ChatGPT answers, unedited

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, the best choice usually depends less on raw storage price and more on how often clients view/download images. A gallery can be cheap to store but expensive to deliver if bandwidth (egress) costs are high. ondelva Cloudzat

Here are the strongest options:

My practical recommendations by photography workflow

1. Wedding/event photographer delivering client galleries

Recommended setup: Cloudflare R2 + image CDN/optimization

Why:

• Clients may download hundreds of images.
• You avoid surprise bandwidth bills.
• Fast global delivery is a priority.

A typical architecture:

Original RAW/JPEG archive
        ↓
Cloud storage (B2 or Wasabi)
        ↓
Web-sized JPEG/WebP derivatives
        ↓
Cloudflare R2 + CDN
        ↓
Client gallery

Keep originals cheaper; serve optimized copies.

2. Photographer with 5–50 TB of archives

Recommended setup: Backblaze B2

Good fit if:

• You store thousands of galleries.
• Most clients access galleries briefly.
• You want inexpensive long-term storage.

B2 is often attractive because storage is among the lowest-cost options and it supports S3-compatible workflows. Backblaze Help

3. High-volume studio with frequent client downloads

Recommended setup: Cloudflare R2

If every gallery gets heavy traffic:

• commercial shoots,
• school photography,
• stock photography,
• print ordering systems,

then predictable delivery costs can matter more than the storage price difference. R2’s zero-egress model is designed for this type of workload. Cloudflare Docs

Don’t serve full-resolution originals directly

For photography galleries, a common mistake is making every visitor load 20–50 MB files.

Instead:

• Store originals privately.
• Generate:

• thumbnails (300–800 px)
• previews (1500–2500 px)
• full-resolution downloads only after purchase/login
• Convert web previews to WebP or AVIF where possible.
• Add lazy loading and image resizing.

This can reduce bandwidth dramatically while keeping galleries fast.

A cost-effective stack I would consider

For many independent photographers:

• Archive storage: Backblaze B2
• Gallery delivery: Cloudflare R2 or Cloudflare CDN layer
• Gallery software: a dedicated photo platform or a custom frontend using S3-compatible storage
• Backup: separate copy on local NAS/external drives

The cheapest storage alone is rarely the cheapest complete solution; delivery costs and client experience usually decide the winner. Startupik

If you share roughly:

• total storage (e.g., 2 TB vs 50 TB),
• monthly gallery visitors/downloads,
• whether clients need full-res downloads,
• whether you want a ready-made gallery service or to build your own,

I can narrow it to a specific architecture and estimated monthly cost.

For large photographer galleries, I’d shortlist Cloudflare R2 + CDN, Bunny Storage + CDN, and Backblaze B2 + CDN.

• Cloudflare R2: $0.015/GB-month, zero internet egress fees—excellent when galleries generate lots of views/downloads. Cloudflare Docs
• Bunny Storage + CDN: storage from $0.01/GB, free traffic from storage to Bunny CDN; CDN starts around $0.01/GB in Europe/North America. bunny.net bunny.net
• Backblaze B2 + CDN: $6.95/TB-month, with egress free up to 3× stored data and unlimited free egress through supported CDN partners. Backblaze

For a photography business, I’d particularly compare R2 vs. Bunny: R2 is compelling for unpredictable/high traffic, while Bunny offers an unusually simple storage+CDN stack. Cloudflare Docs bunny.net

For a photographer hosting large client galleries, the sweet spot is usually object storage + CDN delivery rather than traditional web hosting. You want:

• Low cost per TB of originals
• Fast thumbnail/full-resolution delivery worldwide
• Predictable bandwidth costs
• Support for private galleries (signed URLs, expiring links)
• Easy integration with Lightroom workflows, gallery software, or a custom site

Here are the strongest options:

Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress DigitalOcean## My shortlist by photographer workflow

1. Wedding / portrait photographer with hundreds of galleries

Recommended setup: Bunny.net or Cloudflare R2

Example:

• 2 TB of JPEG galleries
• 500 GB–2 TB/month client viewing
• Private gallery links

A CDN-backed storage provider keeps previews and downloads fast without paying a large web-hosting bill. Bunny.net is popular for this type of workload because storage and delivery can be combined, while Cloudflare R2 is attractive when bandwidth costs are a concern. Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress CloudOverview

2. Large archive (years of RAW files + finished galleries)

Recommended setup: Backblaze B2 or Wasabi

If the main goal is inexpensive storage:

• Store originals cheaply
• Keep only active galleries on faster delivery infrastructure
• Use a backup copy elsewhere

Backblaze B2 and Wasabi are designed around low-cost object storage and are commonly used for large media libraries. Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress

3. You want the simplest DIY gallery backend

Recommended setup: DigitalOcean Spaces

Advantages:

• Simple dashboard
• S3-compatible tools
• Built-in CDN
• Less configuration than AWS

DigitalOcean Spaces includes object storage with CDN delivery and starts with a small monthly plan suitable for many smaller studios. DigitalOcean

4. High-end studio / custom platform

Recommended setup: AWS S3 + CloudFront

Choose this if you need:

• Complex permissions
• Automated processing pipelines
• Integrations with business systems
• Very large scale

The tradeoff is more configuration and potentially higher costs if many clients view large files. Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress

Features I would prioritize for photography galleries

• Automatic WebP/AVIF conversion — reduces load times dramatically
• Responsive image resizing — don't send a 45MP JPEG to a phone
• Signed URLs — prevent clients from sharing private gallery links indefinitely
• Separate originals from web copies

• RAW/TIFF → cheap archive storage
• JPEG previews → CDN delivery
• Lifecycle rules

• Move old weddings/events into cheaper storage tiers

A practical cost-conscious architecture

For many professional photographers:

RAW + TIFF archive
        ↓
Backblaze B2 / Wasabi

Finished JPEG gallery images
        ↓
Bunny.net / Cloudflare R2 + CDN

Website + client proofing
        ↓
WordPress / custom gallery app / photo platform

This avoids paying premium CDN prices for files clients rarely access while keeping active galleries fast.

If you tell me roughly:

1. your total storage size (e.g., 500 GB, 5 TB, 50 TB),
2. monthly gallery traffic, and
3. whether you use Pixieset, SmugMug, WordPress, or a custom site,

I can narrow it down to the lowest-cost architecture.

If you’re hosting large photography galleries, I’d generally avoid traditional web hosting and use object storage + CDN. The combination gives you cheap bulk storage, global caching, and much better control over bandwidth costs.

As of September 2026, these are the options I’d shortlist:

1. Best value: Backblaze B2 + Bunny CDN

backblaze.com + bunny.net

This is probably my first choice for a professional photographer.

backblaze.com is $6.95/TB/month, has no minimum storage duration, and includes free egress up to 3× your average monthly storage. More importantly for a gallery, Backblaze gives unlimited free egress when B2 is used through supported CDN partners, including Bunny and Cloudflare. Backblaze Backblaze

Then put bunny.net in front of it. Bunny's standard European/North American CDN bandwidth is $0.01/GB, while its volume network starts at $0.005/GB. bunny.net bunny.net

Example: 5 TB of originals + 1 TB/month gallery traffic

• B2: about $34.75/month
• Bunny CDN: about $10/month for 1 TB EU/NA delivery
• Total: ~$44.75/month

You can also use Bunny's image optimization/dynamic processing if you want thumbnails and responsive versions.

2. Simplest: Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN

bunny.net

If you don't want two vendors, this is extremely attractive.

Bunny Storage is currently $0.01/GB/month per region for its standard HDD tier, with traffic from storage to Bunny's CDN free. Its CDN is $0.01/GB in Europe/North America. bunny.net bunny.net

For 5 TB:

• Storage: ~$51.20/month
• 1 TB EU/NA CDN traffic: ~$10
• Total: ~$61/month

The advantage is simplicity: one dashboard, storage, CDN, and image delivery. Bunny also reports a 119-PoP standard network and low global latency. bunny.net

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

3. Best image-focused architecture: Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare Images

developers.cloudflare.com

R2 is $0.015/GB-month for Standard storage and has zero internet egress charges. It can also be placed behind Cloudflare's cache using a custom domain. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs

The particularly nice part for photography is adding Cloudflare Images transformations. You can keep the original JPEGs in R2 and have Cloudflare dynamically generate appropriately sized WebP/AVIF versions for thumbnails, grids, mobile, etc. Cloudflare explicitly describes R2 + Images as its cost-effective custom image pipeline. Cloudflare Docs

For example:

original.jpg → 400px thumbnail → 1200px gallery → 2400px fullscreen

without storing three physical copies of every photograph.

Images transformations are currently $0.50 per 1,000 unique transformations after the first 5,000/month. Cloudflare Docs

Important photographer caveat: Cloudflare's hosted Images storage has a 10 MB per-image limit, so I'd keep large originals in R2 rather than uploading your master files directly to Images. Remote images in R2 can be up to 100 MB for transformations. Cloudflare Docs

4. Very predictable: Wasabi

wasabi.com

Wasabi is attractive if you mainly care about cheap, predictable hot storage. Current Pay-As-You-Go pricing is $7.99/TB/month, with no egress or API-request fees. Wasabi Technologies

The catches are important:

• 1 TB minimum monthly storage charge
• 90-day minimum storage duration for Pay-As-You-Go
• You'll generally still want a CDN in front of it for consistently fast worldwide gallery delivery. Wasabi Technologies Wasabi Technologies

So I'd favor Wasabi for long-lived galleries/archive storage, rather than constantly uploading and deleting short-lived client galleries.

5. AWS S3 + CloudFront

aws.amazon.com + aws.amazon.com

This remains an excellent technical solution, but I'd rarely choose it purely for price.

AWS has introduced CloudFront flat-rate plans: Free, $15/month Pro, $200 Business and $1,000 Premium. The Pro tier includes up to 50 TB/month of CDN transfer and 10 million requests, plus 50 GB of S3 storage credits. Amazon Web Services, Inc. AWS Documentation

It's compelling if you're already building your infrastructure on AWS or need AWS's broader ecosystem. For a photographer primarily wanting cheap storage + a fast gallery, B2/Bunny or R2 is generally simpler.

What I'd use for a photography business

I'd rank them:

1. B2 + Bunny CDN — lowest-cost professional setup.
2. Bunny Storage + CDN — easiest all-in-one setup.
3. R2 + Cloudflare Images — best if you're building a sophisticated custom gallery with automatic resizing/AVIF/WebP.
4. Wasabi + CDN — excellent predictable storage, especially for larger archives.
5. S3 + CloudFront — best when AWS integration matters more than raw cost.

