a learning curve, but it is beneficial to adapt to new tools. Overall, I would rate the solution as seven out of ten due to its complexity in implementation but its effectiveness in image storage.

Public Cloud

Other

I use the solution in my company while developing an app. I use it as a way to store our company's images for the websites that I made.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that I like that the tool takes care of transforming the images. For example, you can have an image that is 15 MB in size, and Cloudinary can take that image, upload it to the servers, and compress it. When developing the websites, I can get the images stored in Cloudinary in any format that I want and resize them as I wish.

The high price of the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required.

Cloudinary's documentation part has certain shortcomings when compared to the ones provided by the other tools on the market, so I think it needs to be improved. The documentation part is not that easy to follow, especially for beginners.

I have been using Cloudinary for a year. I am a customer of the tool.

I haven't faced any stability issues with the product over the year that I have used it. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I don't remember about the product's scalability part, but I think the tool has limits. When you go through the tool's plans, you will see that the solution has plans like 250 credits, which accounts for 250 GB or something. After that, you have to contact the tool's support to scale more. I am not sure about the tool's scaling ability. If one day, my business had 600 GB of storage, and I needed to scale it up, then it wouldn't be easy for me. I have to contact the solution team and figure it out. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Around six people in my company use the product.

The tool's support team is very prompt. When I gave the tool's support team a clear description of my problem, they gave me the help I wanted and directed me to the solution to my issue. The team is good when it comes to response time and knowledge. I rate the tool's support a ten out of ten.

Positive

I have used AWS, but it was not focused on specializing in images. It is just a storage tool.

The tool's pricing is very high. If you are an established company, I think it is worth the money since getting images on the web with the highest quality is very hard, but Cloudinary is good at handling such areas.

To use the integration capabilities of the product, I use the product's documentation to integrate it with my other tools, like Node.js.

I have not used or integrated with the AI capabilities of the product.

I would recommend the tool to people who are starting out because Cloudinary has initial plans in which it gives you 25 GB of storage, which is very good for someone who is just starting out and needs to assess their business.

Considering the expensive nature of the product, I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

I worked for an e-commerce agency, and we used to use Cloudinary for our website assets.

Cloudinary is very easy to use, especially for users or for developers.

The most important advantage of using Cloudinary is that it is very easy to integrate with the SDK, especially with Node.js.

It's a very stable application and can be more stable with Nord.js. Js developers like to use Cloudinary instead of other inventories.

We have been using the free plan for a long time. Cloudinary's first paid plan is quite expensive, around one hundred dollars, which is more expensive than competitors like Dropbox. Dropbox's first plan is cheaper than Cloudinary's.

The only challenge was the security token. I faced some challenges that were harder than the usual integrations. There is a type of integration in Cloudinary that allows you to make your URLs secure and accessible only with a specific token.

I have been using Cloudinary for three years.

We use Dropbox, DigitalOcean in Ventura.

The initial setup is easy. It's also easy to set up the SDK and manage the account.

I recommend Cloudinary for easy integration. Cloudflare is a competitor for a small business.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I primarily use Cloudinary to upload images to the cloud and retrieve URLs.

The platform has improved my projects by providing a fast and efficient way to manage images. It has been practical and has worked well every time I use it.

The product's most valuable feature is the ability to upload images quickly and retrieve URLs. It integrates well with code, providing a seamless experience.

The product could be improved by being more user-friendly for beginner programmers.

The product is stable. 

The product is scalable. 

The initial setup was a bit complicated. However, after some time and research, I found it manageable.

I implemented the product myself. 

The product's free tier licensing plan is beneficial for individual developers to learn about its functionality. 

I rate Cloudinary a ten out of ten. 

I use the product for all of my web development projects. For instance, I used it to create a photo-sharing website.

Cloudinary's AI features, like ad copy and image transformation, have significantly streamlined my projects.

The platform is very easy to use. The documentation is excellent, and the implementation involves only a few simple steps. It is accessible to users with varying levels of expertise.

The platform's API features need enhancement. 

I have been using Cloudinary for about a year.

I rate the product stability an eight.

The product is scalable. 

I have not used the product's paid subscription, as the free tier is sufficient for most users.

I recommend Cloudinary to others and rate it a nine. 

I use the solution for posting images.

The solution should be made more user-friendly because sometimes it's hard to understand.

I have been using Cloudinary for two months.

I have faced many bugs while using the solution.

Around five people are using the solution in our organization.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

The solution’s pricing is moderate.

The solution is deployed on the cloud in our organization. I didn't have to use my card to use Cloudinary. I recommend Cloudinary to other users because Amazon is a bit expensive for me. It is easy for somebody new to learn to use Cloudinary for the first time.

Overall, I rate the solution eight and a half out of ten.