Navigating through numerous options to find the ideal solution can be challenging. Let us simplify the process for you by providing a concise comparison of how we compare (and surpass) Cloudinary across a number of parameters.

In case you want to migrate the storage to ImageKit, checkout ImageKit CLI tool.

Feature Comparison Overview

ImageKit offers more value at a more economical price point

Features Skip to detailed comparison	ImageKit	Cloudinary
Real-time image resizing
WebP and animated WebP support
Image & text overlay
DPR transformation
Border, background, radius, rotate
Smart cropping
Automatic format conversion		Requires URL change. Using f-auto parameter.
Automatic PNG to JPG optimization
Custom domain name	Included in all paid plans	Included in $249 plan
Performance monitoring
Performance alerts
Option to use query parameters for transformations
Media library
Video storage
Video delivery
Real-time video resizing & optimization
Conditional transformations
Integrations Skip to detailed comparison	ImageKit	Cloudinary
No URL change integration
Same account for multiple websites
Remote URL fetch
Custom CDN integration
Multiple object storage like S3, Azure, Google Cloud, Firebase, Wasabi and other S3 compatible
HTTP server like Shopify, Magento, WordPress		Requires URL change
CDN and infrastructure Skip to detailed comparison	ImageKit	Cloudinary
CDN	CloudFront	CloudFront / Akamai / Fastly
Core processing regions	6 regions available on all plans (North California, North Virginia, Singapore, Frankfurt, Sydney, Mumbai)	US by default Enterprise accounts can request different location i.e. Europe and Asia Pacific.
Custom CDN integration	Akamai, CloudFlare, Fastly, Azure, Google CDN, Alibaba Cloud CDN, Zenedge or Limelight. Minimum billing $500.	List of CDN support is unknown. Feature is available for enterprise accounts.
Costing Skip to detailed comparison	ImageKit	Cloudinary
Billing parameters	A few billing parameters, i.e., optimized output bandwidth and a one-time charge of video processing units, make this more suitable for a simple media delivery and optimization use case. Only pay for storage if you actually upload assets to ImageKit’s Media Library.	A complex credit-based system with numerous billing parameters, i.e., output bandwidth, generated assets storage, number of transformation requests, and video processing units.
Consume over 1TB bandwidth or storage?	Enterprise plans in ImageKit at 30%+ discounts that get economical with scale A dedicated customer success person and solution engineer to ensure correct product usage and optimized billing.	High costs, lack of dedicated attention, and slow issue resolution are also the top reasons customers migrate to ImageKit from Cloudinary!
Overage	A small increment in monthly costs with our usage-based pricing. Overage available on individual billing items, e.g., bandwidth, user seats, etc.	Rigid pricing plans significantly increase monthly costs. You must shift to the next plan, which costs $249 per month.
Free plan
Custom domain name on the first paid plan
Pay as you go pricing for video transformations
Unlimited image transformation requests
Unlimited master images
Unlimited generated assets storage
Support	ImageKit	Cloudinary
Options available	Chat and Phone support options are available. Dedicated CSM and Slack channels for Enterprise Plans.	Only ticket based support. Additional support levels available for additional charge.
Uptime	ImageKit	Cloudinary
SLA	Built on AWS and 99.9% uptime guaranteed	Uptime comparable to ImageKit

4 reasons to choose ImageKit

1. Integrate in minutes with any source

• ImageKit can integrate with any server or source URL. If you don’t want to move your files to ImageKit, you don’t have to.
• Integrate in minutes and get access to real-time optimizations and transformations right away.
• Available for all paid and free plans.

If you do want to move your files from Cloudinary to ImageKit’s Media Library - use our free CLI tool to move files automatically.

2. No URL Changes

• Setup the same custom domain and start delivering optimized media.
• You don't have to add any parameter in the media URL to get quality & format optimization out of the box.
• You can access transformations and optimizations through query parameters without changing the rest of the URL.

Use our Cloudinary to ImageKit URL re-writer to use transformations written in Cloudinary's syntax with ImageKit.

3. Enterprise-ready Digital Asset Management (DAM)

ImageKit's integrated DAM empowers your team, both internal and external, with granular access to view, collaborate, and manage assets at the asset or collection level. Our enterprise-ready DAM solution ensures a seamless collaborative experience for your organization.