A good architecture

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

RAW / original JPEGs
        ↓
   Object storage
   B2 / R2 / Wasabi
        ↓
 Image optimization
 WebP / AVIF / JPEG
        ↓
       CDN
        ↓
 Client gallery

Keep the originals private and expose only resized versions through the CDN. Use signed URLs for original-resolution downloads.

Also, don't serve 20–50 MB camera JPEGs to the gallery grid. Generate appropriately sized derivatives—Cloudflare, for example, recommends responsive sizes and maximum widths around 1920px for desktop, 960px for tablets and 640px for mobile. Cloudflare Docs

For a photographer, this optimization can save far more bandwidth than switching between storage providers.

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

For large photography galleries, the best value usually comes from S3-compatible object storage + a CDN/image optimization layer. Top options:

My typical recommendation:

• Client galleries with thousands of viewers: Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN.
• Years of RAW/JPEG archives: Backblaze B2.
• Hybrid workflow: Keep originals in B2, serve web-sized images through R2/CDN or an image delivery service.

Also consider dedicated photo gallery platforms if you need client proofing, watermarking, favorites, and payments: Pixieset, SmugMug, and PhotoShelter trade some storage flexibility for a ready-made photographer workflow.

For a photographer hosting large galleries with lots of image views/downloads, I’d prioritize two things separately:

1. Cheap object storage for your master images and derivatives.
2. A CDN so thumbnails and full-resolution images are delivered from locations close to visitors.

The best options right now are:

1. Cloudflare R2 — my first choice

Cloudflare R2 is particularly attractive for photography because internet egress is free. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB of monthly storage included in the free tier. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare

That matters enormously for galleries. Suppose you have:

• 5 TB of photographs
• 20 TB/month of image traffic

Your storage is roughly $75/month, while the potentially huge bandwidth bill isn't charged as traditional egress.

A typical architecture would be:

Gallery website → Cloudflare CDN → R2 → original/optimized images

I'd use multiple image sizes—e.g. 400px thumbnails, 1200–2000px gallery images, and full-resolution downloads—rather than serving the original 40–80 MB RAW/JPEG files to every visitor.

2. Backblaze B2 + Bunny CDN — excellent for very large archives

Backblaze B2 starts at $6.95/TB/month, with free egress up to 3× your average stored data. More importantly, Backblaze lists unlimited free egress through several CDN partners, including Bunny and Cloudflare. Backblaze Backblaze Help

This makes a particularly compelling photography stack:

Backblaze B2 → Bunny CDN → gallery

You get inexpensive long-term storage while letting the CDN handle the high-volume image delivery.

3. Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — probably the easiest

Bunny.net is worth a serious look if you don't want to assemble several services.

Bunny's standard storage is $0.01/GB per region, with traffic to Bunny's CDN free from storage. Its CDN starts at $0.01/GB in Europe/North America and $0.005/GB on its Volume Network for the first 500 TB. bunny.net bunny.net

For a primarily US audience, that's exceptionally inexpensive. Bunny also reports a global median latency of around 24 ms on its network. bunny.net

I'd choose this if you want "upload images, put them behind CDN, and don't spend weeks designing infrastructure."

4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — powerful but usually not my cost pick

Amazon Web Services S3 + CloudFront is extremely capable and makes sense if the rest of your site already lives on AWS.

However, S3's pricing is more complicated, and AWS generally charges for internet data transfer from S3. Data transferred from S3 to CloudFront is exempt, but CloudFront itself has its own bandwidth pricing. Amazon Web Services, Inc.

For a photographer whose primary concern is "store tens of terabytes and serve lots of photos cheaply," I'd normally investigate R2 or B2/Bunny first.

What I'd actually build

For a professional photography gallery, my shortlist would be:

Best overall:
Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN

Best for enormous archives:
Backblaze B2 + Bunny CDN

Best simple/cheap all-in-one:
Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN

I'd also avoid putting the gallery's original full-resolution files directly on the CDN. Keep originals private and create optimized JPEG/WebP/AVIF derivatives for browsing. Then use signed URLs or another access-control mechanism for paid/client downloads.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you have, monthly visitors/pageviews, average image size, and whether clients download full-resolution files, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2+Bunny vs S3/CloudFront for your actual workload.

For a photographer hosting large client galleries (weddings, events, commercial shoots, archives), the best value usually comes from separating storage from website hosting:

• Store originals and gallery assets in object storage
• Deliver resized images through a CDN (content delivery network)
• Keep your website/app lightweight

The most cost-effective choices are usually:

Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress DigitalOcean## My top picks for photographers

1. Bunny.net — best client gallery experience

Bunny.net is often a strong fit for photographers because it combines storage and CDN delivery in one service.

Good for:

• Wedding photographers with hundreds of galleries
• International clients
• Fast thumbnail browsing
• Private galleries with expiring links

Typical setup:

• Upload full-resolution JPEGs/WebP files to storage
• Generate thumbnails
• Serve through CDN URLs

Pros:

• Fast global delivery
• Simple configuration
• Lower complexity than AWS

Cons:

• Less enterprise tooling than AWS

Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress

2. Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN — lowest-cost large library

Backblaze B2 is excellent if you have many terabytes of photos and want cheap storage.

Example use:

• 5–20 TB archive
• Client galleries that are occasionally viewed
• Long-term storage of RAW files

Pros:

• Very low storage pricing
• S3-compatible
• Works well with third-party tools

Cons:

• Requires more setup for a polished gallery experience

Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress

3. Cloudflare R2 — best when galleries get heavy traffic

Cloudflare R2 is attractive if you have popular galleries where bandwidth costs could become unpredictable.

Pros:

• No egress fees
• Integrates naturally with Cloudflare's global network
• Good for high-volume viewing

Cons:

• You may need to build more of the gallery workflow yourself

skb.io

4. DigitalOcean Spaces — easiest “just works” option

DigitalOcean Spaces is a good middle ground.

Pros:

• Simple dashboard
• S3-compatible
• CDN included
• Predictable pricing

Good for:

• Independent photographers
• Small studios
• WordPress galleries

DigitalOcean DigitalOcean

Avoid storing everything on your web host

Traditional hosting plans often become expensive or slow when you have:

• 10,000+ images
• Multiple simultaneous clients downloading galleries
• High-resolution previews
• Years of archives

A better architecture:

Website / Gallery App
        |
        |
Object Storage
(Bunny / B2 / R2 / Spaces)
        |
        |
CDN
        |
        |
Client Browser

Optimize images before delivery

Regardless of provider:

• Keep RAW files in archive storage
• Serve JPEG/WebP/AVIF for galleries
• Create multiple sizes: - thumbnail: ~300–600 px
• gallery preview: ~1500–2500 px
• download original: full resolution
• Use signed URLs for private client galleries

Suggested setups by photographer type

Wedding photographer (hundreds of client galleries)

Best: Bunny.net or DigitalOcean Spaces
Goal: Fast client browsing, simple management

Commercial photographer (large active portfolio)

Best: Cloudflare R2 + CDN
Goal: High traffic without bandwidth surprises

Photographer with years of RAW archives

Best: Backblaze B2 + separate delivery layer
Goal: Cheapest long-term storage

Studio with enterprise needs

Best: AWS S3 + CloudFront
Goal: Maximum control and integrations

For most solo photographers, I would start with Bunny.net for active galleries + Backblaze B2 for archives. That combination usually gives a good balance of speed, privacy, and cost. Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress

For a photographer, I’d separate cheap storage from fast image delivery. Large galleries can generate surprisingly high bandwidth bills, so egress pricing matters as much as $/TB storage.

Best options

Cloudflare R2 is particularly attractive for photography: standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with free Internet egress. Cloudflare Docs That makes it compelling when clients repeatedly browse/download large galleries.

Backblaze B2 is even cheaper for storage at $6.95/TB/month. It includes egress up to 3× your average stored data, and Backblaze specifically supports using Cloudflare CDN with B2 without download fees from B2. Backblaze Backblaze For example, you could keep 10 TB of originals in B2 and put Cloudflare in front of it for global delivery.

Wasabi is another strong choice if you prioritize simplicity. Its current pay-as-you-go price is $7.99/TB/month, with no egress or API-request fees. Wasabi Wasabi Academy

AWS is excellent technically, but I'd generally choose it when you're already building heavily around AWS rather than purely to minimize gallery costs. S3 charges for Internet bandwidth, while transfers from S3 to CloudFront are free; CloudFront now also has flat-rate plans with included data-transfer allowances. Amazon Web Services, Inc. Amazon Web Services, Inc.

What I'd choose for a photography business

Best overall: Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN/Workers

• Store original/high-resolution images in R2.
• Generate several derivatives, e.g. thumbnail, 1600px, 3000px, full-resolution.
• Cache derivatives aggressively at the edge.
• Use signed URLs or authentication for private client galleries.
• Keep originals separate from publicly accessible derivatives.
• Use WebP/AVIF where appropriate to dramatically reduce delivery bandwidth.

Best ultra-low-cost architecture: Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN

This is particularly compelling if you're storing tens of TB of RAW/JPEG originals but want fast worldwide delivery for only the selected images. Backblaze explicitly documents the B2 + Cloudflare architecture for serving media through a CDN. Backblaze

Simplest: Wasabi

If you don't want to think much about bandwidth calculations, Wasabi's flat storage pricing and no egress/API fees make budgeting straightforward. Wasabi

A practical architecture

                         ┌── Thumbnail
                         ├── Web/Proof JPEG
Client → CDN → Image API ├── High-res JPEG
                         └── Download/original
                                │
                                ▼
                         Object Storage
                       (R2 / B2 / Wasabi)

For a photographer, I would not serve 50–100 MB originals directly to every gallery visitor. Store the originals cheaply, but deliver optimized derivatives through a CDN. That gives you much faster galleries and substantially reduces bandwidth.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly visitors/downloads, average image size, and whether galleries are private, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Wasabi vs AWS for your specific workload.

For a photographer hosting large client galleries, the main cost drivers are usually:

1. Storage ($/TB/month) — keeping RAWs, JPEGs, previews, and archives.
2. Bandwidth/egress — clients downloading thousands of high-resolution images.
3. CDN performance — how quickly galleries load worldwide.
4. Image workflow features — thumbnails, resizing, private links, watermarking, access control.

The best solution is often object storage + CDN, rather than a traditional web host.

