ChatGPT answers, unedited

For a photographer hosting large galleries with lots of high-resolution JPEG/RAW previews, I’d prioritize low storage cost + cheap/free egress + a CDN. The bandwidth bill can matter more than storage once galleries get popular.

Best options

1. Cloudflare R2 — my default recommendation

R2 is particularly attractive for photography because internet egress is free, including when serving directly through R2. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB of free standard storage. developers.cloudflare.com

That makes it especially compelling when you don't know whether a gallery will get 100 visitors or 100,000.

Architecture:

Your gallery app → Cloudflare CDN → R2

You can also put Cloudflare image transformations/caching in front of it so visitors don't download the original 30–60 MB file when a 2 MB display image will do.

2. Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN — excellent for huge archives

Backblaze B2 is exceptionally inexpensive for storage: $6.95/TB/month, with the first 10 GB free. B2 also provides free egress up to 3× your average monthly storage, and egress is free through several CDN partners, including Cloudflare and Bunny. www.backblaze.com

This is a great architecture if you have, say, 20–100+ TB of photo archives, while Cloudflare handles public delivery and caching.

3. Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — simplest high-performance option

Bunny.net is unusually attractive for image-heavy sites because storage and CDN are designed to work together. Storage starts at $0.01/GB in one region, and traffic from Bunny Storage to Bunny CDN is free. Its CDN starts at $0.01/GB in Europe/North America and offers a volume network as low as $0.005/GB for the first 500 TB. bunny.net

I'd choose Bunny if you want less infrastructure complexity than assembling a storage provider + CDN yourself.

What I'd use for a photography business

For a serious gallery platform, I'd probably choose:

R2 + Cloudflare CDN + image resizing

Store:

• Originals separately/private
• Full-resolution JPEGs in object storage
• Multiple resized derivatives (e.g. 400px, 1200px, 2400px)
• Thumbnails aggressively cached at the CDN

Then serve something like:

gallery.example.com/event/photo-1234-1600w.jpg

rather than exposing the original file to every browser.

For very large archives, I'd lean toward B2 + Cloudflare. For maximum simplicity, Bunny Storage + CDN. For unpredictable viral traffic, R2 has a major advantage because its egress charge is zero.

One important optimization: don't optimize only for $/TB of storage. A gallery containing 10 TB but delivering 50 TB/month can have a completely different cost profile from a 10 TB archive that's rarely viewed.

For a photographer serving large, frequently viewed image galleries, I’d focus less on raw storage price and more on egress (bandwidth) + CDN performance. A 10 TB archive that gets viewed heavily can cost far more to deliver than to store.

My top choices

*Approximate current standard-storage pricing; region and usage can affect the actual bill.

1. Cloudflare R2 — probably my first choice

developers.cloudflare.com

For photography galleries, R2 has a particularly attractive characteristic: no egress charges. Current standard storage is $0.015/GB-month, while requests are billed separately. Cloudflare Docs

That makes the economics very good when clients repeatedly browse/download large JPEGs:

Originals → R2 → Cloudflare CDN → visitors

You can also put image transformation/resizing in front of the originals, so visitors don't download a 40 MB TIFF/RAW-derived JPEG when a 2 MB web image would do.

I'd choose R2 if: your galleries are public, traffic is unpredictable, and you want the simplest protection against a huge bandwidth bill.

2. Backblaze B2 — excellent for a huge archive

backblaze.com

B2 is substantially cheaper for storage: Backblaze currently lists $6.95/TB/month for pay-as-you-go storage. It also gives free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, with additional egress at $0.01/GB. Importantly for photographers, Backblaze says egress through several CDN/compute partners—including Cloudflare and Bunny.net—is unlimited/free. Backblaze Help

That makes this architecture compelling:

B2 → Cloudflare/Bunny CDN → gallery visitors

For example, if you have 20 TB of photographs, the storage component is only around $139/month before other charges.

I'd choose B2 if: storage volume is enormous and your CDN architecture can take advantage of its free-egress arrangements.

3. Wasabi — attractive for predictable storage costs

Wasabi is another inexpensive object-storage option. Its major attraction is straightforward pricing and no conventional egress fees, but you need to pay attention to its minimum-storage/retention rules, particularly if you're frequently deleting or replacing gallery assets. Cloud Storage Prices Tusk Backup

For a photographer with a relatively stable archive—say, years of wedding/event galleries that remain online—it can work well.

I'd choose Wasabi if: your archive is stable and you value predictable storage billing more than fine-grained optimization.

4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — excellent, but usually not the cheapest

aws.amazon.com

AWS S3 remains the safest choice if you need the enormous AWS ecosystem, sophisticated lifecycle policies, integrations, etc. But for a photography business whose primary requirement is "store lots of JPEGs and serve them to clients," you're often paying for capabilities you don't need.

The important issue is data transfer out. That's why S3 can become disproportionately expensive as your galleries get popular. Comparisons of current pricing show the storage itself is not the major cost difference; bandwidth can be. LogicLibrary

I'd use S3 when you're already heavily invested in AWS or need its broader infrastructure—not because it's the cheapest gallery backend.

The architecture I'd actually use

For a professional photography gallery, I'd separate master storage from web delivery:

                  ┌──→ CDN ──→ Client browsers
                  │
Photographer → Object Storage
                  │
                  └──→ Original-resolution downloads

And I'd store at least three versions:

• Original/master — full-resolution JPEG/TIFF/RAW, rarely served directly
• Large display — e.g. 2500–4000 px JPEG/WebP/AVIF
• Thumbnail — e.g. 400–800 px WebP/AVIF

The CDN caches the display and thumbnail versions at edge locations. Consequently, a gallery with 5,000 photos doesn't mean thousands of requests have to hit your storage bucket every time somebody browses it.

