Transloadit vsCloudinary
A source-backed, feature-by-feature comparison of Transloadit and Cloudinary. Full-stack media management platform combining image/video optimization, transformation, DAM, and CDN delivery with AI-powered add-ons.
Switching Notes
If you are evaluating a switch from Cloudinary, 92% of its features are available in Transloadit, including Video encoding, Adaptive streaming, and Video concatenation, with 21 additional capabilities. However, Cloudinary currently offers 6 features not yet available in Transloadit, such as Video analysis, Single sign-on (SSO), and Audit logs.
Transloadit's free tier (5GB processing/mo) makes it easy to evaluate the platform hands-on before committing to a switch.
Cloudinary uses credits-based pricing; carefully map credit consumption to Transloadit usage-based billing.
MediaFlows visual workflows do not export as portable pipeline definitions; migration requires rebuilding logic in Assembly Instructions.
Cloudinary add-ons (AI Vision, OCR, moderation) are third-party integrations billed separately from base credits.
Overview
Across the 98 capabilities we compare, Transloadit offers 92 while Cloudinary offers 77. The two platforms share 71 features in common (92% of Cloudinary's set), while Transloadit offers 21 additional features that Cloudinary does not, including Audio concatenation, Audio looping, and Audio artwork.
Transloadit leads in Audio (6/6) and Image (6/6), while Cloudinary shows particular strength in Video (11/11) and Infra (10/10).
Deep Dive Analysis
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. Cloudinary's commercial stack is typically more integrated end-to-end.
Both platforms offer free tiers: Transloadit (5GB processing/mo); Cloudinary (25 credits/mo). Transloadit uses tier-based pricing while Cloudinary uses usage-based pricing.
Transloadit offers official SDKs for Swift that Cloudinary does not.
| Feature | Transloadit | Cloudinary |
|---|---|---|
| Company | ||
| Years active | 17 | 14 |
| Source Availability | ||
| Starting price | $9/mo | $89/mo |
| Uptime SLA | 99.9% | 99.9% |
| SDKs | 11 | 10 |
| Supported formats | 688 | 58 |
| Employees | 11–50 | 201–500 |
| Funding | bootstrapped | $295M |
| Free tier | 5GB processing/mo | 25 credits/mo |
| Pricing model | tier based | usage based |
| GitHub stars | 41K | 2.8K |
| npm downloads/wk | 9.7M | 621K |
| Video | ||
| Adaptive streaming | Supported | Supported |
| Live streaming | Not supported | Supported |
| On-demand video processing | Supported | Supported |
| Picture-in-picture | Supported | Supported |
| Video analysis | Not supported | Supported |
| Video concatenation | Supported | Supported |
| Video encoding | Supported | Supported |
| Video overlays | Supported | 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 | Supported |
| Audio waveform | Supported | Supported |
| Image | ||
| AI image description | Supported | Supported |
| Image analysis | Supported | Supported |
| Image optimization | Supported | Supported |
| Image resizing | Supported | Supported |
| Spritesheet generation | Supported | Not supported |
| Watermarking | Supported | Supported |
| Document | ||
| Document analysis | Supported | Not supported |
| Document auto-rotation | Supported | Not supported |
| Document conversion | Supported | Supported |
| Document merging | Supported | Not supported |
| Document thumbnails | Supported | Supported |
| PDF optimization | Supported | Not supported |
| PDF splitting | Supported | Not supported |
| Webpage screenshots | Supported | Supported |
| Webpage to PDF | Supported | Not supported |
| Artificial Intelligence | ||
| AI chat | Supported | Supported |
| AI image generation | Supported | Supported |
| AI recognition | Supported | Supported |
| AI-powered automation | Supported | Not supported |
| Background removal | Supported | Supported |
| Content moderation | Supported | Supported |
| Document data extraction | Supported | Supported |
| Face detection | Supported | Supported |
| MCP server | Supported | Supported |
| Object recognition | Supported | Supported |
| Speech analysis | Supported | Not supported |
| Speech transcription | Supported | Supported |
| Speech translation | Supported | Not supported |
| Text recognition (OCR) | Supported | Supported |
| Text to speech | Supported | Not supported |
| Text translation | Supported | Supported |
| File Management | ||
| Automated file deletion | Supported | Supported |
| Custom metadata | Supported | Supported |
| Digital asset management | Not supported | Supported |
| File access control | Supported | Supported |
| File compression | Supported | Supported |
| File decompression | Supported | Not supported |
| File exporting | Supported | Supported |
| File filtering | Supported | Supported |
| File hashing | Supported | Supported |
| File importing | Supported | Supported |
| File preview | Supported | Supported |
| File type verification | Supported | Supported |
| File upload handling | Supported | Supported |
| Media cataloging | Supported | Supported |
| Metadata extraction | Supported | Supported |
| Metadata writing | Supported | Not supported |
| Resumable uploads | Supported | Not supported |
| Thumbnail generation | Supported | Supported |
| Security | ||
| Custom security policies | Supported | Supported |
| Encrypted storage | Supported | Not supported |
| File encryption | Supported | Not supported |
| File virus scanning | Supported | Supported |
| Sandboxed encoding | Supported | Not supported |
| Secure API access | Supported | Supported |
| Secure file handling | Supported | Supported |
| Signature authentication | Supported | Supported |
| Single sign-on (SSO) | Not supported | Supported |
| Two-factor authentication | Supported | Supported |
| Compliance | ||
| Audit logs | Not supported | Supported |
| CCPA compliance | Supported | Supported |
| GDPR compliance | Supported | Supported |
| HIPAA compliance | Supported | Supported |
| PCI DSS compliance | Supported | Not supported |
| SOC 2 compliance | Supported | Supported |
| Infrastructure | ||
| Adaptive file delivery | Supported | Supported |
| Disaster recovery | Supported | Supported |
| Global file delivery | Supported | Supported |
| High uptime | Supported | Supported |
| Multi-cloud support | Supported | Supported |
| Multi-region support | Supported | Supported |
| Rate limiting | Supported | Supported |
| Real-time monitoring | Supported | Supported |
| Region-specific processing | Supported | Supported |
| Scalable infrastructure | Supported | Supported |
| Developer Tools | ||
| Custom encoding presets | Supported | Supported |
| Custom workflows | Supported | Supported |
| Developer API | Supported | Supported |
| Media analysis | Supported | Supported |
| Playlist generation | Supported | Supported |
| Script execution | Supported | Supported |
| Overall Score | 94% | 74% |
The right choice depends on your needs
Cloudinary 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, Cloudinary may be the better fit.
Best for
- ✓Teams needing combined DAM and media transformation in one platform
- ✓E-commerce sites requiring on-the-fly image/video optimization and delivery
- ✓Organizations wanting a visual workflow builder (MediaFlows) for media automation
Not ideal for
- •Projects requiring tus-protocol resumable uploads
- •Use cases needing deep audio-only processing pipelines
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.
Cloudinary's Perspective
As far as we know, Cloudinary 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.
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