Best-value cloud storage options for photography galleries

Backblaze Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress## My top picks by photography use case

1. Wedding/event photographer with many client galleries

Recommended stack: Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN

Example:

• Store originals and gallery images in Backblaze B2.
• Put Cloudflare in front for caching and fast delivery.
• Serve resized JPEGs/WebP versions rather than full originals.

Why:

• Very low storage cost.
• Good for thousands of images.
• CDN reduces repeated downloads from your storage bucket.
• Backblaze supports CDN delivery integrations with reduced/no egress costs through partners such as Cloudflare. Backblaze Backblaze

2. Luxury photographer with viral/high-traffic galleries

Recommended: Cloudflare R2

Good when:

• A gallery may suddenly get thousands of visitors.
• Clients download lots of images.
• You want predictable bills.

Cloudflare R2 eliminates egress charges, which can matter more than storage price for image-heavy sites. InfraTally

3. Studio needing enterprise workflows

Recommended: Amazon S3 + CloudFront

Choose this if you need:

• Advanced permissions.
• Integration with editing/automation pipelines.
• Enterprise compliance features.
• Deep ecosystem support.

The downside is complexity and potentially higher bandwidth costs compared with newer storage providers. AIMultiple

A practical architecture for a professional photo business

A cost-efficient setup:

Upload
  ↓
Object Storage
(Backblaze B2 / Cloudflare R2)
  ↓
Image Processing
(thumbnails, WebP, JPEG resizing)
  ↓
CDN
(Cloudflare / Bunny.net)
  ↓
Client Gallery

Store:

• RAW files → cheaper archive storage
• Full-resolution JPEGs → private client downloads
• WebP/AVIF thumbnails → website viewing

Avoid serving 25–50 MB originals for gallery browsing.

Features photographers should look for

• Signed/private URLs (prevent random sharing)
• Password-protected galleries
• Automatic thumbnail generation
• EXIF stripping options
• Image resizing at the edge
• S3 compatibility (makes migration easier)
• Lifecycle rules (move old weddings to archive storage)

Approximate monthly costs

For 5 TB of galleries:

• Backblaze B2: roughly $35/month storage before any additional usage charges. Backblaze
• Cloudflare R2: roughly $75/month storage with bandwidth costs designed to be predictable. InfraTally
• AWS S3 Standard: often higher once storage, requests, and delivery bandwidth are included. AIMultiple

For most independent photographers, I would shortlist:

1. Best overall value: Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN
2. Best for unpredictable traffic: Cloudflare R2
3. Best all-in-one simplicity: Bunny.net Storage + CDN
4. Best enterprise choice: AWS S3 + CloudFront

If you share your approximate library size (e.g., 2 TB, 20 TB, 100 TB), monthly client downloads, and whether galleries need password protection, I can estimate the monthly cost more precisely.

For a photography site with large galleries, lots of high-resolution JPEGs/RAW previews, and potentially heavy download traffic, I’d focus on object storage + CDN rather than traditional web hosting.

Best options

🥇 My pick: Cloudflare R2

Cloudflare R2 is particularly attractive for photography because there's no internet egress charge. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB/month included in the free tier. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs

That matters enormously for galleries. Suppose you have:

• 5 TB of original/gallery images
• 10 TB/month of visitors downloading/viewing images

Your storage is roughly $75/month, while the 10 TB of R2 egress itself doesn't generate an egress bill. You can put Cloudflare's global network in front of it for caching and image delivery.

This is especially compelling if you're building your own gallery application rather than using something like SmugMug or Pixieset.

developers.cloudflare.com

🥈 Bunny Storage + CDN — potentially even cheaper

Bunny.net is worth serious consideration for a photographer.

Bunny Storage starts around $0.01/GB/month per region, has no API request fees, and traffic from storage to Bunny's CDN is free. Its CDN starts at $0.01/GB in North America/Europe and can be as low as $0.005/GB on its Volume network. bunny.net bunny.net

For example, 5 TB storage + 10 TB CDN traffic could be dramatically cheaper than conventional AWS infrastructure.

Bunny also reports very low global latency and has a substantial edge network. bunny.net

bunny.net

🥉 Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare

Backblaze B2 is excellent if your priority is cheap bulk storage.

It's currently $6.95/TB/month, and Backblaze provides free egress up to 3× your average monthly storage; more importantly for galleries, B2 has an integration with Cloudflare that allows B2 content to be delivered through Cloudflare without Backblaze download fees. Backblaze Backblaze

This is a particularly nice architecture if you want:

B2 → Cloudflare CDN → photographer's website

It separates inexpensive storage from global delivery.

backblaze.com

AWS S3 + CloudFront

Amazon Web Services S3 + Amazon CloudFront remains the safest conventional choice if you're already using AWS.

CloudFront caches images at edge locations, and AWS doesn't charge S3→CloudFront data transfer, which makes the combination substantially better than serving S3 directly to the internet. Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services

However, for an independent photographer, I wouldn't choose AWS purely on price. R2 or Bunny is generally simpler and easier to predict financially.

aws.amazon.com

What I'd build for a photography gallery

For a serious gallery platform, I'd use something like:

Original photos
→ inexpensive object storage

Web-sized JPEG/WebP/AVIF derivatives
→ same storage

CDN
→ Cloudflare or Bunny

Gallery application
→ your normal web server/database

Browser
→ CDN-served optimized images

The important part is not serving 30–60 MB original files to the browser. Generate multiple sizes, for example:

• 400 px thumbnail
• 1200 px gallery image
• 2400 px large image
• Original/high-resolution download

Then use responsive images (srcset) so a phone doesn't download a 20 MB image when a 200 KB version will do.

My ranking

For most photographers:
1. Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN

For lowest-cost high-volume delivery:
2. Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN

For enormous archives:
3. Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare

For AWS-heavy/enterprise infrastructure:
4. S3 + CloudFront

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store and how many TB/month your galleries deliver (e.g. 10 TB stored / 30 TB transferred per month), I can calculate a realistic monthly cost for these four architectures and identify the cheapest one.

Backblaze B2 is excellent if your priority is cheap bulk storage.

It's currently $6.95/TB/month, and Backblaze provides free egress up to 3× your average monthly storage; more importantly for galleries, B2 has an integration with Cloudflare that allows B2 content to be delivered through Cloudflare without Backblaze download fees. Backblaze Backblaze

This is a particularly nice architecture if you want:

B2 → Cloudflare CDN → photographer's website

It separates inexpensive storage from global delivery.

backblaze.com

AWS S3 + CloudFront

Amazon Web Services S3 + Amazon CloudFront remains the safest conventional choice if you're already using AWS.

CloudFront caches images at edge locations, and AWS doesn't charge S3→CloudFront data transfer, which makes the combination substantially better than serving S3 directly to the internet. aws.amazon.com aws.amazon.com

However, for an independent photographer, I wouldn't choose AWS purely on price. R2 or Bunny is generally simpler and easier to predict financially.

For a photographer, I’d separate storage from delivery. Your originals may be hundreds of GB or several TB, while gallery visitors can generate huge amounts of outbound bandwidth. The latter is where traditional cloud storage can get expensive.

Best options

*Current published pricing; actual bills depend on requests, region, CDN architecture and applicable policies.

Cloudflare R2 is particularly attractive for photography galleries. Standard storage is $0.015/GB-month and internet egress is free, so a 5 TB library would be roughly $75/month for storage, before request costs. Cloudflare Docs

Backblaze B2 is probably my favorite alternative. It's currently $6.95/TB/month and gives you free egress up to 3× your average stored data; egress can also be unlimited/free when going through several CDN partners. Backblaze Backblaze

Wasabi is attractive if you want very simple billing: $7.99/TB/month with no egress or API-request fees under its free-egress policy. However, its policy has usage/fair-use conditions, so I'd examine those carefully if your galleries have unusually high download traffic. Wasabi Technologies Wasabi Technologies

AWS S3 + CloudFront is the heavyweight option. It's excellent technically and integrates with virtually everything, but S3 itself charges for internet data transfer; transfer from S3 to CloudFront is free, so a properly configured CloudFront setup can make sense for a larger production platform. Amazon Web Services, Inc.

What I'd build for a photography business

For client proofing / wedding galleries / event galleries, I'd lean toward:

R2 → CDN/cache → optimized JPEG/WebP/AVIF thumbnails

and keep the original RAW/TIFF files in a cheaper archival bucket or separate storage tier.

For example, if you have 10 TB of photographs and your galleries serve 30 TB/month:

• R2: ~$150/month storage, with no R2 internet-egress charge.
• B2: ~$69.50/month storage, with 30 TB egress comfortably covered by its 3× allowance.
• Wasabi: ~$79.90/month storage, assuming the traffic fits its free-egress policy.
• S3: storage alone is around $230/month at the commonly cited S3 Standard rate, before considering the rest of the architecture. Cloudflare Docs Backblaze Wasabi Technologies

So for a photographer, Backblaze B2 and Cloudflare R2 are the two I'd investigate first. B2 is exceptionally cheap for the underlying photo library; R2 is compelling when gallery traffic is large and unpredictable because egress doesn't add a bandwidth charge.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly visitors/downloads, and whether you're building the gallery yourself or using something like WordPress, I can calculate the likely monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Wasabi vs S3.

Backblaze B2 is probably my favorite alternative. It's currently $6.95/TB/month and gives you free egress up to 3× your average stored data; egress can also be unlimited/free when going through several CDN partners. Backblaze Backblaze

Wasabi is attractive if you want very simple billing: $7.99/TB/month with no egress or API-request fees under its free-egress policy. However, its policy has usage/fair-use conditions, so I'd examine those carefully if your galleries have unusually high download traffic. wasabi.com wasabi.com

AWS S3 + CloudFront is the heavyweight option. It's excellent technically and integrates with virtually everything, but S3 itself charges for internet data transfer; transfer from S3 to CloudFront is free, so a properly configured CloudFront setup can make sense for a larger production platform.

What I'd build for a photography business

For client proofing / wedding galleries / event galleries, I'd lean toward:

R2 → CDN/cache → optimized JPEG/WebP/AVIF thumbnails

and keep the original RAW/TIFF files in a cheaper archival bucket or separate storage tier.