My ranking for your use case

If I were building a new photography gallery today:

1. 🥇 Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — best combination of simple economics and delivery
2. 🥈 Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare/Bunny CDN — potentially cheapest for very large archives
3. 🥉 Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — worth considering if you prioritize simplicity and fast image delivery
4. Wasabi + CDN — good stable-archive option
5. S3 + CloudFront — best enterprise/ecosystem option, but rarely the lowest-cost choice

One particularly important distinction: don't compare these based only on $/TB. For a photography site, I'd model TB stored + TB delivered + number of image requests + percentage cached by the CDN. That's where the real winner emerges.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you have, how many photos, monthly visitors, and typical gallery size, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Wasabi vs S3 and recommend an architecture.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you have, how many photos, monthly visitors, and typical gallery size, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Wasabi vs S3 and recommend an architecture.

You can also put image transformation/resizing in front of the originals, so visitors don't download a 40 MB TIFF/RAW-derived JPEG when a 2 MB web image would do.

I'd choose R2 if: your galleries are public, traffic is unpredictable, and you want the simplest protection against a huge bandwidth bill.

2. Backblaze B2 — excellent for a huge archive

backblaze.com

B2 is substantially cheaper for storage: Backblaze currently lists $6.95/TB/month for pay-as-you-go storage. It also gives free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, with additional egress at $0.01/GB. Importantly for photographers, Backblaze says egress through several CDN/compute partners—including Cloudflare and Bunny.net—is unlimited/free. Backblaze Help

That makes this architecture compelling:

B2 → Cloudflare/Bunny CDN → gallery visitors

For example, if you have 20 TB of photographs, the storage component is only around $139/month before other charges.

I'd choose B2 if: storage volume is enormous and your CDN architecture can take advantage of its free-egress arrangements.

3. Wasabi — attractive for predictable storage costs

Wasabi is another inexpensive object-storage option. Its major attraction is straightforward pricing and no conventional egress fees, but you need to pay attention to its minimum-storage/retention rules, particularly if you're frequently deleting or replacing gallery assets. Cloud Storage Prices Tusk Backup

For a photographer with a relatively stable archive—say, years of wedding/event galleries that remain online—it can work well.

I'd choose Wasabi if: your archive is stable and you value predictable storage billing more than fine-grained optimization.

4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — excellent, but usually not the cheapest

aws.amazon.com

AWS S3 remains the safest choice if you need the enormous AWS ecosystem, sophisticated lifecycle policies, integrations, etc. But for a photography business whose primary requirement is "store lots of JPEGs and serve them to clients," you're often paying for capabilities you don't need.

The important issue is data transfer out. That's why S3 can become disproportionately expensive as your galleries get popular. Comparisons of current pricing show the storage itself is not the major cost difference; bandwidth can be.

I'd use S3 when you're already heavily invested in AWS or need its broader infrastructure—not because it's the cheapest gallery backend.

The architecture I'd actually use

For a professional photography gallery, I'd separate master storage from web delivery:

For a photographer hosting large galleries, I’d prioritize three things: low storage cost, cheap/free bandwidth, and a CDN that can cache full-resolution images close to visitors.

My top choices

1. Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — my first choice for a photography site.
Bunny Storage starts at $0.01/GB/month for one region, has free traffic to Bunny's CDN, and Bunny CDN's North America/Europe bandwidth is currently $0.01/GB. Its CDN also has 119 PoPs. bunny.net

That makes the architecture very straightforward:

Original photos → Bunny Storage → Bunny CDN → gallery visitors

For example, 5 TB of originals would be roughly $50/month for storage in one region, before CDN traffic. If visitors download 5 TB/month in North America/Europe, that's another roughly $50, for about $100/month.

Bunny Storage pricing

2. Cloudflare R2 — excellent if your galleries get a lot of traffic.
R2 currently costs $0.015/GB-month for Standard storage, with no egress charge. It also includes 10 GB storage, 1M Class A operations and 10M Class B operations monthly in its free tier. developers.cloudflare.com

That's particularly attractive for photographers because a popular wedding gallery could suddenly generate hundreds of GB or several TB of image downloads without an equivalent R2 bandwidth bill.

Cloudflare R2 pricing

3. Backblaze B2 + CDN — excellent for huge archives.
B2 is currently $6.95/TB/month, and gives you free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data. More importantly, Backblaze says egress is unlimited/free when downloading through several CDN partners, including Cloudflare and Bunny. www.backblaze.com

So you could do:

Backblaze B2 → Cloudflare CDN → visitors

Backblaze specifically documents serving B2 through Cloudflare with no download fees from B2. www.backblaze.com

What I'd build for a photographer

If you're running a professional gallery platform, I'd probably choose:

Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN if you want the simplest, fast, predictable setup.

Or:

Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare if you're accumulating tens of TB of photographs and want to minimize long-term storage costs.

I'd also avoid serving the original RAW/TIFF files directly. Keep originals/private masters in inexpensive object storage, and generate several JPEG/WebP/AVIF derivatives—for example thumbnail → 2000px → 4000px → original. The CDN then primarily serves the appropriately sized derivative, dramatically reducing bandwidth while keeping galleries fast.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you have, monthly visitors/downloads, and whether clients need to download full-resolution JPEGs, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for Bunny vs R2 vs B2 for your actual workload.

