Transloadit vsCloudflare Stream
A source-backed, feature-by-feature comparison of Transloadit and Cloudflare Stream. Serverless video platform built on Cloudflare's global network, offering upload-to-delivery in one API with per-minute usage pricing and no infrastructure management.
Switching Notes
If you are evaluating a switch from Cloudflare Stream, 91% of its features are available in Transloadit, including Video encoding, Adaptive streaming, and Video subtitles, with 72 additional capabilities. However, Cloudflare Stream currently offers 2 features not yet available in Transloadit: Live streaming and Video player.
Transloadit's free tier (5GB processing/mo) makes it easy to evaluate the platform hands-on before committing to a switch.
Key Differentiators
Only in Transloadit72
- Video concatenation
- Audio concatenation
- Audio waveform
- Audio looping
- Audio artwork
- Image resizing
- Image optimization
- Spritesheet generation
- AI image description
- Image analysis
Show 62 more featuresShow fewer
- Watermarking
- Face detection
- Object recognition
- Text recognition (OCR)
- Speech transcription
- Text to speech
- Text translation
- Speech translation
- Speech analysis
- AI recognition
- Document conversion
- Document merging
- Document thumbnails
- Document analysis
- File compression
- File decompression
- File virus scanning
- File type verification
- File hashing
- File preview
- File filtering
- File exporting
- Metadata writing
- Metadata extraction
- Custom metadata
- Thumbnail generation
- Media cataloging
- Automated file deletion
- File encryption
- Sandboxed encoding
- Encrypted storage
- Two-factor authentication
- Custom security policies
- HIPAA compliance
- CCPA compliance
- Adaptive file delivery
- Region-specific processing
- Multi-cloud support
- Multi-region support
- Rate limiting
- Real-time monitoring
- Disaster recovery
- Custom encoding presets
- Script execution
- Custom workflows
- Playlist generation
- Media analysis
- Background removal
- MCP server
- AI chat
- Document data extraction
- Content moderation
- AI-powered automation
- Audio mixing
- Document auto-rotation
- PDF optimization
- PDF splitting
- Webpage screenshots
- Webpage to PDF
- AI image generation
- Picture-in-picture
- Video overlays
Only in Cloudflare Stream2
Overview
Across the 94 capabilities we compare, Transloadit offers 92 while Cloudflare Stream offers 22. The two platforms share 20 features in common (91% of Cloudflare Stream's set), while Transloadit offers 72 additional features that Cloudflare Stream does not, including Video concatenation, Audio concatenation, and Audio waveform.
Transloadit leads in Audio (6/6) and Image (6/6), while Cloudflare Stream shows particular strength in Video (7/11) and Compliance (3/6).
Deep Dive Analysis
Transloadit covers Image, Document, AI where Cloudflare Stream has no comparable features yet, including Image resizing, Image optimization, and Spritesheet generation.
Active since 2009 (17 years), Transloadit has a significantly longer track record than Cloudflare Stream, which launched in 2018. As a bootstrapped company, Transloadit is not subject to external investor pressure to change pricing or pivot. The founders still love the product, actively contribute to it, and are committed to running the company for at least another 17 years.
Transloadit uses an open-stack ingestion model built on tus, Uppy, Companion, and tusd. You can self-host uploads and keep that ingestion layer independent of processing vendor choice. Cloudflare Stream's commercial stack is typically more integrated end-to-end.
Transloadit offers a free tier (5GB processing/mo), while Cloudflare Stream does not. Transloadit uses tier-based pricing while Cloudflare Stream uses usage-based pricing.
Transloadit advertises a 99.9% uptime SLA, compared to Cloudflare Stream's 100%.
Transloadit offers official SDKs for Ruby, PHP, Java, Swift, Android, Kotlin, iOS, and .NET that Cloudflare Stream does not.