For a photographer hosting large client galleries, the best solution is usually not the cheapest storage alone — it is the combination of:

1. Low $/TB storage
2. Fast global image delivery (CDN)
3. Low or predictable bandwidth/egress costs
4. Easy integration with your gallery software

Here are the strongest options:

Backblaze Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress## My typical recommendations by photography workflow

1. Wedding / portrait photographer delivering hundreds of galleries

Best value setup:

• Storage: Backblaze B2
• Delivery: Cloudflare CDN

Why:

• Your images are mostly uploaded once and viewed repeatedly.
• Storage stays inexpensive.
• CDN caching keeps repeat client views fast.

Backblaze B2 advertises low-cost object storage and includes free egress allowances that can work well for media libraries, especially when paired with CDN partners. Backblaze

2. You expect viral traffic or thousands of client downloads

Best choice:

• Cloudflare R2

Why:

• Predictable bills.
• No standard egress charges.
• Good fit when you cannot predict how many people will download images. Startupik

3. You mainly need a long-term archive

Best choice:

• Wasabi Technologies or Backblaze B2

Why:

• Lower storage costs.
• Good for keeping years of RAW files, finished JPEGs, and backups.

Be aware that Wasabi has minimum billing/retention considerations that may matter if you frequently delete and replace files. ondelva

A practical architecture for a professional photographer

A common setup:

Camera RAW files
        |
        v
Cloud archive
(Backblaze B2 / Wasabi)
        |
        v
Optimized JPEG/WebP gallery files
        |
        v
CDN delivery
(Cloudflare / Bunny.net)
        |
        v
Clients worldwide

Keep:

• RAW files → cheap storage tier
• Client-facing JPEGs → CDN-backed storage
• Thumbnails → aggressively cached
• Downloads → signed/private URLs if galleries are private

What I would choose for most photographers

• Under ~5 TB and cost-sensitive: Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN
• High-volume public/client delivery: Cloudflare R2
• 10+ TB archive with predictable usage: Wasabi or Backblaze B2
• Need the simplest all-in-one media delivery: Bunny.net

A photographer with, for example, 5 TB of galleries and 1–3 TB/month of client viewing traffic would usually get a better cost/performance balance from B2 + CDN or R2 than from AWS S3 + CloudFront. tuskbackup.com nubbo.app

If you tell me your approximate storage size (1 TB, 10 TB, 50 TB+), monthly gallery views/downloads, and what platform you use (Pixieset, SmugMug, WordPress, custom site, etc.), I can narrow it to the cheapest architecture.

For a photographer serving large galleries, I’d generally avoid using a traditional web host as the primary image store. The sweet spot is object storage + CDN, ideally with automatic image resizing/WebP/AVIF so visitors aren’t downloading 15–30 MB originals.

My shortlist

Cloudflare Docs Backblaze bunny.net Amazon Web Services, Inc.### 1. cloudflare.com — my default recommendation

R2 is particularly attractive for photography because internet egress is free. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB of storage included in the free tier. It's S3-compatible and sits within Cloudflare's global network. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs

That matters enormously if, for example, you have:

• 5 TB of original + processed images
• 10–20 TB/month of gallery traffic
• lots of people downloading previews

With conventional S3-style storage, bandwidth can become more expensive than storage itself. R2 largely eliminates that concern.

Best architecture:
R2 → Cloudflare CDN/Workers → visitor

You can also put an image-processing layer in front of it to generate appropriately sized thumbnails, medium images, and full-resolution files.

2. backblaze.com — excellent for huge archives

B2 currently starts at $6.95/TB/month, making it exceptionally inexpensive for storing large photo libraries. It includes free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, and egress can be unlimited when using several supported CDN partners. Backblaze Backblaze

For example, if you have 10 TB stored, you get roughly 30 TB/month of included egress before the normal overage rate applies.

I'd choose B2 if your priority is:

"I have tens of terabytes of RAWs and finished JPEGs and want the cheapest sensible place to keep them."

For the public-facing galleries, pair it with a CDN rather than making B2 itself handle every request.

3. bunny.net — excellent for fast galleries

Bunny is interesting because it combines inexpensive storage with a CDN. Standard HDD storage is currently $0.01/GB/month for one region, and traffic from storage to Bunny's CDN is free. Its CDN has 119 PoPs and advertises very low global latency. bunny.net bunny.net

This is particularly compelling if your main requirement is:

"I want galleries to feel extremely fast without building a complicated AWS/Cloudflare architecture."

Bunny also offers image optimization tools, which can be useful for automatically delivering smaller versions to phones and laptops.

4. aws.amazon.com + CloudFront — powerful, but usually not cheapest

S3 is the safe choice if you're already deeply invested in AWS. It has multiple storage classes and integrates with virtually everything. But S3's pricing has more moving pieces, including storage, requests, retrieval, and data-transfer charges. Amazon Web Services, Inc.

I'd use it when you need AWS's broader infrastructure rather than simply because you're hosting photographs.

What I'd actually build

For a professional photography gallery, I'd lean toward:

R2 + Cloudflare CDN + image transformation

Keep:

• Original RAWs: private archival storage
• Full-resolution JPEGs: R2
• Web-sized JPEG/AVIF/WebP: generated versions
• Thumbnails: aggressively compressed
• Gallery metadata: database/CMS
• Delivery: CDN with long-lived caching

The crucial optimization is not serving the original 20–50 MB JPEG to every gallery visitor. A 3–5 MB display image—or even a 500 KB–1.5 MB WebP/AVIF on a phone—can make galleries dramatically faster and reduce bandwidth regardless of provider.

My ranking

For most photographers: Cloudflare R2
For massive archives: Backblaze B2
For simple, very fast gallery delivery: Bunny
For an AWS-heavy operation: S3 + CloudFront

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly gallery visitors/downloads, and whether clients need full-resolution downloads, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Bunny vs S3 for your actual workload.

"I have tens of terabytes of RAWs and finished JPEGs and want the cheapest sensible place to keep them."

For the public-facing galleries, pair it with a CDN rather than making B2 itself handle every request.

3. bunny.net — excellent for fast galleries

Bunny is interesting because it combines inexpensive storage with a CDN. Standard HDD storage is currently $0.01/GB/month for one region, and traffic from storage to Bunny's CDN is free. Its CDN has 119 PoPs and advertises very low global latency. bunny.net bunny.net

This is particularly compelling if your main requirement is:

"I want galleries to feel extremely fast without building a complicated AWS/Cloudflare architecture."

Bunny also offers image optimization tools, which can be useful for automatically delivering smaller versions to phones and laptops.

4. aws.amazon.com + CloudFront — powerful, but usually not cheapest

S3 is the safe choice if you're already deeply invested in AWS. It has multiple storage classes and integrates with virtually everything. But S3's pricing has more moving pieces, including storage, requests, retrieval, and data-transfer charges. Amazon Web Services, Inc.

I'd use it when you need AWS's broader infrastructure rather than simply because you're hosting photographs.

What I'd actually build

For a professional photography gallery, I'd lean toward:

R2 + Cloudflare CDN + image transformation

Keep:

• Original RAWs: private archival storage
• Full-resolution JPEGs: R2
• Web-sized JPEG/AVIF/WebP: generated versions
• Thumbnails: aggressively compressed
• Gallery metadata: database/CMS
• Delivery: CDN with long-lived caching

The crucial optimization is not serving the original 20–50 MB JPEG to every gallery visitor. A 3–5 MB display image—or even a 500 KB–1.5 MB WebP/AVIF on a phone—can make galleries dramatically faster and reduce bandwidth regardless of provider.

My ranking

For most photographers: Cloudflare R2
For massive archives: Backblaze B2
For simple, very fast gallery delivery: Bunny
For an AWS-heavy operation: S3 + CloudFront

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly gallery visitors/downloads, and whether clients need full-resolution downloads, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Bunny vs S3 for your actual workload.

For a photographer serving large galleries, I’d prioritize two things separately: cheap object storage for the originals and a CDN for fast thumbnail/full-resolution delivery. The best value is often not a traditional web host.

Best options

Cloudflare R2 is particularly attractive if your galleries get unpredictable traffic: it currently charges $0.015/GB-month for Standard storage and doesn't charge Internet egress, though request charges still apply. Cloudflare Docs

Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN is probably my favorite for a photography-gallery website where viewer experience matters. Storage starts at $0.01/GB-month, traffic from storage to Bunny's CDN is free, and Bunny CDN starts at $0.01/GB in Europe/North America. bunny.net bunny.net

For example, 10 TB of originals would be roughly:

• Bunny Storage: ~$100/month for one storage region, before CDN delivery.
• Cloudflare R2: ~$150/month, with Internet egress free.
• Wasabi: ~$79.90/month, with no egress/API charges subject to its policies.
• Backblaze B2: ~$69.50/month, with its included egress allowance. Wasabi Backblaze

What I'd build

For a professional photography gallery, I'd use:

Originals → object storage → image processing → CDN → gallery website

And I'd generate several sizes rather than serving 30–60 MB RAW/JPEG originals to every visitor:

• 400–800px thumbnails
• ~1600–2400px gallery images
• Full-resolution download on demand
• WebP/AVIF versions where appropriate
• Originals kept in cheaper storage and delivered only when purchased/downloaded

My pick: Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN if maximum gallery speed and simplicity are the priorities; Cloudflare R2 if eliminating egress surprises is more important. Bunny reports a global CDN network of 119 PoPs and currently advertises very low CDN pricing. bunny.net bunny.net

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly gallery visitors/downloads, and average image size, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs Bunny vs Backblaze vs Wasabi for your actual photography workload.

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, I’d prioritize three things: $/TB storage, bandwidth/egress costs, and CDN/image optimization. For a gallery site, bandwidth can easily become more expensive than storage.

My top choices

*Current published pricing; actual costs vary by region and usage.

Cloudflare R2 is particularly attractive for a photography gallery. It costs $0.015/GB-month for standard storage and, importantly, doesn't charge internet egress. It's S3-compatible and runs on Cloudflare's global network, making it a strong combination of storage + global delivery. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs

Backblaze B2 is probably my second choice. At $6.95/TB/month, storage is exceptionally inexpensive, and you get free egress up to 3× your average monthly storage. More importantly, Backblaze has CDN integrations where egress from B2 to participating CDNs can be free. Backblaze Backblaze

Wasabi is also compelling at $7.99/TB/month as of July 2026, with no egress or API charges subject to its fair-use policy. However, its terms include a 1 TB minimum for Pay-Go and a 90-day minimum storage duration, so I'd look closely at those if your gallery library is small or frequently changing. Wasabi Academy Wasabi Wasabi

AWS S3 is considerably more expensive for straightforward image hosting, but S3 + CloudFront becomes attractive if you're already heavily invested in AWS or need its broader ecosystem. AWS currently charges for S3 internet transfer, while transfer from S3 to CloudFront is free. Amazon Web Services AWS Documentation

What I'd build for a photography business

I'd use:

R2 → image processing/resizing → Cloudflare CDN → gallery website

And I would not serve the original 20–50 MB RAW/JPEG files to gallery visitors. Store the originals privately and generate multiple derivatives:

• Thumbnail: ~200–400 px
• Gallery image: ~1,500–2,500 px
• Full-screen image: ~3,000–4,000 px
• Original: private/download-only

Use WebP or AVIF for the public gallery and lazy-load images. This can reduce bandwidth dramatically while keeping the originals safely stored.

