Cloudinary is the most established image and video CDN, and for good reason — it is genuinely capable. But if you have ever opened a Cloudinary invoice and tried to reverse-engineer why it costs what it costs, this comparison is for you.
The core difference: credits vs. bandwidth
Cloudinary meters usage in credits. A single credit bundles together a mix of transformations, managed storage, and delivered bandwidth, and each of those consumes credits at a different rate. The result is a bill that is hard to predict and harder to explain: a viral asset, a bot crawl, or a new responsive-image breakpoint can quietly burn through a month's allotment.
Keenpix meters exactly one thing: bandwidth delivered at the edge. Transformations are always unlimited and free. There are no per-transformation charges, no storage tier to reason about, and no pooled-credit math.
| Keenpix | Cloudinary | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Bandwidth delivered (GB) | Credits (bundled) |
| Transformations | Unlimited, free | Consume credits |
| Overage | One linear published rate ($0.05–0.08/GB) | Credit packs / plan upgrades |
| Hard spend cap | Yes, you set it | Not really |
| Self-host option | Yes (open source, AGPL) | No |
| Entry price | $9/mo | $89/mo (after free tier) |
Predictable pricing
Keenpix plans start at $9/month for 100 GB delivered, and every plan bills overage at a single, published, linear rate — between $0.05 and $0.08 per GB depending on tier. You set a hard cap and Keenpix will never silently blow past it.
Because transforms are free, you never have to think about how many derived variants a responsive srcset generates, or whether adding an AVIF variant will move your bill. You optimize aggressively without being punished for it.
You can run it yourself
This is the difference no amount of pricing tweaking can close: Keenpix is open source. The exact same engine that powers the managed cloud runs under AGPL, deployable with Docker on your own infrastructure, for free. If you ever want to leave the managed product — for cost, compliance, or control — you keep your URLs and your pipeline.
Cloudinary has no self-host path. Your assets and transformation URLs live inside their platform.
When Cloudinary is still the right call
We would rather earn trust than oversell, so: if you need video transcoding at scale, a full digital asset manager with approval workflows, or AI features like auto-tagging and content-aware cropping today, Cloudinary's breadth is real and Keenpix does not match it yet. Keenpix is focused on being the fastest, cheapest, most transparent way to optimize and deliver images — and to let you self-host when you want to.
Try it
Point Keenpix at your existing S3, R2, or any origin, keep your URLs, and see your real bandwidth bill before you commit. Or self-host it free — same engine, your infrastructure.