Cloudinary vs Gcore
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Cloudinary and Gcore.
Quick Verdict
4.0/5
Cloudinary
0 reviews
3.8/5
Gcore
0 reviews
Cloudinary is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.8). Cloud-based media platform that handles image/video storage, optimization, and delivery. For developers building apps that need responsive images and video without managing infrastructure. Gcore is a Luxembourg-based CDN and cloud provider with 210+ PoPs and strong coverage in CIS, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
 Cloudinary Image and video management with built-in CDN and automation | Gcore Global CDN with 210+ PoPs, strong CIS and emerging-market coverage | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.8 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | pay-as-you-go |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Web and mobile teams whose product surface is media — e-commerce catalogs, listings, user uploads — who want on-the-fly image and video optimization and global delivery without building and operating their own transformation pipeline. | Applications whose audience spans CIS, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and EU buyers wanting a Luxembourg legal base with predictable per-GB CDN pricing and a real free tier. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | Global — multi-CDN (Akamai, Fastly, Cloudflare); AWS storage worldwide, EEA selectable on Enterprise | — |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierapi access | free tierddos protectioneu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi access |
| Visit Cloudinary → | Visit Gcore → | |
Cloudinary
Pros
- + URL-parameter transformations with automatic AVIF/WebP format negotiation remove the need for a home-grown image processing pipeline
- + Single credit meter (1 credit = 1,000 transformations or 1 GB storage or 1 GB bandwidth) keeps pricing understandable, and the Free plan (25 credits/month, no card) is enough for real evaluation
- + Multi-CDN delivery through Akamai, Fastly and Cloudflare, with dynamic multi-CDN routing on Enterprise and IPv6 at the edge
- + Published, third-party-measured uptime and a 99.9% availability commitment for the console and API
- + Strong compliance posture: SOC 2 Type II, DPA with SCCs and EU-US Data Privacy Framework, published sub-processor list, bug bounty and annual pen tests
Cons
- - Usage-based credits scale with traffic; heavy image or video delivery outgrows the fixed tiers with no flat-rate option below Enterprise
- - SLA remedy is weak: credits only below 99.6% availability, paid as a three-day subscription extension capped at 10% of the monthly fee, and delivery is excluded from the availability definition
- - EEA data residency is Enterprise-only; standard plans use default (US-based) AWS infrastructure
- - Proprietary transformation URL syntax and admin API create lock-in; the storage API is not S3-compatible (S3 appears only as a backup target)
- - Shared credit pool across transformations, storage and bandwidth makes monthly costs hard to predict from plan limits alone
Gcore
Pros
- + First 1 TB of CDN traffic free every month on the full 210+ PoP network, no card required
- + Published progressive per-GB pricing; overage rates cut ~66% versus the old Free tier
- + Strong CIS, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa coverage where US rivals are thinner
- + Free SSL and basic L3/L4 DDoS included in every plan, not sold as add-ons
- + Cash-flow-positive company with reported ~$140M revenue — less pricing-risk than burn-rate challengers
Cons
- - Smaller ecosystem and fewer third-party integrations than Cloudflare
- - WAF is a separate product with a basic self-serve tier; bot and API security are Enterprise
- - Stale pricing pages and inconsistent SLA figures (99% vs 99.9%) across channels
- - Brand less known in Western markets; more support-ticket-driven buying
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