If you expect something like 10 TB of photos + 20 TB/month of image traffic, I'd lean strongly toward R2 or B2 + CDN rather than plain S3.

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly visitors/page views, average gallery size, and whether clients download full-resolution images, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Wasabi vs S3/CloudFront for your actual photography workload.

Wasabi is also compelling at $7.99/TB/month as of July 2026, with no egress or API charges subject to its fair-use policy. However, its terms include a 1 TB minimum for Pay-Go and a 90-day minimum storage duration, so I'd look closely at those if your gallery library is small or frequently changing. docs.wasabi.com wasabi.com wasabi.com

AWS S3 is considerably more expensive for straightforward image hosting, but S3 + CloudFront becomes attractive if you're already heavily invested in AWS or need its broader ecosystem. AWS currently charges for S3 internet transfer, while transfer from S3 to CloudFront is free.

What I'd build for a photography business

I'd use:

R2 → image processing/resizing → Cloudflare CDN → gallery website

For a photographer hosting large client galleries, the best choice is usually not a traditional photo backup service—it is an object storage + CDN setup optimized for lots of image views. The main costs to watch are:

• Storage per TB (your archive size)
• Bandwidth/egress fees (clients repeatedly viewing/downloading galleries)
• CDN availability (speed for clients in different regions)
• Image processing (automatic resizing, WebP/AVIF conversion, thumbnails, watermarks)

Here are strong options by use case:

Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress DigitalOcean## My recommendations by photographer type

Wedding/event photographer (hundreds of galleries, frequent client views)

Best fit: Bunny.net or Cloudflare R2

• Galleries get lots of repeated viewing.
• CDN caching matters more than ultra-cheap storage.
• Predictable delivery costs help avoid surprises.

Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress Image CDN### Photographer with a huge archive (5–100+ TB)

Best fit: Backblaze B2

Use it as your image vault, optionally paired with a CDN for active galleries.

Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress### Portfolio website + client proofing galleries

Best fit: DigitalOcean Spaces

It is simple to configure and includes CDN functionality, making it attractive if you do not want to manage multiple services. DigitalOcean DigitalOcean

Studio needing advanced image workflows

Consider an image-management platform such as Cloudinary or Imgix if you need:

• automatic resizing
• format conversion
• smart cropping
• APIs for custom gallery software

These tend to cost more than raw object storage but reduce development work. Image CDN Image CDN

A cost-effective architecture many photographers use

A common setup is:

1. Original RAW files

• Backblaze B2, Amazon S3 Glacier, or another low-cost archive tier
• Client gallery JPEGs

• Cloudflare R2, Bunny.net, or DigitalOcean Spaces
• Delivery layer

• CDN caching + resized images
• Keep full-resolution downloads behind signed/private URLs

This keeps expensive bandwidth away from your archive while keeping galleries fast.

Practical shortlist

If I were choosing today:

• Lowest cost: Backblaze B2
• Best overall for busy galleries: Bunny.net
• Best for unpredictable viral traffic: Cloudflare R2
• Easiest setup: DigitalOcean Spaces
• Most scalable/enterprise: AWS S3 + CloudFront

For most independent photographers, I would lean toward Bunny.net for active galleries + Backblaze B2 for long-term storage. It gives a good mix of speed, cost control, and simplicity. Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress

• Lowest cost: Backblaze B2
• Best overall for busy galleries: Bunny.net
• Best for unpredictable viral traffic: Cloudflare R2
• Easiest setup: DigitalOcean Spaces
• Most scalable/enterprise: AWS S3 + CloudFront

For most independent photographers, I would lean toward Bunny.net for active galleries + Backblaze B2 for long-term storage. It gives a good mix of speed, cost control, and simplicity. Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress

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

1. Storage size (RAW files, JPEG exports, thumbnails)
2. Bandwidth/egress (clients repeatedly viewing and downloading galleries)
3. Image delivery speed (CDN, caching, edge locations)
4. Gallery workflow (private client galleries, expiration, downloads, watermarking)

For photography, bandwidth often matters more than storage cost because a few hundred clients viewing thousands of images can generate significant image traffic. InfraTally Sunshine Photo Cart for WordPress

Best cloud storage options for photographers

BuildPilot LogicLibrary## My top picks by photography use case

1. Client proofing galleries (weddings, portraits, events)

Best choice: Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN

Why:

• Clients may view thousands of thumbnails repeatedly.
• Delivery speed matters more than raw storage price.
• No surprise bandwidth bill as galleries become popular.
• Works well with automatic image resizing workflows.

A typical setup:

Your gallery website
        |
        ↓
Cloudflare CDN
        |
        ↓
Cloudflare R2 image storage

Good for:

• Wedding galleries
• School photography
• Commercial client previews
• Public portfolios

InfraTally

2. Massive archive storage (multi-terabyte photo library)

Best choice: Backblaze B2

Example:

• 10 TB archive
• Mostly cold storage
• Occasional client retrievals

Backblaze B2 is often among the cheapest options for storage at rest. Pairing it with Cloudflare can reduce delivery costs when serving images publicly. FlowVerify

Good for:

• RAW backups
• Completed projects
• Long-term client archives
• Second copies of Lightroom catalogs

3. High-end photography business platform

Best choice: Amazon S3 + CloudFront

Choose AWS if you need:

• Advanced permissions
• Enterprise security controls
• Automated processing pipelines
• Integrations with many third-party services

The downside: public image delivery can become expensive because internet bandwidth charges are a major factor. UploadKit

A cost-effective professional setup

A setup I would consider for many photographers:

Storage tiers

• Active galleries (0–12 months):

• Cloudflare R2
• Older galleries:

• Backblaze B2
• Local backup:

• External drives or NAS

Example:

Camera RAW files
       |
       ↓
Local backup + Backblaze B2 archive

JPEG gallery exports
       |
       ↓
Cloudflare R2
       |
       ↓
Clients worldwide via CDN

Important image-delivery features to look for

Regardless of provider, prioritize:

• Automatic WebP/AVIF conversion
• Responsive image resizing
• Thumbnail generation
• Signed/private URLs
• Download permissions
• Expiring galleries
• Watermark support
• CDN caching

A 50 MB original JPEG/RAW file should rarely be what a client loads first; serving optimized 1–3 MB images dramatically improves the experience.

Rough recommendation

For most professional photographers:

1. 🥇 Cloudflare R2 + CDN — best overall for active client galleries
2. 🥈 Backblaze B2 + CDN — cheapest for huge libraries
3. 🥉 Bunny Storage + CDN — simple, fast, affordable
4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — best when building a larger custom platform

If you tell me your approximate size (e.g., 500 GB, 5 TB, 50 TB), monthly gallery visitors/downloads, and whether galleries are private client proofing or public portfolio, I can estimate the monthly cost and suggest an architecture.

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, I’d generally avoid using a traditional web host to store the originals. The sweet spot is object storage + CDN, with thumbnails/optimized JPEG or WebP/AVIF files delivered through the CDN.

My top choices

1. developers.cloudflare.com — my default recommendation

For a photography portfolio/gallery site, R2 is particularly attractive because there is no Internet egress charge. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB of storage, 1M Class A and 10M Class B operations included monthly. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs

That matters enormously for photography: a popular gallery might store 2 TB but serve 10–20 TB of images in a month. With conventional object storage, that download traffic can become the dominant cost.

A good architecture is:

Original RAW files
       │
       ▼
   Cloudflare R2
       │
       ├── originals/
       ├── large/
       ├── medium/
       └── thumbnails/
              │
              ▼
        Cloudflare CDN
              │
              ▼
       Website visitors

You can also put Cloudflare Workers in front of it for things like signed URLs, image transformations, access-controlled client galleries, and automatic resizing.

Best choice if: you're building your own gallery platform and expect substantial traffic.

2. backblaze.com — excellent storage economics

B2 is currently $6.95/TB/month, with free egress up to 3× your average stored data. More importantly for your use case, Backblaze provides unlimited free egress through a number of CDN/compute partners, including Cloudflare and Bunny. Backblaze Backblaze

For example, if you have:

• 10 TB of photographs
• 30 TB/month delivered to visitors
• Cloudflare/Bunny handling the delivery

B2 can be extremely inexpensive as the underlying storage layer.

Best choice if: your priority is keeping the master image archive cheap while letting a CDN handle public delivery.

3. bunny.net — fantastic for image-heavy delivery

Bunny is worth a serious look because it combines storage and CDN particularly nicely for this workload.

Its standard storage starts around $0.01/GB per storage region, while its CDN's Volume Network starts at $0.005/GB for the first 500 TB. bunny.net bunny.net

So, for example, 10 TB stored in one region would be roughly $100/month for storage, before delivery; 20 TB of CDN traffic on the Volume Network would start around $100/month.

Bunny is especially appealing when your galleries are globally distributed and image delivery speed matters.

Best choice if: you want a relatively turnkey, fast image-delivery stack without assembling lots of cloud services.

4. wasabi.com — simple, predictable storage

Wasabi's current Pay-Go price is $7.99/TB/month. It doesn't charge API request fees and its egress is free under its policy, but there are important fair-use conditions: generally, monthly egress should not exceed the amount of active storage. Wasabi Technologies Wasabi Technologies

So I'd use Wasabi more for photographer archives/backups than for a massively popular public gallery.

Best choice if: you're primarily storing lots of originals and your download traffic isn't enormous relative to the stored volume.

What I'd actually build

For a professional photography business, I'd separate archive storage from gallery delivery:

Option A — lowest-cost/high-traffic

RAW + original JPEG
        ↓
    Backblaze B2
        ↓
 Cloudflare/Bunny CDN
        ↓
 resized WebP/AVIF/JPEG
        ↓
      visitors

Option B — simplest architecture

R2
 ↓
Cloudflare
 ↓
Gallery + CDN + image delivery

I'd probably choose Option B (R2 + Cloudflare) if you're developing the gallery yourself. The lack of egress charges makes your costs much easier to predict as galleries become popular. R2's current pricing explicitly has free Internet egress. Cloudflare Docs

One important photography-specific tip

Don't serve your 30–60 MB camera originals to browsers.

