Thumbor
Open-source, self-hosted Python image service for on-demand cropping, resizing, filters and smart (face/feature) cropping.
Thumbor is a Python service for resizing, filters and cropping based on faces or image features. The MIT-licensed software is free; you provide hosting, storage and delivery, and handle updates yourself. Globo.com created it in Brazil, and it is now community-maintained. There is no paid tier or vendor support plan.
- Headquarters
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- Parent jurisdiction
- 🇧🇷 Brazil (parent: Globo)
- EU self-serve plan
- Available; check eligible plans and regions
- GDPR DPA
- No / not documented
- Billing
- self-hosted
- Free tier
- Free and open source (MIT license)
- Open source
- Yes · self-hostable
- Website
- www.thumbor.org
- Source last checked
- 2026-10-06
- Pricing evidence
- Operating cost not estimated
Pricing
Operating cost not estimated · servers, licenses and engineering time are yours. See notes for software editions and license terms.
Self-hosted: budget for compute, storage, CDN, bandwidth and maintenance. No vendor or paid tier, and data stays wherever you run it. Created by Globo.com (Brazil; the MIT license is "Copyright (c) 2014 Globo.com"), now maintained as a community project.
Managed alternatives
At 50K unique source images / month, 500K transformations / month, 2,000 GB image bandwidth / month. Adjust usage and requirements.
Thumbor has no bill to estimate: you pay for the servers, storage and time to run it. The cheapest managed option here is Bunny Optimizer at $354/yr, so running Thumbor yourself saves money only if hosting and upkeep stay below about $30 a month.
- Bunny Optimizer: $354/yr estimatedPublished rates
- Cloudflare Images: $2,460/yr estimatedModeled ratesConverts delivery requests to bandwidth assuming 100 KB per delivered image. Cached deliveries still count.
- Vercel Image Optimization: $2,880/yr estimatedModeled ratesCache-write cost assumes 100 KB output images. Cache behavior, sizes and regional rates change cost.
- Netlify Image CDN: $3,528/yr estimatedPublished rates
- imgix: $6,393/yr estimatedModeled ratesConverts credits to images and bandwidth assuming 1 MB per origin image; origin-cache retention changes storage cost.
No cheaper managed estimate matches your filters. Adjust your usage or compare with your actual contract bill.
The price difference leaves out migration costs, operating costs and any features you’d need to replace.
Self-hosted options
Operating cost is not estimated. These options are not counted as savings against managed services.
Other image processing comparisons
- Cloudinary vs ImageKit
- Cloudinary vs imgix
- Cloudinary vs Cloudflare Images
- Vercel Image Optimization vs Cloudflare Images
Found a wrong rate or plan restriction? Report a correction with a current source.