For a photography business hosting large client galleries, I’d focus less on raw storage price and more on storage + image delivery/egress + CDN performance. A $6/TB service can become expensive if every gallery view incurs bandwidth charges.

My shortlist

Current Cloudflare R2 pricing is $0.015/GB-month for Standard storage, with zero Internet egress charges; it also has a 10 GB free tier. developers.cloudflare.com

Backblaze B2 is considerably cheaper for storage at $6.95/TB/month, with the first 10 GB free and free egress up to 3× your average stored data; Backblaze also documents free egress through certain CDN/compute partners. www.backblaze.com

🥇 What I'd choose for a photographer

Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare Images/Workers/CDN is probably the cleanest architecture if you're building your own gallery platform.

For example:

Originals / masters
→ R2
Large display JPEGs
→ R2
Thumbnails
→ R2
Client requests
→ Cloudflare edge
Browser
→ CDN-cached WebP/AVIF/JPEG

The big advantage is that a popular wedding gallery can potentially be viewed thousands of times without generating a corresponding egress bill. R2 explicitly charges no Internet egress. developers.cloudflare.com

💰 If storage volume is enormous

I'd seriously consider Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare.

At roughly 10 TB:

• B2 storage ≈ $69.50/month
• R2 storage ≈ $150/month
• AWS S3 Standard ≈ $230/month, before Internet delivery
• Wasabi ≈ $79.90/month at its current published rate

The tradeoff is that B2's economics depend more on how you configure delivery, whereas R2 makes the no-egress model much simpler. Backblaze's current pricing specifically advertises $6.95/TB/month and free egress up to 3× stored data. www.backblaze.com

One important photography-specific consideration

Don't serve the original RAW/TIFF files directly to clients. Keep those as your archival/master layer and generate delivery derivatives:

• Thumbnail: ~300–600 px
• Gallery preview: ~1,600–2,500 px
• Full-resolution download: ~4,000–6,000 px or whatever your workflow requires
• Original: private, downloadable only when appropriate

That dramatically reduces bandwidth and makes CDN caching much more effective.

If you're building something like Pixieset/SmugMug-style galleries yourself, I'd lean toward R2. If you're primarily looking for the lowest possible cost for tens or hundreds of TB, I'd investigate B2 + CDN first.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you expect to store, monthly gallery views/downloads, and average photo size, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Wasabi vs S3 for your actual photography workload.

For a photographer serving large galleries, I’d focus less on raw storage price and more on the combination of storage + CDN delivery + egress fees + image resizing/caching. A few options stand out:

🥇 Cloudflare R2

Cloudflare R2 pricing

This is probably my first choice for a new photography gallery platform.

R2 Standard is currently $0.015/GB-month, with no Internet egress charges. It also has a 10 GB free tier and supports the S3 API, making it relatively easy to integrate with existing gallery software. developers.cloudflare.com

For example, 10 TB of originals = roughly $150/month before request costs.

The particularly attractive part for photographers is that visitors can view/download a lot of images without traditional cloud-storage egress charges eating your margin.

🥈 Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare

Backblaze B2 pricing

If your priority is cheap bulk storage, B2 is excellent: currently $6.95/TB/month. Backblaze also provides free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, and egress is free when using many partner CDNs, including Cloudflare and Bunny. www.backblaze.com

Backblaze specifically documents using B2 as the origin for Cloudflare's CDN with zero B2 download/transfer fees. www.backblaze.com

That gives you a very compelling architecture:

B2 → Cloudflare CDN → photographer's website → visitor

I'd seriously consider this if you're storing tens or hundreds of TB of older galleries.

🥉 Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN

Bunny Storage · Bunny CDN

Bunny is attractive if you want something simple and performance-oriented rather than assembling several cloud services.

Storage starts around $0.01/GB/month for a single region, and traffic from storage to Bunny's CDN is free. Bunny's CDN currently starts around $0.01/GB in Europe/North America, with its high-volume network going as low as $0.005/GB for the first 500 TB. bunny.net

For a photography site with lots of visitors, this can be an exceptionally inexpensive combination.

AWS S3 + CloudFront

This is the enterprise/default-cloud option rather than my cost-saving recommendation. It's extremely capable and integrates with practically everything, but storage and especially high-volume delivery can become considerably more expensive than R2/B2/Bunny.

I'd choose AWS when you need things like sophisticated processing pipelines, Lambda integration, extensive IAM controls, or you're already heavily invested in AWS.

What I'd build for a photographer

For a modern gallery service, I'd use something like:

Original RAW files
→ inexpensive object storage
→ JPEG/WebP/AVIF derivatives
→ CDN
→ gallery website

And importantly, don't serve the original 20–50 MB JPEG directly to every visitor.

Generate several versions:

• Thumbnail: ~300 px
• Gallery: ~1600–2400 px
• Large: ~3000–4000 px
• Original/download: full resolution

Then have the CDN cache those derivatives at the edge.

My ranking

Best overall: Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN
Cheapest bulk archive: Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN
Simplest high-performance setup: Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN
Most powerful/enterprise: AWS S3 + CloudFront

If you're talking about something like 100 TB of photographs and 10–50 TB/month of gallery traffic, I can also run the numbers for these four architectures and show you the estimated monthly bill for each, including CDN costs.

For a photographer hosting large, frequently viewed image galleries, I’d prioritize object storage + CDN delivery, rather than traditional web hosting. The biggest cost variable is usually image bandwidth, not storage.