Keep the original files in storage, but generate several derivatives:

• Thumbnail: ~100–300 KB
• Gallery image: ~500 KB–2 MB
• Large/lightbox image: ~2–6 MB
• Original download: full-resolution JPEG/RAW, only when explicitly requested

Then use AVIF/WebP with JPEG fallback, responsive srcset, lazy loading, and CDN caching.

That can reduce your actual bandwidth by an order of magnitude or more while making galleries feel dramatically faster.

My ranking

1. 🥇 Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — best overall
2. 🥈 Backblaze B2 + Bunny/Cloudflare CDN — best storage economics
3. 🥉 Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — excellent all-in-one performance/value
4. Wasabi + CDN — good archival-oriented option
5. AWS S3 + CloudFront — powerful, but usually harder to make cost-effective for this particular workload

If you tell me roughly how many TB you store, monthly gallery traffic (TB), and whether clients need password-protected galleries/original downloads, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for these architectures and recommend the cheapest one.

Its standard storage starts around $0.01/GB per storage region, while its CDN's Volume Network starts at $0.005/GB for the first 500 TB. bunny.net bunny.net

So, for example, 10 TB stored in one region would be roughly $100/month for storage, before delivery; 20 TB of CDN traffic on the Volume Network would start around $100/month.

Bunny is especially appealing when your galleries are globally distributed and image delivery speed matters.

Best choice if: you want a relatively turnkey, fast image-delivery stack without assembling lots of cloud services.

4. wasabi.com — simple, predictable storage

Wasabi's current Pay-Go price is $7.99/TB/month. It doesn't charge API request fees and its egress is free under its policy, but there are important fair-use conditions: generally, monthly egress should not exceed the amount of active storage. Wasabi Technologies Wasabi Technologies

So I'd use Wasabi more for photographer archives/backups than for a massively popular public gallery.

Best choice if: you're primarily storing lots of originals and your download traffic isn't enormous relative to the stored volume.

What I'd actually build

For a professional photography business, I'd separate archive storage from gallery delivery:

Option A — lowest-cost/high-traffic

RAW + original JPEG
        ↓
    Backblaze B2
        ↓
 Cloudflare/Bunny CDN
        ↓
 resized WebP/AVIF/JPEG
        ↓
      visitors

Option B — simplest architecture

R2
 ↓
Cloudflare
 ↓
Gallery + CDN + image delivery

I'd probably choose Option B (R2 + Cloudflare) if you're developing the gallery yourself. The lack of egress charges makes your costs much easier to predict as galleries become popular. R2's current pricing explicitly has free Internet egress.

One important photography-specific tip

Don't serve your 30–60 MB camera originals to browsers.

Keep the original files in storage, but generate several derivatives:

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, the best choice usually depends less on raw storage price and more on bandwidth costs, CDN delivery speed, client access patterns, and privacy features (private galleries, expiring links, watermarking, etc.). A wedding, portrait, or school photographer can easily have thousands of image views per gallery, so egress (data transfer) matters. ondelva

Here are the strongest options:

My recommendations by photography use case

1. Wedding photographer delivering hundreds of galleries

Best balance: Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN

• Store originals and gallery images cheaply.
• Deliver thumbnails and previews globally through a CDN.
• Keep bandwidth costs predictable.
• Good if you have years of archived weddings.

A 5 TB archive could cost only a few dozen dollars/month for storage, while still supporting frequent client viewing. Backblaze

2. High-volume studio or school photographer

Best: Cloudflare R2

If you have thousands of customers browsing galleries, egress charges can dominate. R2’s no-egress model makes costs easier to forecast. Cloudflare Docs

3. Long-term photo backup/archive

Best: Wasabi or Backblaze B2

For files that are uploaded and rarely touched:

• Cheap storage
• Simple management
• Good replacement for external drives and NAS backups

4. Premium client galleries with minimal technical work

Consider a photography-specific platform instead of building your own:

• Pixieset
• SmugMug
• Pic-Time

These cost more per TB, but include:

• Client proofing
• Favorites
• Downloads
• Store/print sales
• Gallery design
• Password protection

A practical architecture many photographers use

A cost-effective professional setup:

1. RAW archive

• Backblaze B2 / Wasabi / local NAS
• Client-facing JPEGs

• Cloudflare R2 or B2
• Fast delivery

• Cloudflare CDN or Bunny CDN
• Gallery software

• Your own site, WordPress gallery plugin, or a photo delivery platform
• Security

• Signed URLs
• Expiring download links
• Watermarked previews

Quick picks

• Cheapest overall: Backblaze B2 + CDN Backblaze
• Most predictable for viral/high-traffic galleries: Cloudflare R2 Cloudflare Docs
• Simplest flat-rate storage: Wasabi Tusk Backup
• Least technical client experience: Pixieset / SmugMug / Pic-Time
• Enterprise-grade: Amazon S3 + CloudFront

If you share roughly how many TB you store, monthly gallery visitors/downloads, and whether clients need private galleries, I can estimate the monthly cost for each option.

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, I’d generally avoid using a traditional web host as the primary image store. The sweet spot is object storage + CDN/image optimization.

My top choices

Cloudflare R2 is particularly attractive for galleries because it has no Internet egress charges, is S3-compatible, and runs on Cloudflare's global network. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with 10 GB/month free. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs

Backblaze B2 is compelling if storage volume is enormous. Its current pay-as-you-go price is $6.95/TB/month, with free egress up to 3× your average monthly storage and unlimited free egress through several CDN partners. Backblaze

Wasabi is another straightforward option at $7.99/TB/month, with no egress or API charges, although its terms include a 1 TB minimum and a 90-day minimum storage duration for pay-as-you-go storage. Wasabi Technologies Wasabi Technologies

What I'd build for a photography business

My first choice:

Your gallery application → Cloudflare → R2

Store the originals and multiple web-sized derivatives in R2, then deliver the derivatives through Cloudflare's edge network. This is especially attractive if clients frequently browse/download galleries because you're not paying a conventional per-GB Internet egress charge. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs

For example, with 10 TB of images, R2 Standard storage is roughly $150/month before request charges, while Internet egress remains free. Cloudflare Docs

An even cheaper architecture

If you have 50–100+ TB of older galleries, I'd consider splitting storage:

• R2 — active/current client galleries
• Backblaze B2 — large archive/originals
• CDN — cached JPEG/WebP/AVIF derivatives
• Separate backup — preferably in a different provider

Backblaze explicitly supports CDN delivery with zero egress charges to participating CDN partners, making this combination particularly interesting for photographers. Backblaze

Don't serve the RAW originals directly

For fast gallery browsing, I'd keep the original RAW/TIFF files private and generate several versions:

• Thumbnail: ~300–500 px
• Gallery image: ~1600–2500 px
• Large display/download: ~3000–5000 px
• Original: private/full-resolution

Use WebP or AVIF for browser viewing and JPEG for compatibility/downloads. A CDN can cache these aggressively, so a popular wedding gallery might be viewed thousands of times while the origin is hit only occasionally.

Bottom line: For a new photography gallery platform, I'd choose Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN/image transformation. For a very large archive where minimizing storage cost is paramount, Backblaze B2 + a CDN is probably the strongest alternative. AWS S3 + CloudFront is excellent technically, but I'd choose it mainly if you're already deeply invested in AWS; CloudFront's current flat-rate plans can simplify delivery costs considerably. Amazon Web Services AWS Documentation

If you tell me roughly how many TB you have, monthly gallery views/downloads, and whether clients need full-resolution downloads, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Wasabi vs S3/CloudFront.

Your gallery application → Cloudflare → R2

Store the originals and multiple web-sized derivatives in R2, then deliver the derivatives through Cloudflare's edge network. This is especially attractive if clients frequently browse/download galleries because you're not paying a conventional per-GB Internet egress charge.

For example, with 10 TB of images, R2 Standard storage is roughly $150/month before request charges, while Internet egress remains free.

An even cheaper architecture

For a photographer serving large galleries, I’d focus less on raw storage price and more on storage + bandwidth/egress + CDN caching + image transformation. A cheap bucket can become expensive when clients repeatedly download hundreds of GB.

My shortlist

Current published pricing supports those numbers: R2 is $0.015/GB-month with free Internet egress, B2 starts at $6.95/TB-month with 3× monthly-storage egress included, and Wasabi is $7.99/TB-month with no egress or API charges. Cloudflare Docs Backblaze Wasabi

🥇 Cloudflare R2 + CDN — my first choice

For a photography gallery, this is particularly attractive because R2 doesn't charge Internet egress. That matters enormously if a wedding gallery is 20–50 GB and gets downloaded repeatedly by a couple, family members, vendors, etc. Cloudflare Docs

You can also use Cloudflare's image transformation capabilities to generate/rescale optimized versions rather than sending enormous originals to every visitor. Cloudflare specifically supports transformations for images stored outside Images, including R2. Cloudflare Docs

Good architecture:

Original photos → R2 → Cloudflare CDN → Web gallery

Keep originals in R2, serve appropriately sized JPEG/WebP/AVIF derivatives through the CDN, and provide full-resolution downloads only when requested.

🥈 Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare

This can be even cheaper for the storage layer. B2 currently starts at $6.95/TB/month, includes egress up to 3× your average stored data, and offers unlimited free egress when using several CDN/compute partners, including Cloudflare. Backblaze

Backblaze explicitly documents using B2 as an origin for Cloudflare's CDN, allowing you to combine inexpensive object storage with Cloudflare's global delivery network. Backblaze Backblaze

I'd seriously consider this if you're accumulating multiple terabytes of old galleries.

🥉 Wasabi

Wasabi is appealing if you want very simple billing. It's currently $7.99/TB/month and doesn't charge for egress or API requests, subject to its fair-use policies. Wasabi Wasabi Academy

The tradeoff is that Wasabi isn't primarily a CDN. For a public-facing gallery, I'd still put a CDN/cache layer in front of it.

AWS S3 + CloudFront

AWS is excellent technically, but for a photographer hosting galleries, I'd generally consider it more infrastructure than you need unless you're building a sophisticated application around the photos.

