File Uploads & Storage

Object storage (S3-compatible)

• ★ Cloudflare R2 — S3-compatible, no egress fees, generous free tier. Default for new projects in 2026.
• ★ AWS S3 — the default if you live on AWS.
• Backblaze B2 — cheap, S3-compatible, low egress.
• Tigris — globally distributed, S3-compatible, modern.
• MinIO — self-hostable S3-compatible.
• DigitalOcean Spaces, Linode Object Storage, Wasabi — alternative cloud providers.
• Supabase Storage — bundled with Supabase.

Upload helpers (TypeScript)

• ★ UploadThing — TypeScript-native uploader with presigned URLs, free tier. Effortless integration with Next.js, React Router 7, etc.
• Edge Store — UploadThing competitor; similar shape.
• aws-sdk v3 / @aws-sdk/s3-request-presigner — bring-your-own presigned URLs; free, but more wiring.
• TUS protocol clients — resumable uploads. uppy (the UI) supports it natively.

Upload UIs

• ★ Uppy — open-source upload UI (drag-and-drop, image preview, webcam, screen recording). Free, Transloadit-built.
• react-dropzone — simple drag-and-drop; pair with your own logic.
• FilePond — older but lovely UI for uploads.

Images / video pipelines

• ImageKit, imgproxy, Imgix, Cloudinary — image transformation services. Cloudinary has a generous free tier.
• Cloudflare Images / Cloudflare Stream — image and video delivery as Cloudflare products.
• Mux — video-specific; free trial.
• Coconut, Bunny Stream — alternative video services.
• @vercel/og — generate Open Graph images on the fly.
• Satori — the engine behind @vercel/og; generate SVG/PNG from JSX.

Self-host images

• imgproxy — single Go binary; most popular self-hosted image transformer.
• sharp (npm) — Node binding to libvips; the workhorse for any Node image work.

Pick this if…

• Default storage, fewest gotchas: Cloudflare R2 + presigned URLs.
• Want it really easy in Next.js: UploadThing.
• Need fancy upload UI: Uppy.
• OG images: @vercel/og (or Satori directly).
• Image CDN with free tier: Cloudinary.