4. Transparent, scalable pricing

Pricing should be simple to understand and predictable. ImageKit charges based on these factors:

• Viewing bandwidth
• Video manipulations operations
• Media library storage
• Advanced extensions' usage

You pay more when your site traffic increases. Your cost doesn't depend on how many transformations are done per month.

For example: If you implement image lazy loading using a low-quality placeholder, the increased number of image transformations won't impact your cost in Imagekit.io. This will double your transformation costs in Cloudinary.

In addition, Cloudinary collects all additional charges into “credits” which are consumed variably by bandwidth, storage and transformations. While at the outset it looks simple, it actually makes it harder to predict consumption and plan for sufficient credits each billing cycle.

Feature comparison

Both products have been around for a long time and have all the features you need to store, resize, and deliver optimized images and videos within milliseconds. However, each has certain unique advantages that could make your life easy, depending upon your use-cases.

Media manipulation

• ImageKit supports a wide range of key formats like WebP, AVIF, WebM, and MP4, on par with Cloudinary in terms of format support compatibility.
• ImageKit also provides all the key transformations (50+) provided by Cloudinary
• ImageKit’s default image compression output is 20% smaller than Cloudinary’s.
• ImageKit supports Adaptive Bitrate Streaming for Video with HLS and DASH support.

Here, ImageKit has a unique advantage. You can add transformation string as part of the query parameter in addition to the URL param. This is useful when you don't want to change URL structure.

For example:

<!-- In Imagekit.io, both will work-->
<img src="https://ik.imgkit.net/demo/image.jpg?tr=w-300"></img>
<img src="https://ik.imgkit.net/demo/tr:w-300/image.jpg"></img>

<!-- In Cloudinary, only one will work -->
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/w_300/image.jpg"></img>

Our most popular media transformations:

Media optimization

While both products offer comparable optimization, with ImageKit, you can go live with optimized media on your website or app faster.

ImageKit optimizes all media by default, whereas Cloudinary requires a URL change.

ImageKit’s most powerful optimizations:

Digital Asset Management

ImageKit’s Media Library is a full-featured, Enterprise-ready Digital Asset Management(DAM) Platform:

• User-friendly interface for uploading, managing, searching, and tagging resources
• Advanced features, including collection-level permission, facilitating seamless sharing and collaboration on media assets
• Directly optimize and deliver assets from the media library to your website or app. No need for file transfers or manual steps in between

With ImageKit’s DAM, you can:

Integration comparison

ImageKit is built to integrate with your existing tech stack in minutes, by providing native integrations with a variety of object storages.

Only enterprise customers of Cloudinary can choose to store their raw assets on their own cloud storage. It does not offer native integration with object storages.

ImageKit SDKs

ImageKit has SDKs available for all popular programming languages.

You can quickly implement URL generation and file upload with a few lines of code.

// In order to use the SDK, you need to provide it with a few configuration parameters. 
// The configuration parameters can be applied directly to the IKImage component or using 
// an IKContext component.

<IKContext
	publicKey="your_public_key"
	urlEndpoint="your_url_endpoint"
	transformationPosition="path"
	authenticationEndpoint="http://www.yourserver.com/auth"
>

	// Image component
	<IKImage path="/default-image.jpg" transformation={[{
		"height": "300",
		"width": "400"
	}]} />

	// Image upload
	<IKUpload fileName="my-upload" />
</IKContext>

// In order to use the SDK, you need to provide it with a few configuration parameters. 
// The configuration parameters must be passed to the ImagekitioAngularModule module 
// in your app.module.ts file.

@NgModule({
    declarations: [
        AppComponent
    ],
    imports: [
        BrowserModule,
        AppRoutingModule,
        ImagekitioAngularModule.forRoot({
            publicKey: "your_public_key", // or environment.publicKey
            urlEndpoint: "your_url_endpoint", // or environment.urlEndpoint
            authenticationEndpoint: "http://www.yourserver.com/auth" // or environment.authenticationEndpoint
        })
    ],
    providers: [],
    bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})

// Image render using path
<ik-image path="/default-image.jpg" transformation={[{
	"height": "300",
	"width": "400"
}]}></ik-image>

// Simple upload
<ik-upload fileName="my-upload" /></ik-upload>

// Upload using callbacks and other parameters of upload API
<ik-upload 
	fileName="test_new" 
	[useUniqueFileName]="false" 
	[isPrivateFile]="true"
	(onSuccess)="handleUploadSuccess($event)"
	(onError)="handleUploadError($event)"
></ik-upload>

// In order to use the SDK, you need to provide it with a few configuration parameters. 
// The configuration parameters can be applied directly to the IKImage component or using an IKContext component.