S3 Standard is substantially more expensive on storage than B2/Wasabi/R2, and AWS also normally charges for Internet data transfer, although transfers from S3 to CloudFront don't incur S3 data-transfer charges. Amazon Web Services, Inc.

What I'd choose at different scales

• Under ~1 TB: Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — simplest and excellent for high-download galleries.
• 1–20 TB: Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN — very compelling storage economics.
• 20+ TB archive: B2 or Wasabi for the bulk archive, with a CDN/cache in front of active galleries.
• Complex SaaS/gallery platform: S3 + CloudFront becomes more compelling because of the broader AWS ecosystem.

One important optimization regardless of provider: don't serve your 50–100 MB RAW/TIFF originals as the gallery previews. Store the originals, but generate ~2–5 MB display images (and smaller thumbnails) and let the CDN cache those. That can dramatically reduce both bandwidth and perceived load time.

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

For a photography gallery, this is particularly attractive because R2 doesn't charge Internet egress. That matters enormously if a wedding gallery is 20–50 GB and gets downloaded repeatedly by a couple, family members, vendors, etc. Cloudflare Docs

You can also use Cloudflare's image transformation capabilities to generate/rescale optimized versions rather than sending enormous originals to every visitor. Cloudflare specifically supports transformations for images stored outside Images, including R2. Cloudflare Docs

Good architecture:

Original photos → R2 → Cloudflare CDN → Web gallery

Keep originals in R2, serve appropriately sized JPEG/WebP/AVIF derivatives through the CDN, and provide full-resolution downloads only when requested.

🥈 Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare

This can be even cheaper for the storage layer. B2 currently starts at $6.95/TB/month, includes egress up to 3× your average stored data, and offers unlimited free egress when using several CDN/compute partners, including Cloudflare. Backblaze

Backblaze explicitly documents using B2 as an origin for Cloudflare's CDN, allowing you to combine inexpensive object storage with Cloudflare's global delivery network. Backblaze Backblaze

I'd seriously consider this if you're accumulating multiple terabytes of old galleries.

🥉 Wasabi

Wasabi is appealing if you want very simple billing. It's currently $7.99/TB/month and doesn't charge for egress or API requests, subject to its fair-use policies. Wasabi docs.wasabi.com

The tradeoff is that Wasabi isn't primarily a CDN. For a public-facing gallery, I'd still put a CDN/cache layer in front of it.

AWS S3 + CloudFront

AWS is excellent technically, but for a photographer hosting galleries, I'd generally consider it more infrastructure than you need unless you're building a sophisticated application around the photos.

S3 Standard is substantially more expensive on storage than B2/Wasabi/R2, and AWS also normally charges for Internet data transfer, although transfers from S3 to CloudFront don't incur S3 data-transfer charges.

What I'd choose at different scales

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, I’d prioritize two things separately: cheap object storage and a CDN that can deliver thumbnails/full-res images quickly. The cheapest storage provider isn't always the cheapest overall once image traffic is high.

My shortlist

1. Cloudflare R2 — probably my first choice

developers.cloudflare.com

R2 is particularly attractive for photography because there are no Internet egress charges. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, or roughly $15/TB/month, with 10 GB/month free. Cloudflare Docs

The big advantage is when galleries get popular. Suppose you have:

• 10 TB of original photos
• 2 TB of thumbnails/derivatives
• 20 TB/month of visitors downloading images

With conventional object storage, that 20 TB of traffic can become a significant bill. R2 doesn't charge you for the R2-to-Internet egress itself. Cloudflare Docs

It's also S3-compatible, so you can use familiar tools and libraries.

I'd choose this if: your galleries are public and you expect unpredictable/high traffic.

2. Backblaze B2 — excellent for huge archives

backblaze.com

B2 currently starts at $6.95/TB/month, substantially cheaper than R2 for pure storage. It includes free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, with additional egress at $0.01/GB. More importantly, Backblaze has partnerships with CDNs including Cloudflare, Fastly and bunny.net that can provide unlimited free egress through those partners. Backblaze

That makes a particularly good architecture:

B2 → CDN → visitors

rather than:

B2 → visitors directly

For example, you could put your originals and generated gallery images in B2, then let the CDN cache popular images at the edge.

I'd choose this if: storage volume is enormous and you want to minimize the cost of the underlying photo archive.

3. Wasabi — very simple pricing

wasabi.com

Wasabi is currently $7.99/TB/month and advertises no egress or API-request charges. Wasabi

It's appealing because the bill is easy to understand: essentially, you're paying for how much you store rather than constantly calculating bandwidth and request costs.

For a photographer with, say, 50–100 TB of completed shoots, that simplicity can be valuable.

The catch is that I'd still put a CDN in front of it for a serious public gallery. Wasabi is primarily your storage layer; it isn't as naturally integrated into a global image-delivery platform as Cloudflare.

I'd choose this if: predictable archival storage costs matter more than having an integrated edge platform.

4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — powerful, but not my first choice for cost

aws.amazon.com

aws.amazon.com

S3 + CloudFront is the conventional professional architecture and is extremely capable. S3 doesn't charge for data transferred to CloudFront, so the normal architecture is:

S3 → CloudFront → client

rather than serving S3 directly. Amazon Web Services, Inc. AWS Documentation

The downside is complexity: storage, requests, CDN transfer, transformations, and other AWS services can all contribute to the bill.

I'd pick AWS if you're building a large commercial photography platform and need AWS's broader ecosystem—not simply because it's the cheapest place to store JPEGs.

What I'd build for a photography site

For most photographers, I'd use:

Cloudflare R2 → Cloudflare CDN → Next.js/WordPress/custom gallery

And I'd never serve the original RAW/TIFF files directly as the gallery images.

Instead, keep:

R2
├── originals/
│   ├── wedding-001.cr3
│   └── portrait-042.tif
│
└── gallery/
    ├── wedding-001-320.webp
    ├── wedding-001-1200.webp
    ├── wedding-001-2400.webp
    └── ...

Then the gallery loads the 320/1200px versions, while the full-resolution image is requested only when someone opens/downloads it.

That gives you much faster galleries and dramatically less bandwidth.

My ranking

1. Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — best overall for public galleries
2. Backblaze B2 + CDN — best if you have tens/hundreds of TB of archives
3. Wasabi + CDN — simplest predictable storage economics
4. S3 + CloudFront — best enterprise/general-purpose option

One important distinction: if you're talking about a photography business where clients browse password-protected galleries and download hundreds of full-resolution images, rather than simply hosting a portfolio, I'd design the architecture somewhat differently. In that case, storage cost, CDN caching, image resizing, signed URLs, and download traffic become important enough that the optimal choice can change.

2. Backblaze B2 — excellent for huge archives

backblaze.com

B2 currently starts at $6.95/TB/month, substantially cheaper than R2 for pure storage. It includes free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data, with additional egress at $0.01/GB. More importantly, Backblaze has partnerships with CDNs including Cloudflare, Fastly and bunny.net that can provide unlimited free egress through those partners. Backblaze

That makes a particularly good architecture:

B2 → CDN → visitors

rather than:

B2 → visitors directly

For example, you could put your originals and generated gallery images in B2, then let the CDN cache popular images at the edge.

I'd choose this if: storage volume is enormous and you want to minimize the cost of the underlying photo archive.

3. Wasabi — very simple pricing

wasabi.com

Wasabi is currently $7.99/TB/month and advertises no egress or API-request charges. Wasabi

It's appealing because the bill is easy to understand: essentially, you're paying for how much you store rather than constantly calculating bandwidth and request costs.

For a photographer with, say, 50–100 TB of completed shoots, that simplicity can be valuable.

The catch is that I'd still put a CDN in front of it for a serious public gallery. Wasabi is primarily your storage layer; it isn't as naturally integrated into a global image-delivery platform as Cloudflare.

I'd choose this if: predictable archival storage costs matter more than having an integrated edge platform.

4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — powerful, but not my first choice for cost

aws.amazon.com

aws.amazon.com

S3 + CloudFront is the conventional professional architecture and is extremely capable. S3 doesn't charge for data transferred to CloudFront, so the normal architecture is:

S3 → CloudFront → client

rather than serving S3 directly. Amazon Web Services, Inc. AWS Documentation

The downside is complexity: storage, requests, CDN transfer, transformations, and other AWS services can all contribute to the bill.

I'd pick AWS if you're building a large commercial photography platform and need AWS's broader ecosystem—not simply because it's the cheapest place to store JPEGs.

What I'd build for a photography site

For most photographers, I'd use:

Cloudflare R2 → Cloudflare CDN → Next.js/WordPress/custom gallery

And I'd never serve the original RAW/TIFF files directly as the gallery images.

Instead, keep:

R2
├── originals/
│   ├── wedding-001.cr3
│   └── portrait-042.tif
│
└── gallery/
    ├── wedding-001-320.webp
    ├── wedding-001-1200.webp
    ├── wedding-001-2400.webp
    └── ...

Then the gallery loads the 320/1200px versions, while the full-resolution image is requested only when someone opens/downloads it.

That gives you much faster galleries and dramatically less bandwidth.

My ranking

1. Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — best overall for public galleries
2. Backblaze B2 + CDN — best if you have tens/hundreds of TB of archives
3. Wasabi + CDN — simplest predictable storage economics
4. S3 + CloudFront — best enterprise/general-purpose option

One important distinction: if you're talking about a photography business where clients browse password-protected galleries and download hundreds of full-resolution images, rather than simply hosting a portfolio, I'd design the architecture somewhat differently. In that case, storage cost, CDN caching, image resizing, signed URLs, and download traffic become important enough that the optimal choice can change.

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, the biggest cost drivers are usually not storage alone — they are:

• Bandwidth/egress (how many times visitors download or view images)
• CDN performance (how quickly images load worldwide)
• Image processing (resizing, WebP/AVIF conversion, thumbnails)
• Gallery software integration
• Backup and archival needs

For most photographers, a good setup is object storage + CDN + image optimization, rather than a traditional web host.

Best-value options

InfraTally AIMultiple## 1. Cloudflare R2 — best overall for client galleries

cloudflare.com

A strong choice if clients frequently browse galleries and download proofs.

Advantages

• No outbound bandwidth charges, which matters when a wedding gallery gets thousands of views.
• Works with S3-compatible tools.
• Pairs naturally with Cloudflare’s global CDN.
• Good fit for public image URLs.