| Feature | Transloadit | Cloudflare Stream |
|---|---|---|
| Company | ||
| Years active | 17 | 8 |
| Source Availability | ||
| Starting price | $9/mo | $5/mo per 1K min stored |
| Uptime SLA | 99.9% | 100% |
| SDKs | 11 | 3 |
| Supported formats | 688 | 14 |
| Employees | 11–50 | 5K–10K |
| Funding | bootstrapped | public |
| Free tier | 5GB processing/mo | No |
| Pricing model | tier based | usage based |
| GitHub stars | 41K | 50K |
| npm downloads/wk | 9.7M | 4.3M |
| Video | ||
| Adaptive streaming | Supported | Supported |
| Live streaming | Not supported | Supported |
| On-demand video processing | Supported | Supported |
| Picture-in-picture | Supported | Not supported |
| Video concatenation | Supported | Not supported |
| Video encoding | Supported | Supported |
| Video overlays | Supported | Not supported |
| Video player | Not supported | Supported |
| Video subtitles | Supported | Supported |
| Video thumbnails | Supported | Supported |
| Audio | ||
| Audio artwork | Supported | Not supported |
| Audio concatenation | Supported | Not supported |
| Audio encoding | Supported | Supported |
| Audio looping | Supported | Not supported |
| Audio mixing | Supported | Not supported |
| Audio waveform | Supported | Not supported |
| Image | ||
| AI image description | Supported | Not supported |
| Image analysis | Supported | Not supported |
| Image optimization | Supported | Not supported |
| Image resizing | Supported | Not supported |
| Spritesheet generation | Supported | Not supported |
| Watermarking | Supported | Not supported |
| Document | ||
| Document analysis | Supported | Not supported |
| Document auto-rotation | Supported | Not supported |
| Document conversion | Supported | Not supported |
| Document merging | Supported | Not supported |
| Document thumbnails | Supported | Not supported |
| PDF optimization | Supported | Not supported |
| PDF splitting | Supported | Not supported |
| Webpage screenshots | Supported | Not supported |
| Webpage to PDF | Supported | Not supported |
| Artificial Intelligence | ||
| AI chat | Supported | Not supported |
| AI image generation | Supported | Not supported |
| AI recognition | Supported | Not supported |
| AI-powered automation | Supported | Not supported |
| Background removal | Supported | Not supported |
| Content moderation | Supported | Not supported |
| Document data extraction | Supported | Not supported |
| Face detection | Supported | Not supported |
| MCP server | Supported | Not supported |
| Object recognition | Supported | Not supported |
| Speech analysis | Supported | Not supported |
| Speech transcription | Supported | Not supported |
| Speech translation | Supported | Not supported |
| Text recognition (OCR) | Supported | Not supported |
| Text to speech | Supported | Not supported |
| Text translation | Supported | Not supported |
| File Management | ||
| Automated file deletion | Supported | Not supported |
| Custom metadata | Supported | Not supported |
| File access control | Supported | Supported |
| File compression | Supported | Not supported |
| File decompression | Supported | Not supported |
| File exporting | Supported | Not supported |
| File filtering | Supported | Not supported |
| File hashing | Supported | Not supported |
| File importing | Supported | Supported |
| File preview | Supported | Not supported |
| File type verification | Supported | Not supported |
| File upload handling | Supported | Supported |
| Media cataloging | Supported | Not supported |
| Metadata extraction | Supported | Not supported |
| Metadata writing | Supported | Not supported |
| Resumable uploads | Supported | Supported |
| Thumbnail generation | Supported | Not supported |
| Security | ||
| Custom security policies | Supported | Not supported |
| Encrypted storage | Supported | Not supported |
| File encryption | Supported | Not supported |
| File virus scanning | Supported | Not supported |
| Sandboxed encoding | Supported | Not supported |
| Secure API access | Supported | Supported |
| Secure file handling | Supported | Supported |
| Signature authentication | Supported | Supported |
| Two-factor authentication | Supported | Not supported |
| Compliance | ||
| CCPA compliance | Supported | Not supported |
| GDPR compliance | Supported | Supported |
| HIPAA compliance | Supported | Not supported |
| PCI DSS compliance | Supported | Supported |
| SOC 2 compliance | Supported | Supported |
| Infrastructure | ||
| Adaptive file delivery | Supported | Not supported |
| Disaster recovery | Supported | Not supported |
| Global file delivery | Supported | Supported |
| High uptime | Supported | Supported |
| Multi-cloud support | Supported | Not supported |
| Multi-region support | Supported | Not supported |
| Rate limiting | Supported | Not supported |
| Real-time monitoring | Supported | Not supported |
| Region-specific processing | Supported | Not supported |
| Scalable infrastructure | Supported | Supported |
| Developer Tools | ||
| Custom encoding presets | Supported | Not supported |
| Custom workflows | Supported | Not supported |
| Developer API | Supported | Supported |
| Media analysis | Supported | Not supported |
| Playlist generation | Supported | Not supported |
| Script execution | Supported | Not supported |
| Overall Score | 97% | 36% |
The right choice depends on your needs
Cloudflare Stream and Transloadit were built to solve real production problems. Both are used in serious systems, and both have strengths.
Choose based on your workload: file types, delivery targets, and how much control you need over upload and processing. If you need broad file processing with a self-hostable upload stack and an API that has been stable for 17 years, Transloadit is worth a trial. If your needs are narrower, Cloudflare Stream may be the better fit.
Best for
- ✓Teams wanting infrastructure-free video delivery on a global CDN
- ✓UGC platforms needing per-creator analytics and signed-URL access control
- ✓Projects combining video and image processing via bundled Stream + Images plans
Not ideal for
- •Standalone audio encoding or non-video file processing workflows
- •Workflows requiring DRM or advanced multi-step pipeline orchestration
- •Video transformations exceeding 100 MB or 10-minute input limits
This page is maintained and updated over time. If you spot something wrong or missing, let us know and we actively welcome feedback from competitors and users alike.