<IKContext
	publicKey="your_public_key"
	urlEndpoint="your_url_endpoint"
	transformationPosition="path"
	authenticationEndpoint="http://www.yourserver.com/auth"
>

	// Image component
	<IKImage path="/default-image.jpg" transformation={[{
		"height": "300",
		"width": "400"
	}]} />

	// Image upload
	<IKUpload fileName="my-upload" />
</IKContext>

import com.imagekit.android.ImageKit;

ImageKit.init(
	context = applicationContext,
	publicKey = "your_public_key",
	urlEndpoint = "your_url_endpoint",
	transformationPosition = TransformationPosition.PATH,
	authenticationEndpoint = "http://www.yourserver.com/auth"
)

// your_url_endpoint/default-image.jpg?tr=h-400.00,ar-3-2
ImageKit.getInstance()
        .url(
            path = "default-image.jpg",
            transformationPosition = TransformationPosition.QUERY
        )
        .height(400f)
        .aspectRatio(3, 2)
        .create()

// File upload
ImageKit.getInstance().uploader().uploadImage(
    file = bitmap!!
    , fileName = filename
    , useUniqueFilename = false
    , tags = arrayOf("nice", "copy", "books")
    , folder = "/dummy/folder/"
    , imageKitCallback = this
)

import com.imagekit.android.ImageKit;

ImageKit.Companion.init(
    getApplicationContext(),
    "your_public_key",
    "your_url_endpoint",
    TransformationPosition.PATH,
    "http://www.yourserver.com/auth"
);

// your_url_endpoint/default-image.jpg?tr=h-400.00,ar-3-2
ImageKit.Companion.getInstance()
        .url(
            "default-image.jpg",
            TransformationPosition.QUERY
        )
        .height(400f)
        .aspectRatio(3, 2)
        .create()

// File upload
ImageKit.Companion.getInstance().uploader().uploadImage(
    bitmap,
    filename,
    false, // useUniqueFilename
    new String[]{"nice", "copy", "books"}, // tags, 
    "/dummy/folder/", 
    imageKitCallback
)

// SDK initialization

var imagekit = new ImageKit({
    publicKey : "your_public_key",
    urlEndpoint : "your_url_endpoint",
    authenticationEndpoint : "http://www.yourserver.com/auth",
});

// URL generation
var imageURL = imagekit.url({
    path : "/default-image.jpg",
    transformation : [{
        "height" : "300",
        "width" : "400"
    }]
});

// Upload function internally uses the ImageKit.io javascript SDK
function upload(data) {
    var file = document.getElementById("file1");
    imagekit.upload({
        file : file.files[0],
        fileName : "abc1.jpg",
        tags : ["tag1"]
    }, function(err, result) {
        console.log(arguments);
        console.log(imagekit.url({
            src: result.url,
            transformation : [{ height: 300, width: 400}]
        }));
    })
}

# SDK initialization

from imagekitio import ImageKit
imagekit = ImageKit(
	private_key='your_private_key',
	public_key='your_public_key',
	url_endpoint='your_url_endpoint'
)

// SDK initialization

var ImageKit = require("imagekit");

var imagekit = new ImageKit({
    publicKey : "your_public_key",
    privateKey : "your_private_key",
    urlEndpoint : "your_url_endpoint"
});

# Add this code to config/initializers/imagekitio.rb

ImageKitIo.configure do |config|
  if Rails.env.development?
    config.public_key = 'your_public_key'
    config.private_key = 'your_private_key'
    config.url_endpoint = 'your_url_endpoint' # https://ik.imagekit.io/your_imagekit_id
  end
  config.service = :carrierwave # replace with ':active_storage' if using ActiveStorage for uploads
  # config.constants.MISSING_PRIVATE_KEY = 'custom error message'
end
#make sure to replace the your_public_key, your_private_key and your_url_endpoint with actual values