My top choices

1. Cloudflare R2 — my default recommendation

Cloudflare R2 pricing

R2 is particularly attractive for photography because internet egress is free. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB of storage and certain request allowances included in the free tier. developers.cloudflare.com

For example, 10 TB of originals would be roughly $150/month for storage, before request costs.

The big advantage is when galleries get popular: you don't get a conventional per-GB internet-egress bill from R2. That's excellent if a wedding gallery suddenly gets thousands of visitors downloading full-resolution images.

Good architecture:

R2 → Cloudflare CDN/cache → gallery website

I'd use this if you're comfortable building or configuring the gallery application yourself.

2. Backblaze B2 + CDN — excellent for huge archives

Backblaze B2

Backblaze B2 is currently $6.95/TB/month, substantially cheaper per TB than R2. It also gives free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, and egress can be unlimited when using supported CDN partners such as Cloudflare and Bunny. www.backblaze.com

So you could have:

Backblaze B2 → Cloudflare CDN → visitors

Backblaze specifically documents serving B2 through Cloudflare without B2 download fees. www.backblaze.com

This is particularly compelling if you have tens or hundreds of TB of older galleries that need to remain online but aren't necessarily being viewed constantly.

3. Bunny — probably the easiest performance/value combination

Bunny Storage · Bunny CDN

Bunny's storage starts at $0.01/GB in a single region, with traffic from storage to Bunny CDN free. Its CDN starts at $0.01/GB in Europe/North America, and its volume network can go as low as $0.005/GB. bunny.net

That makes Bunny particularly interesting for photographers because you can keep the whole stack with one provider:

Bunny Storage → Bunny CDN → gallery

It also supports multiple storage regions and edge/SSD storage if you want more aggressive global performance. bunny.net

I'd choose Bunny if you value simplicity and speed over squeezing every last dollar out of storage.

What I'd choose for a photography business

Small/medium photographer:
Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — simple, fast, inexpensive.

Large gallery business with lots of traffic:
Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — particularly attractive because egress doesn't become a surprise bill.

Massive archive (10–100+ TB):
Backblaze B2 for storage + Cloudflare/Bunny for delivery — extremely economical.

Enterprise application already built around AWS:
S3 + CloudFront — excellent technically, but I'd only choose it if AWS's ecosystem is worth the additional complexity/cost for your workload.

One important optimization

Don't serve your original 30–60 MB RAW/JPEG files directly to gallery visitors. Store the originals, but generate WebP/AVIF derivatives at several sizes (e.g. 800px, 1600px, 2400px, and full-resolution download). Put those derivatives behind the CDN.

For example, a gallery viewing 2,000 photos might deliver hundreds of MB rather than tens of GB to a typical visitor. That can dwarf the difference between storage providers.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you currently have, monthly gallery visitors/downloads, and whether clients need full-resolution downloads, I can model the monthly cost of R2 vs B2 vs Bunny for your actual workload.

For a photographer serving large, frequently viewed image galleries, I’d prioritize object storage + CDN, and pay close attention to egress (download) costs. That can matter much more than the raw storage price.

My top choices

1. Cloudflare R2 is probably my first choice. R2 currently charges $0.015/GB-month for standard storage and has no Internet egress charges. It's S3-compatible and designed specifically for frequently accessed web assets, including user-generated content. developers.cloudflare.com

For a photography site, you can put Cloudflare's edge caching/CDN in front of R2 so popular gallery images are served from locations close to visitors. That makes the economics particularly attractive when a gallery gets thousands of views/downloads. developers.cloudflare.com

2. Backblaze B2 is excellent if storage volume is huge. Its current pay-as-you-go price is $6.95/TB/month, considerably less than R2's equivalent ~$15/TB/month. B2 also gives you free egress up to 3× your average stored data, and egress is free when using many partner CDNs, including Cloudflare and Fastly. www.backblaze.com

That makes B2 + Cloudflare CDN an especially interesting architecture if you're storing tens or hundreds of terabytes and want to keep the storage bill down.

3. AWS S3 + CloudFront is the "safe enterprise choice." You get an enormous ecosystem, mature lifecycle/replication controls, and excellent integration with image-processing and application infrastructure. The downside for a photographer is that bandwidth can dominate the bill when you're delivering lots of full-resolution photographs. AWS becomes more attractive if you're already heavily invested in AWS or need its specialized features.

What I'd build for a photography business

I'd use something like:

Original RAWs / masters
→ inexpensive object storage (B2 or R2)

JPEG/AVIF/WebP derivatives
→ R2 or B2

Gallery delivery
→ CDN with aggressive caching

Image URLs
→ serve appropriately sized variants rather than the original 30–80 MB file

For example, a 6,000-photo wedding gallery shouldn't necessarily expose 6,000 giant originals to browsers. Generate several sizes—thumbnail, medium, large—and let the browser request the appropriate one. That dramatically reduces bandwidth and improves gallery responsiveness.

The choice I'd make

• Up to ~10 TB: Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — simplest and excellent for traffic-heavy galleries.
• 10–100+ TB: Backblaze B2 + CDN — potentially much cheaper storage while retaining inexpensive delivery.
• Already using AWS: S3 + CloudFront — operational convenience may outweigh the higher cost.
• Archive-heavy photography business: B2 is particularly compelling because of its low storage cost.

