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> Why do I need an API to convert images? This is actually SUPER useful because it means you can upload one master image and have the API automatically generate thumbnails, hover states, text overlays, face-detected cropping, effects, shapes, source sets, WEBP versions, etc. And then it manages all the caching, invalidations, CDNs, etc. too. It fits really well into serverless architectures where you don't want to have to maintain and scale your own backend instance of ImageMagick or similar. It turns hours of work into seconds. But it's also a pretty mature field: Imgix and Cloudinary both do this much more powerfully and much cheaper. 10,000 cropped images (say, for thumbnails) would cost $100 on Micro but be free or nearly so on either Imgix and Cloudinary. For the more complex APIs (like images, ironically), I would rather trust one of the bigger companies that have been doing that -- and only that -- for years, with more forgiving pricing. For simpler APIs, I'd just build it as a serverless functions straight in Cloudflare Workers or similar. Much cheaper, probably faster and more reliable infrastructure, and scalable. |