Cloudinary keeps showing up in n8n workflows for one specific job - taking a binary file and returning a public URL. No transformations, no optimization. Just a hosted link.
Feels like a lot of setup and cost (starting at $89/month) for something that simple.
What are people actually using for this? Here’s what I’ve seen so far:
Google Drive / Dropbox - share links break when external APIs try to fetch the file directly
imgbb / imgur - no native node, HTTP request wiring every time
S3 / Cloudflare R2 - reliable but heavy setup for something simple
Upload to URL - I built this one, full disclosure. Verified n8n node, binary in, public CDN URL out
Genuinely curious what others are running in production - is there a cleaner solution I’m missing?
Cloudflare R2 works well for this. zero egress fees and the S3-compatible API means the AWS S3 node works with it out of the box. i think you can set up a custom domain too but havent tried that part myself. for anything under 10GB stored its basically free
Most people just use S3 or Cloudflare R2.
S3/R2 → standard, reliable, cheap
Cloudinary → overkill for simple hosting
Drive/Dropbox → unreliable for direct links
Simple tools exist, but for production, it’s usually S3/R2.