One useful rule: don't choose based on "$/TB" alone. For public photography galleries, calculate storage + monthly image requests + monthly GB/TB delivered. A provider with slightly more expensive storage but zero egress can easily beat cheap storage once your galleries become popular. infratally.com

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly visitors/downloads, and average photo size, I can run a concrete monthly-cost comparison for R2 vs B2 vs S3/CloudFront.

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, I’d focus less on raw storage price and more on egress/delivery costs. A gallery can generate many times more downloads than the amount of data you actually store.

My shortlist

1. Cloudflare R2 — my first choice

Cloudflare R2 pricing

R2 is particularly attractive for photography because internet egress is free. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB of storage and some operations included each month. developers.cloudflare.com

That means if you have, say, 10 TB of originals/derivatives and your galleries generate 50 TB/month of image downloads, you're not suddenly hit with a huge bandwidth bill.

I'd pair it with Cloudflare's CDN/cache layer and serve appropriately sized JPEG/WebP/AVIF derivatives rather than the full-resolution originals.

Best when: your galleries are public and potentially generate a lot of traffic.

2. Backblaze B2 + CDN — potentially the cheapest

Backblaze B2

B2 currently starts at $6.95/TB/month, substantially below R2's storage price. It gives you free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, and egress is unlimited when using several supported CDN/compute partners, including Cloudflare and Fastly. www.backblaze.com

So a very compelling architecture is:

B2 → CDN → visitor

rather than having visitors download directly from B2.

For a photographer with 20–100+ TB of relatively stable image storage, this can be extremely economical.

Best when: storage volume is large and you're comfortable configuring a CDN in front of the bucket.

3. Wasabi — simple and predictable

Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage

Wasabi's current price is $7.99/TB/month, and it advertises no egress or API-request charges, although its free-egress policy is subject to fair-use terms. wasabi.com

It's attractive if you want straightforward object storage without having to think much about request and bandwidth pricing.

One thing I'd investigate carefully for a gallery business is Wasabi's retention/minimum-storage policies, particularly if you're constantly deleting and replacing client galleries.

Best when: you want simple billing and predictable costs.

What I'd actually build

For a professional photography site, I'd probably use:

Originals / archival masters
→ Backblaze B2

Web-sized derivatives
→ Cloudflare R2

Visitors
→ Cloudflare CDN/cache

Website/database
→ Your existing web host or a small application server

This gives you inexpensive bulk storage while keeping frequently viewed gallery images close to visitors.

You should also generate multiple image sizes—for example:

• 600–800 px thumbnails
• ~1600–2000 px gallery images
• ~3000 px large display images
• Full-resolution originals kept private

That matters enormously. If a visitor is viewing a 2 MB 2000px image, there's little reason to deliver a 25 MB RAW/TIFF-sized original.

One important distinction

If by "large image galleries" you mean thousands of clients viewing wedding/event galleries, I'd favor R2 + CDN because the zero-egress model makes traffic costs much easier to predict.

If you mean tens or hundreds of TB of photographs with relatively modest public traffic, I'd favor B2 + CDN because its storage cost is considerably lower.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly visitors/page views, average image size, and whether galleries are public or password-protected, I can calculate an approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Wasabi vs S3 for your actual workload.

For a photographer hosting large galleries, I’d focus less on raw storage price and more on the combination of storage + CDN delivery + image transformations + egress costs. A gallery can generate several times more bandwidth than its stored size.

Best options

🥇 My first choice: Cloudflare R2

Cloudflare R2 pricing

R2 is particularly attractive for photography because internet egress is free. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with additional request charges. developers.cloudflare.com

That matters enormously if, for example, you have:

• 5 TB of original/edited photos
• 20 TB of thumbnails and web-sized images served over a month
• Lots of visitors downloading large JPEGs

With traditional object storage, bandwidth can become a bigger bill than storage itself. R2 largely eliminates that concern.

Architecture I'd use:

R2 → Cloudflare CDN → visitor

You can also keep originals private and expose only appropriately sized derivatives through your gallery application.

🥇 Best price/performance: Bunny

Bunny Storage · Bunny CDN

Bunny is arguably the most attractive option if you want one relatively simple provider.

Its standard HDD storage starts at $0.01/GB per region, and traffic from storage to Bunny's CDN is free. Its CDN starts at $0.01/GB in Europe/North America, with a Volume Network starting at $0.005/GB. bunny.net

For a photographer, that's compelling because you can put:

Bunny Storage → Bunny CDN → gallery

rather than assembling several AWS services.

Bunny also publishes very good global latency/performance numbers, although its performance figures are provider-published/third-party measurements rather than a guarantee for your particular audience. bunny.net

I'd seriously consider Bunny if your audience is primarily US/Europe and you want simplicity.

🥈 Best for enormous archives: Backblaze B2

Backblaze B2

Backblaze B2 is excellent when your photography business has many terabytes of originals that need to remain online.

Its published comparison currently shows B2 at $6.95/TB/month, with free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data; it also offers unlimited free egress through supported CDN partners such as Cloudflare and Bunny. www.backblaze.com

A particularly nice architecture is:

Backblaze B2 → Bunny CDN → visitors

or

Backblaze B2 → Cloudflare → visitors

That lets inexpensive object storage hold the master library while the CDN handles the high-volume public traffic.

AWS: excellent, but I'd only choose it for a reason

Amazon CloudFront

S3 + CloudFront is extremely capable and has a huge ecosystem. CloudFront can cache images at edge locations and AWS currently offers flat-rate plans as well as traditional usage-based pricing. docs.aws.amazon.com

I'd choose AWS if your gallery application already uses AWS services, or you need sophisticated AWS infrastructure.

