Cloudinary, imgix and ImageKit are excellent media platforms. But if all you need is to clean up user uploads — resize, convert to WebP, compress and strip EXIF — a whole platform is more than the job asks for. Here's an honest look at where Purlo fits, and where it doesn't.
1,000 images/month free. One POST /v1/image call. Images processed and discarded — never stored.
The short version
Purlo is a single API endpoint that takes an image (uploaded, or fetched from a URL) and returns a web-safe one — resize, format-convert, compress and strip metadata, chained in one call. It is deliberately narrow: it is not a CDN, not a digital-asset manager, and it doesn't host your media. That narrowness is the point — it's why it's cheap, why it integrates in minutes, and why there's nothing to learn beyond one operations object.
The comparison below is honest about the trade-off: the big platforms do far more than Purlo, and sometimes that "more" is exactly what you need. When it isn't, you're paying in price and complexity for breadth you'll never touch.
Side by side
Purlo's column is exact. The other columns describe each service's general positioning, not a full feature audit — always check their own site for current features and pricing.
| Purlo | Cloudinary | imgix | ImageKit | DIY (sharp) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A single processing endpoint | Full media platform + CDN | Real-time image CDN | Image CDN + optimisation | A library you run yourself |
| How you use it | POST an image + one operations object |
URL transforms + SDKs | URL parameters | URL parameters + SDKs | Write & host the code |
| Stores your images? | No — stateless, deleted after the response | Yes — hosts your media | Caches from your origin | Yes — caches / DAM | Your choice |
| EXIF / GPS stripping | On by default, keeps ICC colour | Configurable | Configurable | Configurable | You implement it |
| Free tier | 1,000 images/mo, no card | Yes (usage-based) | Trial / limited | Yes (bandwidth-based) | n/a — you run it |
| Paid entry point | £5/mo for 5,000 images | Usage / credits | Usage-based | Usage-based | Server + your time |
| Time to first call | Minutes — one endpoint | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate | You build it |
| Scope | Narrow: resize · convert · compress · strip | Very broad (images, video, AI, DAM) | Delivery & transforms | Broad (optimise, deliver, DAM) | Whatever you write |
| Best for | Cleaning & resizing uploads, cheaply | Full media management | Fast image delivery | Optimisation + CDN | Full control, zero marginal cost |
Positioning summarised in good faith from each product's public materials, current as of September 2026. Features and pricing change — verify on the vendor's own site before deciding.
The real competitor
Be honest about the true alternative: for many teams it isn't Cloudinary — it's npm install sharp and a few lines of code. sharp (libvips) is excellent, free, and does everything Purlo does under the hood. If you have the time and the infrastructure, DIY is the cheapest option there is, and we'd genuinely tell you to use it.
What you take on when you DIY is the un-fun part that doesn't show up in the happy path: capping upload bytes and pixel counts so a decompression bomb can't OOM your box; a processing timeout and concurrency limit so a burst of large images doesn't peg the CPU and take your health check down; and — if you accept a URL to fetch — SSRF protection so nobody points your fetcher at 169.254.169.254 or your internal network. Purlo has all of that built in and maintained. You're not paying for the resize; you're paying to never think about those edge cases.
# 800px wide, WebP q80, EXIF/GPS stripped, ICC kept
curl -X POST https://api.purlo.dev/v1/image \
-H "Authorization: Bearer purlo_YOUR_KEY" \
-F 'operations={"resize":{"w":800},"format":"webp","quality":80,"strip":true}' \
-F "image=@photo.jpg" \
-o out.webpQuestions developers actually ask
If you can run infrastructure, rolling your own with sharp (libvips) is the cheapest — it's free and fast, you just own the resource-limit and SSRF hardening yourself. If you'd rather not run a pipeline, a hosted API is the low-effort route; Purlo starts free (1,000 images/month, no card) and £5/month for 5,000, and does resize + convert + compress + strip in a single call.
For a small project that just needs to clean and resize uploads, yes — that's exactly the gap Purlo fills, at a flat few pounds a month with no usage credits to model. If you need a full media CDN, video, or a digital-asset manager, Cloudinary and ImageKit do far more; Purlo deliberately doesn't. See the comparison table above for the trade-off.
No. Purlo is stateless — every image is processed in memory or a temp path and deleted the moment the response is sent. It keeps accounts, API keys and usage counts, never image data. That's both a privacy feature and the reason it stays simple to run.
It can, if you strip the ICC colour profile along with the EXIF — the image then looks flat because viewers fall back to assuming sRGB. Purlo strips EXIF and GPS by default but keeps the ICC profile, so colours stay correct while the privacy-sensitive metadata is gone.
Yes. Set "format": "webp" or "avif" (also jpeg and png) in the same call as your resize and compression. The operations apply in a fixed, documented order and return the finished image.
imgix and similar services are real-time image CDNs: you transform and deliver images by appending parameters to a URL, and they cache and serve them. Purlo is a processing step, not a delivery layer — you POST an image and get the processed bytes back to store or serve however you like. If your need is fast on-the-fly delivery at scale, a CDN is the right tool; if it's cleaning uploads server-side, Purlo is simpler and cheaper.
Five minutes to your first call
Get a free key, no card — 1,000 images a month. If you outgrow it or need a full platform later, you've lost nothing.