Best image CDN providers comparison
Tags: cdn, programming, image, imagecdn
Published: 2024-02-12 09:35:35

Are you looking for an Image CDN service provider? Well, you probably came across Cloudinary, Cloudflare, Imagekit, Imgix, and Sirv. Erm...but how about Uploadcare? ;)

The choice might be overwhelming, but forget about the tables full of features. Even the best feature might be useless when it requires you to spend hours implementing it.

In this article, I will give you a bunch of reasons to integrate with Uploadcare. However, I’ll not only focus on our outstanding customer service. You’ll get to know a bit more about companies that claim to speed up the delivery of your web content.

I had a chance to speak to lots of people looking for a [fast and reliable CDN solution](https://uploadcare.com/cdn/image-cdn/) and here’s what they’re looking for:

## Take your time to grow. Start for free
According to Ahrefs data (as of Feb 12th, 2024), over 1.7K people search for the “best CDN” term monthly. Let’s face it: there’s also a group of devs looking for the “best free CDN”. Saving is ultimately the first step to investing, we get that.

Below, I compared several free plans from the most famous CDN providers:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/zslgapjmkytts3opsv4o.png)
Even if you’re OK with a complex setup (which is the case for some of the companies, e.g. Google Cloud CDN), you probably want your product to last.

If you need a CDN for longer than half a year, Uploadcare’s free plan gives you the freest bandwidth. With our [PRO plan](https://uploadcare.com/pricing/), as well as a polished generous free plan, we are way ahead of our competitors.

What’s the catch? Usually, companies don’t change file-handling providers over time. Grow with us, scale up, pay — it’s that simple.

## Become the most reliable person in the room
Toby Marsden from the Shopify UploadKit plugin said:

_If something bad happens with uploads, it’s never Uploadcare._

That’s something, isn't it? However, by the end of the day, no review/magician from customer service can fool you when the product doesn’t do the job.

You’re 'hiring' to get a job done and there are several KPIs people usually take into account when looking for a CDN provider.

I googled and researched the best-performing articles on how to pick the best CDN provider. It’s not a surprise that you want your product to:
- Be fast
- Have a large network
- Be secure
- Solve problems

Here’s the table with some basic metrics for Uploadcare and its competitors:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0gdd1xkr3boobvvtg3gf.png)
The more edge locations the faster the delivery. Add the World’s best server uptime and top-rated customer support and you have all the ingredients for [fast and reliable content delivery](https://uploadcare.com/blog/what-is-an-image-cdn/).

## Build in a team
Of all Uploadcare's testimonials, there’s one thing that surely stands out. Everyone loves a fast and supportive Customer Support team! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Uploadcare's CS answers questions over calls, email, on Stack Overflow, and sometimes even on Twitter!

Responses are always personal, relevant, and timely. All the requests are answered within 24 hours, and it’s always free, even if you need help with integration.

## 5 more reasons to choose Uploadcare

### Take advantage of the fastest image resize algo
It’s our innovative algorithm that utilizes AI and it powers our [on-the-fly image processing](https://uploadcare.com/cdn/image-processing/). Our [image resize algorithm (for x86 processors) is the fastest in the world](https://uploadcare.com/blog/the-fastest-image-resize/)! Alex, our engineer, and the creator, made it open source and it’s called [Pillow-SIMD](https://github.com/uploadcare/pillow-simd). It was forked from Pillow (initially PIL) lib but soon it became the biggest toad in the puddle.

**We resize images on Intel processors faster than Intel does!**

### Choose the tech stack that fits your project, not the other way round
We’re integrated with all major programming stacks:

- 4 File Uploader wrappers
- 8 API clients to choose from (for Upload and REST APIs)
- Mobile software developments kits that support both iOS (Swift) and Android
- Next.js and Webpack for image processing and proxy pattern implementation
Check our [integrations page](https://uploadcare.com/docs/integrations/) for more info.

### Get rid of stress with foolproof storage
A few times, we helped to restore tons of accidentally deleted data. Our infrastructure is bulletproof, it is backed up with tests, figures, and real-life situations we’ve encountered while working on it for over 10 years.

### Save with the highest AI compression
How to make your image-heavy website [load faster](https://uploadcare.com/blog/6-proven-techniques-to-load-an-image-heavy-website-faster/)? We offer the maximum possible image compression with no visible quality loss.

We’re building a tool that compares Uploadcare’s image compression with our competitors. As an example, here is a picture that our colleague [Renata](https://www.instagram.com/wicked_child_view/) took in 2021 when she was climbing Elbrus:

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/99hhju92m33mhelk4yko.png)

The file was originally 1.8 MB, and below is a table showing the results of its compression by us and some of our competitors.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bq5stsgrkp6s3c45yyxc.png)

The highest compression means lower bandwidth usage. In other words, we compress, and you save. In this case, a figure is worth a thousand words, so we trust the numbers to speak for us.

### Your files are safe
We’re safe. We’re GDPR and HIPAA-compliant. [Safety is the core of all our actions](https://uploadcare.com/docs/security/). With us, any project you create is secure.

Control who can upload files and when they can do that. Control who can request files and when. Validate the source before accepting requests with our [secure webhooks](https://uploadcare.com/docs/webhooks/#signed-webhooks). They sign each webhook payload with a custom secret determined by you.

You set the rules, we execute them.