For a photographer starting from scratch, though, R2 or Bunny is usually easier to justify financially and operationally.

What I'd build for a photography gallery

For a serious gallery platform, I'd separate masters from delivery images:

             ┌── Original RAW/JPEG
             │
Photographer ─── Object Storage
             │
             └── Web derivatives
                       │
                       ▼
                     CDN
                       │
              ┌────────┴────────┐
              ▼                 ▼
         Gallery page       Full-size preview

Store your original files inexpensively and never serve the RAW/master files directly from the gallery.

Generate several derivatives, e.g.:

• thumbnail: 300–500 px
• gallery: 1,600–2,000 px
• large preview: 2,500–3,000 px
• optional full-resolution download

Use WebP/AVIF for browser viewing, while retaining JPEG originals/downloads when appropriate. This can dramatically reduce the bandwidth required for a gallery.

My ranking for your use case

1. Cloudflare R2 + CDN — best overall economics when bandwidth is substantial or unpredictable.
2. Bunny Storage + CDN — best combination of simplicity, speed and low cost.
3. Backblaze B2 + Bunny/Cloudflare — excellent for huge photo archives.
4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — best if you're already in the AWS ecosystem.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you need to store and how many TB/month visitors will download (e.g. 10 TB stored / 30 TB monthly traffic), I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs Bunny vs B2 vs S3/CloudFront.

For a photographer hosting large, image-heavy galleries, I’d prioritize three things: low storage cost, low/no egress fees, and a CDN that can cache thumbnails and full-resolution images close to visitors.

My top choices

1. Best overall: Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN

Cloudflare R2 pricing

For a gallery business, R2 is particularly compelling because internet egress is $0. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB of storage included in the free tier. developers.cloudflare.com

That matters enormously for photography: a 20 MB image downloaded by 100,000 visitors represents roughly 2 TB of image delivery. With conventional object storage, bandwidth can become more expensive than storage itself.

I'd use:

R2 → Cloudflare CDN/cache → your gallery application

It's a very good choice if you're building your own gallery platform.

2. Best for massive archives: Backblaze B2

Backblaze B2 pricing

B2 is currently $6.95/TB/month, which is extremely competitive for large photographic archives. It includes free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, and Backblaze also offers unlimited free egress through various CDN/compute partners. www.backblaze.com

For example, if you have 20 TB of photographs, storage is only about $139/month before other charges.

The particularly interesting architecture is:

Backblaze B2 → Bunny CDN → visitors

Backblaze specifically lists Bunny.net and Cloudflare among partners where egress can be free. www.backblaze.com

This makes B2 an excellent cheap origin/archive + CDN combination.

3. Best turnkey performance/value: Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN

Bunny Storage

Bunny CDN

For a photography site where fast galleries are as important as cheap storage, this might actually be my first choice.

Bunny Storage starts at $0.01/GB/month in a single region, with traffic to Bunny's CDN free. Its CDN starts at $0.01/GB in Europe/North America and can be as low as $0.005/GB on its Volume Network. bunny.net

Bunny also provides image optimization capabilities, multiple storage regions, and a global CDN, making the architecture relatively simple.

Bunny is especially attractive if your galleries serve lots of images rather than simply storing them.

What I'd choose at different scales

Under ~5 TB:
→ Bunny Storage + CDN or Cloudflare R2

5–50 TB:
→ Backblaze B2 + Bunny CDN is extremely attractive

50+ TB with substantial traffic:
→ Compare B2 + Bunny, R2 + Cloudflare, and potentially negotiated enterprise pricing

Mostly archival, relatively little viewing:
→ Backblaze B2

Lots of simultaneous gallery visitors / high-resolution downloads:
→ Bunny CDN or Cloudflare

Building a custom photography SaaS/platform:
→ R2 is probably the cleanest foundation.

One important architectural point

Don't serve your original 30–60 MB RAW/JPEG files directly to every gallery visitor.

I'd store:

Originals
   ↓
Object storage
   ↓
Image processing
   ├── thumbnail
   ├── 1600px
   ├── 3000px
   └── full resolution
           ↓
          CDN
           ↓
        Visitor

For a professional gallery, this gives you dramatically faster perceived performance and much lower bandwidth consumption while retaining the original files safely in object storage.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you currently have, monthly visitors/downloads, average image size, and whether clients download full-resolution files, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2+Bunny vs Bunny alone for your actual photography workload.

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, the biggest cost drivers are usually:

1. Storage volume (hundreds of GB to many TBs)
2. Bandwidth/egress (clients repeatedly viewing and downloading galleries)
3. Image delivery speed (CDN, caching, geographic distribution)
4. Workflow support (uploads, galleries, resizing, private links)

For most photographers, the best value comes from object storage + CDN, rather than traditional “cloud drive” products. uploadkit.devwww.sunshinephotocart.com

My typical recommendations by photography use case

1. Wedding/event photographer with hundreds of client galleries

• Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN
• Keep:
  • Full-resolution JPEG/TIFF masters privately stored
  • Web-sized JPEG/WebP previews publicly delivered
• Benefit: predictable bills even when a gallery suddenly gets many visitors. uploadkit.dev

2. Photographer with 10–100+ TB of archives

• Backblaze B2
• Add a CDN layer if clients frequently browse older galleries.
• It is especially attractive when storage cost matters more than instant access patterns. www.backblaze.comuploadkit.dev