Typical setup

Photos → Cloudflare R2 → Cloudflare CDN → Clients

Best for

• Wedding photographers
• Portrait studios
• Event photographers
• Online proofing galleries

BuildPilot## 2. Backblaze B2 — cheapest storage for massive archives

backblaze.com

If you have tens of terabytes of RAW files and finished JPEGs, B2 is hard to beat on storage price.

Advantages

• Very low cost per TB.
• S3-compatible.
• Works well as a long-term photo archive.
• Can be combined with a CDN for fast delivery.

Trade-off

• Direct delivery to viewers may not be as optimized as a CDN-first architecture.

Best for

• Keeping years of RAW files
• Backup copies
• Cold storage

ondelva## 3. Amazon S3 + CloudFront — premium professional option

aws.amazon.com

aws.amazon.com

AWS is the most mature option and integrates with almost every photo workflow tool.

Advantages

• Extremely reliable.
• Excellent global delivery with CloudFront.
• Many storage tiers for archives.
• Strong automation options.

Downside

• Bandwidth costs can become significant for popular galleries unless carefully configured.

Best for

• Photography businesses already using AWS
• High-volume commercial clients
• Custom gallery platforms

UploadKit## 4. Wasabi — simple predictable pricing

wasabi.com

Wasabi is popular among photographers and video professionals because pricing is easier to predict.

Good fit if

• You know roughly how much storage you need.
• You want fewer complicated billing components.
• Your library is large but not constantly viewed.

A practical photographer setup

For many photographers, I would consider:

Client-facing galleries

• Cloudflare R2
• Cloudflare CDN
• A gallery app (custom or hosted)

Master archive

• Backblaze B2
• Local NAS/external drives
• Second backup copy

Image optimization

Store:

• Original RAW files privately
• High-resolution JPEGs separately
• Web-sized JPEG/WebP/AVIF versions for visitors

Avoid serving 20–50 MB originals to every visitor; generate smaller display images and keep originals behind authenticated downloads.

Rough recommendation by library size

• Under 1 TB: Cloudflare R2 or DigitalOcean Spaces
• 1–10 TB: Cloudflare R2 for galleries + Backblaze B2 for archive
• 10+ TB: Backblaze B2 archive + CDN layer for public delivery
• Enterprise/commercial: AWS S3 + CloudFront

For a photographer specifically hosting large client galleries, I would usually choose Cloudflare R2 for delivery and Backblaze B2 for backup/archive. It keeps recurring costs low while avoiding surprise bandwidth bills. flowverify.co

For a photographer hosting large image galleries, I’d prioritize three things: low storage cost, low/no egress fees, and a CDN so visitors get images from a nearby edge location.

Best options

*Current published rates; actual cost depends heavily on image delivery volume and request counts.

1. Cloudflare R2 — my default recommendation

developers.cloudflare.com

R2 is particularly attractive for photography because internet egress is free. Standard storage is currently $0.015/GB-month, with a 10 GB free tier. It's also S3-compatible and sits on Cloudflare's global network. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs

For example:

• 1 TB of originals/gallery images → roughly $15/month
• 5 TB → roughly $75/month
• 10 TB → roughly $150/month
• Visitors downloading many terabytes doesn't create a conventional R2 egress bill.

For a gallery website, I'd use R2 for the originals and derivatives, then Cloudflare's edge infrastructure to deliver them.

Best choice if: you want one ecosystem and don't want to worry about bandwidth bills.

2. Backblaze B2 + CDN — excellent for huge archives

backblaze.com

Backblaze B2 is currently $6.95/TB/month, making it substantially cheaper for storage than R2. It also gives you free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data; egress through supported CDN/compute partners can be unlimited/free. Backblaze

This makes a B2 + Cloudflare or B2 + Bunny CDN architecture particularly compelling for photographers.

For example, with 10 TB:

• B2 storage: about $69.50/month
• CDN delivery: potentially very inexpensive depending on provider/traffic
• Your original RAW/TIFF archive can remain in B2 while web-sized JPEG/AVIF/WebP files are delivered through the CDN.

Backblaze explicitly supports delivering B2 content through Cloudflare CDN. Backblaze

Best choice if: you have tens of terabytes and storage cost matters more than having everything under one provider.

3. Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — particularly interesting for galleries

bunny.net

Bunny's model is attractive because storage and CDN are tightly integrated. Standard HDD storage starts around $0.01/GB per region, while its CDN lists North America/Europe delivery at $0.01/GB on the standard network. bunny.net bunny.net

That combination can work extremely well for a photography site:

Visitor → Bunny CDN → Bunny Storage

The CDN caches frequently viewed images at the edge, while your underlying storage remains inexpensive.

Bunny also offers edge SSD storage for workloads where you want files replicated closer to users. bunny.net

Best choice if: you want very fast galleries without assembling multiple cloud services.

4. AWS S3 + CloudFront

aws.amazon.com

aws.amazon.com

AWS is the "enterprise" answer. It's extremely capable, but for a photographer who primarily needs "store images and serve galleries quickly," it can be unnecessarily complicated and potentially more expensive.

I'd choose it if you need things like:

• sophisticated access controls
• private client galleries
• signed URLs
• automated image-processing pipelines
• Lambda/serverless processing
• extensive AWS integrations
• sophisticated lifecycle/archival policies

For a straightforward portfolio/gallery site, I'd generally pick R2, B2, or Bunny first.

What I'd actually build

For a photographer with, say, 5–50 TB of photographs, I'd consider these two architectures:

Lowest-cost large archive

Backblaze B2 → Cloudflare CDN → gallery website

Keep:

• RAW files
• TIFFs
• full-resolution JPEGs
• master files

in B2.

Generate web derivatives such as:

• 400–800px thumbnails
• 1600–2500px gallery images
• full-resolution viewing images

and cache those through the CDN.

Simplest all-around setup

Cloudflare R2 → Cloudflare CDN → gallery website

This is the one I'd lean toward if you're building the system yourself. The absence of egress charges is particularly valuable because photography galleries can have surprisingly large bandwidth spikes when a popular gallery gets shared.

One important optimization

Don't serve your 30–60 MB original JPEGs to gallery visitors.

Store the originals in inexpensive object storage, but serve appropriately sized WebP/AVIF/JPEG derivatives. A gallery might display a 2–4 MB image on desktop and a few hundred KB on mobile rather than making every visitor download a 50 MB file.

That can reduce bandwidth by an order of magnitude while making the gallery feel dramatically faster.

My ranking for your use case:

1. 🥇 Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — best overall
2. 🥈 Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare/Bunny CDN — best for huge libraries
3. 🥉 Bunny Storage + Bunny CDN — excellent performance/value and very simple
4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — best if you need a sophisticated AWS architecture

If you tell me roughly how many TB you have, monthly visitors/pageviews, and the typical image size, I can calculate the approximate monthly cost for R2 vs B2 vs Bunny vs S3 for your actual photography workload.

For a photographer hosting large galleries with lots of image views/downloads, I’d focus less on raw storage price and more on egress + CDN performance. A cheap storage bucket can become expensive if every gallery view pulls full-resolution files from it.

My top choices

1. Cloudflare R2 — probably my first choice

Cloudflare R2 pricing

R2 Standard is currently $0.015/GB-month, with no Internet egress charge. It also has a 10 GB free tier. developers.cloudflare.com

That is particularly attractive for photography because consider a gallery with:

• 5 TB of originals/previews
• 20 TB/month of image delivery

With traditional object storage, that 20 TB of outbound traffic can be a significant part of your bill. With R2, Internet egress is free.

For an image-gallery website, I'd use:

R2 → Cloudflare CDN/cache → visitor

You can also use R2's S3-compatible API, so you're not locked into a proprietary storage API. developers.cloudflare.com

Best when: your galleries receive substantial traffic and you want predictable bills.

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

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage

Backblaze B2 is currently $6.95/TB/month, with the first 10 GB free and free egress up to 3× your average monthly stored data. More importantly for your use case, B2 has an arrangement with Cloudflare that allows B2 content to be delivered through Cloudflare without B2 download fees. www.backblaze.com

So you can have:

B2 (cheap origin storage) → Cloudflare CDN → visitors

This is especially compelling if you're storing tens or hundreds of terabytes of photography but don't necessarily have enormous traffic every month.

For example, 20 TB stored would be roughly $139/month at the current B2 list price before other charges/discounts.

Best when: storage volume is enormous and you want inexpensive archival/always-hot storage while still getting CDN delivery.

3. AWS S3 + CloudFront — powerful, but usually not my cost pick

Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudFront

AWS is extremely capable and makes sense if you're already building around AWS—Lambda, Cognito, databases, image processing, etc.

CloudFront also now has flat-rate plans that bundle CDN, security features, and S3 storage credits, including plans with substantial included data transfer. aws.amazon.com

But for a relatively straightforward "store lots of JPEGs and serve them quickly" photography site, I'd generally choose R2 or B2 before S3.

Best when: your gallery is part of a larger AWS application.

4. Bunny — worth considering for a lean photography platform

Bunny.net

Bunny is worth investigating if you want a relatively simple storage + CDN architecture and don't need the broader ecosystem of AWS/Cloudflare.

I'd particularly consider it when CDN performance and simplicity are more important than having a general-purpose object-storage platform.

What I'd build for a photography business

I'd separate originals from web-delivery images.

RAW / TIFF originals
        ↓
Cheap object storage
        ↓
JPEG derivatives
        ↓
CDN
        ↓
Visitor

For example:

Option A — simplest

Cloudflare R2 → Cloudflare CDN

Option B — cheapest for very large archives

Backblaze B2 → Cloudflare CDN

And don't serve your 50–100 MB originals to gallery visitors. Generate multiple sizes, e.g.:

• 400–600 px thumbnail
• 1600–2000 px gallery image
• 3000–4000 px large image
• Original/full-resolution file only when the client downloads it

That dramatically reduces bandwidth while making galleries feel much faster.

My ranking

For a professional photographer starting today:

1. 🥇 Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN — best combination of simplicity, predictable costs, and high-traffic delivery.
2. 🥈 Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare CDN — particularly attractive once you're storing many TB.
3. 🥉 Bunny — great if you prioritize simplicity and CDN performance.
4. AWS S3 + CloudFront — excellent infrastructure, but I'd choose it primarily for an AWS-based application rather than cost.

One important distinction: storage cost isn't necessarily your biggest expense. If you tell me roughly how many TB you have, monthly page views/gallery visitors, average image size, and whether clients download originals, I can calculate the approximate monthly bill for R2 vs B2 vs S3/CloudFront and identify the cheapest architecture.

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, 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 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 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.