Cloudflare Stream's Perspective
As far as we know, Cloudflare Stream does not currently publish a first-party comparison page against Transloadit. If they add one and we miss it, please let us know and we will link to it here.
Testimonials
Loved by Developers Worldwide
Transloadit is used by developers all over the world to handle file processing. Don't take our word for it, see what they have to say.
Dave PerrettCTO / Shuttlerock
I'm not usually one for fanboy-ism but Transloadit is one service I would recommend without hesitation. Their product and customer support is outstanding.
Mike ReidDirector of Engineering / Signed
Top notch support — better than top notch.
Elio CapellaHead of Development / Filestage
We wouldn't be able to be here without your support. Your service is the best video transcoding service out there and I'm happy about the reliability.
Jon WongStaff Software Engineer / Coursera
Having a solution for both uploading and transcoding has been a godsend for the current scale that we are at five years after first choosing Transloadit.
Braden SchaefferLead Engineer / Biginterview
I absolutely love you people. From the support to the technology, performance and APIs... you've taken what could have been the most painful process of my entire development career and turned it into an absolute joy. I cannot thank or recommend you enough.
Rosemary BlackCTO / Financial Gravity
I love it. Very easy, lots of options, everything works really well.
Matt SumnerDeveloper / Thoughtbot
Using Transloadit saves development and maintenance. Being able to focus on our product instead of reinventing the wheel cannot be understated.
Michael BartlettCo-founder / gitter.im
Superbly simple and one of the most popular features on Gitter. Even supports cat gifs!
BrianCTO / Bitchin' Ideas
After nearly a week of testing various AI image processing tools, Transloadit stood out as the clear winner. Its well-designed API is both intuitive and powerful, making integration seamless. The speed and performance exceeded expectations.
Carlos RamosDeveloper / Digital Media Integration
It was very pleasant, and the docs are great! For the rest amazing, I love the service.
Dave PerrettCTO / Shuttlerock
I'm not usually one for fanboy-ism but Transloadit is one service I would recommend without hesitation. Their product and customer support is outstanding.
Elio CapellaHead of Development / Filestage
We wouldn't be able to be here without your support. Your service is the best video transcoding service out there and I'm happy about the reliability.
Braden SchaefferLead Engineer / Biginterview
I absolutely love you people. From the support to the technology, performance and APIs... you've taken what could have been the most painful process of my entire development career and turned it into an absolute joy. I cannot thank or recommend you enough.
Matt SumnerDeveloper / Thoughtbot
Using Transloadit saves development and maintenance. Being able to focus on our product instead of reinventing the wheel cannot be understated.
BrianCTO / Bitchin' Ideas
After nearly a week of testing various AI image processing tools, Transloadit stood out as the clear winner. Its well-designed API is both intuitive and powerful, making integration seamless. The speed and performance exceeded expectations.
Mike ReidDirector of Engineering / Signed
Top notch support — better than top notch.
Jon WongStaff Software Engineer / Coursera
Having a solution for both uploading and transcoding has been a godsend for the current scale that we are at five years after first choosing Transloadit.
Rosemary BlackCTO / Financial Gravity
I love it. Very easy, lots of options, everything works really well.
Michael BartlettCo-founder / gitter.im
Superbly simple and one of the most popular features on Gitter. Even supports cat gifs!
Carlos RamosDeveloper / Digital Media Integration
It was very pleasant, and the docs are great! For the rest amazing, I love the service.
Dave PerrettCTO / Shuttlerock
I'm not usually one for fanboy-ism but Transloadit is one service I would recommend without hesitation. Their product and customer support is outstanding.
Mike ReidDirector of Engineering / Signed
Top notch support — better than top notch.
Elio CapellaHead of Development / Filestage
We wouldn't be able to be here without your support. Your service is the best video transcoding service out there and I'm happy about the reliability.
Jon WongStaff Software Engineer / Coursera
Having a solution for both uploading and transcoding has been a godsend for the current scale that we are at five years after first choosing Transloadit.
Braden SchaefferLead Engineer / Biginterview
I absolutely love you people. From the support to the technology, performance and APIs... you've taken what could have been the most painful process of my entire development career and turned it into an absolute joy. I cannot thank or recommend you enough.
Try Transloadit
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Join thousands of developers who trust Transloadit for their file processing needs.
Building file processing from scratch
Ready-to-use API & SDKs
Scaling infrastructure headaches
Auto-scaling global infrastructure
Managing codec updates
Always up-to-date processing
Handling file security
Enterprise-grade security
Supporting all file formats
1000+ formats & codecs supported
Unpredictable costs
Transparent pricing
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