3. High-end commercial photographer needing automated workflows

• AWS S3 + CloudFront
• Useful for:
  • automated processing pipelines
  • permissions
  • integrations
  • enterprise clients

A cost-saving gallery architecture

A common professional setup:

Camera RAW files
        |
        v
Archive storage
(Backblaze B2 / Wasabi)
        |
        v
Processed JPEG/WebP previews
        |
        v
CDN delivery
(Cloudflare CDN / Bunny CDN)
        |
        v
Clients view galleries quickly

Features worth prioritizing

• Automatic WebP/AVIF conversion
• Thumbnail generation
• Private expiring links
• Watermarking
• Client download permissions
• S3-compatible API (makes switching providers easier)
• Geographic CDN caching

For a solo photographer or small studio, I would usually start with Cloudflare R2 for active galleries and Backblaze B2 for long-term archives. That combination tends to balance fast client delivery with low storage costs. www.backblaze.comuploadkit.dev

For a photography site with large galleries, lots of high-resolution images, and potentially heavy public traffic, I’d generally avoid traditional “cloud drive” services like Google Drive or Dropbox. You want object storage + CDN delivery.

My top choices

\*Approximate current published rates; actual bills depend on region, requests, replication, and traffic.

1. Cloudflare R2 — my pick for a photography portfolio

Cloudflare R2 pricing

R2 is particularly attractive because internet egress is free. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB/month free. developers.cloudflare.com

That matters enormously for photography. Suppose you have:

• 5 TB of original/high-resolution gallery assets
• 10 TB/month of visitors downloading/viewing images

With a conventional object-storage provider, that 10 TB of outbound traffic can become a substantial part of your bill. With R2, egress isn't charged.

I'd pair R2 with Cloudflare's CDN/cache, keeping frequently viewed gallery images at the edge.

Best when: your galleries are public and traffic is unpredictable or potentially very high.

2. Backblaze B2 — excellent for inexpensive storage

Backblaze B2

B2 currently starts at $6.95/TB/month, considerably below mainstream AWS/Azure/GCP object storage. It provides free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, with additional egress at $0.01/GB. It also offers free egress when using several CDN/compute partners. www.backblaze.com

For example, with 5 TB stored, you get roughly 15 TB/month of included egress under the 3× allowance.

A very attractive architecture is:

B2 → CDN → visitors

rather than:

B2 → visitors

That lets the CDN cache your popular gallery images and substantially reduces repeated requests to storage.

Best when: you have a huge archive and want the lowest storage cost while retaining flexibility.

3. Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — probably the easiest photographer-friendly setup

Bunny Storage

Bunny is interesting because storage and CDN are designed to work together. Standard storage is $0.01/GB/month per region, and traffic from Bunny Storage to Bunny CDN is free. docs.bunny.net

Bunny's CDN pricing is also unusually inexpensive: North America and Europe are currently around $0.01/GB, while its high-volume tier can be as low as $0.005/GB for the first 500 TB. docs.bunny.net

For a photographer who doesn't want to assemble several cloud services, this is probably the simplest architecture:

Bunny Storage → Bunny CDN → your gallery website

It can also replicate storage across regions if you want better global performance. docs.bunny.net

What I'd choose for different photography businesses

Solo photographer / wedding photographer

→ Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN

Cheap, straightforward, fast, and doesn't require much cloud infrastructure.

Large portfolio / thousands of galleries

→ Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN

The zero-egress model becomes particularly compelling as traffic grows.

Photography archive / millions of originals

→ Backblaze B2

Use B2 as the inexpensive master archive, with a CDN in front for public images.

Very high traffic commercial photography site

→ R2 + CDN, or B2 + Bunny/Cloudflare CDN

The CDN should absorb most repeated image requests.

One important architectural point

Don't serve your full-resolution originals directly to visitors.

I'd keep something like:

Original RAW/JPEG
       ↓
Object storage
       ↓
Image processing
       ↓
 ┌───────────────┐
 │ 400px thumb   │
 │ 1200px image  │
 │ 2400px image  │
 │ full-res      │
 └───────────────┘
       ↓
      CDN
       ↓
    Visitor

For a gallery, most visitors only need ~1,500–2,500px images. You can keep the 50–100 MB originals privately while delivering optimized JPEG/WebP/AVIF versions through the CDN.

That can reduce bandwidth dramatically and make galleries feel much faster.

My overall ranking

🥇 Cloudflare R2 + CDN — best combination of cost predictability and massive public traffic
🥈 Bunny Storage + CDN — easiest and extremely inexpensive
🥉 Backblaze B2 + CDN — best inexpensive long-term archive
4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — excellent, but usually overkill/costlier for an independent photographer

If you tell me roughly how many TB you have stored, monthly visitors/page views, and typical image size, I can calculate an estimated monthly bill for R2 vs B2 vs Bunny vs AWS for your actual photography workload.

For a photographer hosting large galleries of high-resolution images, I’d focus on object storage + CDN, rather than traditional web hosting. Your two biggest costs are usually storage and image delivery bandwidth.

My top choices

1. 🥇 Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN

This would be my default recommendation if you're comfortable managing a little infrastructure.

R2 Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with free Internet egress. It also includes 10 GB of storage and 10 million Class B operations per month in its free tier. developers.cloudflare.com

That matters enormously for photography. Suppose you have:

• 5 TB of original/gallery images
• 10 TB/month of image views/downloads

With a conventional storage provider that charges significant egress, those downloads can become more expensive than the storage itself. R2 eliminates that particular concern.