# following sections only apply if you're  using the ActiveStorage functionality

# run the following commands on terminal in your project directory
rails active_storage:install
rails db:migrate

# add the following to config/storage.yml
imagekitio:
    service: ImageKitIo

# add the following to config/environments/development.rb
config.active_storage.service = :imagekitio

// Create a config.properties file inside src/main/resources of your project. 
// And put essential values of keys (UrlEndpoint, PrivateKey, PublicKey), no need to use quote
// in values. Then you need to initialize ImageKit with that configuration.

// UrlEndpoint=your_url_endpoint
// PrivateKey=your_private_key
// PublicKey=your_public_key

import io.imagekit.sdk.ImageKit;
import io.imagekit.sdk.config.Configuration;
import io.imagekit.sdk.utils.Utils;

class App {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
       ImageKit imageKit=ImageKit.getInstance();
       Configuration config=Utils.getSystemConfig(App.class);
       imageKit.setConfig(config);
   }
}

// SDK initialization

use ImageKit\ImageKit;

$imageKit = new ImageKit(
    "your_public_key",
    "your_private_key",
    "your_url_endpoint"
);

// SDK initialization

using Imagekit;

Imagekit.Imagekit imagekit = new Imagekit.Imagekit("your_public_key", "your_private_key", "your_url_endpoint", "path");

Infrastructure that’s built for speed

• Both ImageKit and Cloudinary use established Global CDNs and serve cached images in less than 100 ms.
• ImageKit entirely built on AWS S3, so you get consistent performance across the world. Cloudinary performance may vary based on the CDN used in that region.
• ImageKit uses a multi-region core processing network with co-located storages across 6 different regions. This serves three benefits:
  • Improve your first fetch timings. The processing server is in the same AWS region where the image is stored. The download timings are minimal, and your data doesn't even leave AWS data-center.
  • Quicker fall-back when a region goes down, making ImageKit more available. Get access to live status reports here.
  • Help you with GDPR compliance. If you choose the Frankfurt region, your assets will be stored in only the Frankfurt region.

Performance

• ImageKit leverages an AWS CloudFront CDN node network of 450+ nodes that ensure high cache-hit ratio and performance, putting it at par with Cloudinary.
• ImageKit’s default image compression is ~20% better than Cloudinary which helps you save on your bandwidth consumption and ensures quicker time to fetch assets.

Compliance & Security

• ImageKit ISO 27001:2013 compliant. As a part of this compliance, our processes, systems, and people policies have been audited by an independent third-party accreditation body.
• ImageKit complies with GDPR regulations.
• ImageKit also runs a private bug bounty program via a crowdsourced security platform.
• We are also an AWS Advanced Technology partner and have successfully completed Foundational Technical Review by AWS’s team validating that we follow the best practices for cloud deployments and security.

Will costs interrupt your growth?

Your costs will naturally grow as your business grows. Your third-party costs should grow at a reasonable rate and not interrupt your growth.

To understand how cost could grow, let’s compare plan limits:

• ImageKit charges $9 / 20GB over the 225GB included allocation, with volume discounts kicking in as your bandwidth increases.
• Cloudinary provides 225 credits with their $99 plan. Credits are used against monthly transformations, uploaded and generated storage, and viewing bandwidth.

What could lead to sudden cost increases?

Your team implemented responsive images

Your page views increased

You decided to use low quality placeholders

Uptime & Support

High uptime is a must-have and is provided by both platforms, but ImageKit provides the additional advantage of six processing regions acting as a failover for each other. This leads to high TTFB and better availability. ImageKit also publishes its status history here.

ImageKit offers live-chat support, and a dedicated Customer Success Manager for all Enterprise Accounts. Cloudinary offers additional Paid Support plans.

ImageKit also provides custom response and uptime SLAs on specific enterprise plans. Enterprise customers also have access to an on-call incident response team that can work with them to mitigate any security issues impacting their media delivery.

Cloudinary offers premium support at an additional charge.

Testimonials

Please reach out to us at support@imagekit.io, in case you have any questions.