Great architecture:

Your gallery → Cloudflare CDN → R2

You can also generate multiple JPEG/WebP/AVIF sizes so visitors aren't downloading 50–100 MB RAW/TIFF files unnecessarily.

Cloudflare R2 pricing

2. 🥈 Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN

This is particularly attractive if storage volume is enormous.

B2 currently lists storage at $6.95/TB/month, substantially below R2's standard storage price. Backblaze also provides free egress up to 3× your average monthly storage, and egress through certain CDN partners—including Cloudflare and Bunny—is free from B2. www.backblaze.com

So you could have:

Backblaze B2 → Cloudflare CDN → visitors

For example, 20 TB of galleries would be roughly $139/month for storage at the published B2 rate, before other applicable charges.

Backblaze explicitly documents using Cloudflare CDN to serve B2 content, including private content through Cloudflare Workers. www.backblaze.com

I'd strongly consider this if you're talking about 10–100+ TB of photography.

Backblaze B2 storage

3. 🥉 Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN

If you want something simple and fast, Bunny is probably my favorite option.

Bunny Storage starts at $0.01/GB per region, with free traffic from storage to Bunny's CDN and no API fees. Its CDN starts at $0.01/GB in Europe/North America. bunny.net

For a primarily U.S. audience, that makes the economics very attractive.

For example, roughly:

5 TB storage + 5 TB/month CDN traffic

• Storage: ~$50/month
• CDN: ~$50/month
• Total: ~$100/month

That's before any other application costs.

Bunny also has an SSD Edge Storage tier if you want replicated storage closer to users, although I'd generally keep the master photographs in cheaper storage and let the CDN cache the frequently accessed derivatives. bunny.net

Bunny Storage pricing
Bunny CDN pricing

What I'd build for a photography business

Rather than serving your full-resolution originals directly, I'd separate masters, derivatives, and delivery:

                 ┌── Original RAW/TIFF
                 │
Photographer ────┤
                 │
                 └── JPEG master
                       │
                       ▼
                 Object Storage
                 (B2 / R2)
                       │
                       ▼
              Image Processing
              ├── 1600px preview
              ├── 2400px gallery
              ├── 4000px large
              └── full-resolution
                       │
                       ▼
                    CDN
                       │
                 ┌─────┴─────┐
                 ▼           ▼
              Browser      Client

The important trick is not to make your expensive original files the thing everybody downloads.

For example, a gallery might show 1600–2400px JPEG/WebP images. The full-resolution file is only fetched when a client explicitly chooses Download Original.

That can reduce your bandwidth dramatically while making galleries feel much faster.

My ranking

If you want the simplest solution:
Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN

If you want the lowest ongoing storage/delivery costs:
Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN

If you want the cleanest modern cloud architecture:
Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare

If you're building a sophisticated SaaS/gallery platform:
S3 + CloudFront, despite the higher complexity and potentially higher cost.

If you tell me approximately how many TB you have, monthly visitors/download traffic, average image size, and whether clients need full-resolution downloads, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Bunny for your specific photography workload.

For a photographer hosting large client galleries, the best solution is usually not traditional web hosting—it is object storage + CDN delivery. The key costs are:

• Storage (your archive size: TBs of JPEGs/RAW exports)
• Bandwidth/egress (clients repeatedly viewing/downloading galleries)
• CDN performance (how quickly images load worldwide)
• Image privacy (signed URLs, expiring links, access controls)

Here are the strongest options:

www.digitalocean.comwww.sunshinephotocart.comwww.digitalocean.com

My recommendations by photography use case

1. Wedding/event photographer delivering hundreds of galleries

• Best choice: Bunny.net or Cloudflare R2
• Why: lots of repeated client viewing, downloads, and traffic spikes.
• Avoid setups where bandwidth charges can surprise you.

2. Commercial photographer with years of archives

• Best choice: Backblaze B2 or Wasabi for storage
• Add a CDN only for active galleries.
• Keep older projects in cheaper storage tiers.

3. Luxury client galleries where speed matters

• Best choice: Bunny.net or Cloudflare R2 + CDN
• Fast thumbnails and previews matter more than raw storage cost.

4. Photographer who wants the easiest setup

• Best choice: DigitalOcean Spaces
• It includes object storage plus CDN functionality, with simple pricing. www.digitalocean.comwww.sunshinephotocart.comwww.digitalocean.com

A cost-efficient architecture many photographers use

A common professional setup:

Upload originals
→ cheap object storage (Backblaze B2 / Wasabi / R2)

Generate web versions
→ resized JPEG/WebP/AVIF thumbnails

Serve clients
→ CDN (Bunny.net, Cloudflare, CloudFront)

Protect galleries
→ signed URLs, passwords, expiration dates

This keeps expensive high-speed delivery focused on the images clients actually view.

Example monthly costs (rough estimates)

For 2 TB of galleries + moderate client traffic:

• Budget archive: Backblaze B2 + CDN → often among the cheapest
• Balanced: Bunny.net → simple, fast, predictable
• Heavy traffic: Cloudflare R2 → avoids bandwidth surprises
• Enterprise: S3 + CloudFront → scalable but usually pricier

www.sunshinephotocart.com

For a photographer, I would generally avoid storing every gallery directly on a WordPress server, shared hosting plan, or a basic VPS—the storage and bandwidth economics usually become worse as your archive grows.

If you share roughly how many TB you have, monthly gallery visitors/downloads, and whether clients need full-resolution downloads, I can suggest a more exact architecture and cost estimate.