Self-hosted Image Hosting / Object Storage

An image host is really just a bucket whose files you can link to directly. In China the usual choices are Tencent Cloud COS or Alibaba Cloud OSS; elsewhere any S3-compatible storage or Cloudflare R2 works the same way.

Bucket checklist:

1. Pick a region close to your readers — cross-region access is slower and costs more.
2. Permissions: public read, private write. Others can view your images, but can't push files into your bucket.
3. Skip "global acceleration" unless you genuinely have overseas readers — it's a paid extra.
4. Storage class: standard. Infrequent-access and archive tiers are for cold data; image hosting is hot data.

Once the bucket exists you get a domain like https://xxx-123456.cos.ap-guangzhou.myqcloud.com — that's the prefix for your direct image links.

The vendor's default .myqcloud.com domain works, but with two problems: it's long and branded, and without CDN the speed varies wildly between regions.

Binding a domain:

1. In the COS console, add your image domain (for example img.example.com) as a custom origin domain, then CNAME it to the CDN domain the vendor gives you.
2. Turn on HTTPS (the vendor's free certificate or your own), otherwise browsers flag the site as "not secure".

Enabling CDN: add the bucket as the origin in the acceleration settings. CDN caches your images on edge nodes, so readers fetch from nearby — faster, and it cuts your bucket's outbound traffic bill.

Note: custom domains in mainland China normally require an ICP filing; a domain without one can't be used as your image domain.

Two things kill an image host: someone hotlinking your images (burning your bandwidth) and a bill that runs away.

Hotlink protection (Referer check): configure it in the COS console to allow only your own domains (optionally blank referrers too). Any other site embedding your images gets a 403, so nobody can paste your images on their site and drain your traffic.

Cost monitoring:

• Set alarm thresholds for storage size and traffic, with email or chat notifications.
• Use lifecycle rules to auto-delete temporary images older than N days.
• Check the bill regularly: cost = storage + traffic + requests, and outbound traffic is usually the biggest line — CDN removes most of it.

A small image host costs a few dollars a month, but you don't want to discover the bill after it's been abused. Turn on hotlink protection and alarms from day one.

You can't open the web console for every upload — you need something fast.

Pick one:

1. COSCLI / ossutil (CLI): the official command-line tools, good for batches. With keys configured:

coscli cp ./photo.jpg cos://your-bucket/2026/photo.jpg

1. PicGo (desktop, highly recommended): drag an image in and it uploads, then copies the direct link to your clipboard — perfect when writing. Supports COS, OSS, Qiniu and many others.
2. Self-hosted uploader (Lsky Pro, Chevereto): your own web upload page, ideal if you want to offer image hosting to others.

While writing: screenshot → drag into PicGo → paste. The direct link is just your domain plus the path.

With the host running, use it — and earn a little from it.

Wire it in: serve every post image and site asset from your own bucket, so everything is managed and swappable in one place. To offer public image hosting, put an Lsky Pro front end on it.

Backup: the images are your asset. Use cross-region replication, or sync the bucket to another bucket or local disk periodically — never keep a single copy.

Monetise: put cloud-storage affiliate links on your image-hosting page or blog sidebar. Someone reading an image-hosting tutorial is about to open a bucket anyway, so the conversion is natural.

Security: keep API keys on your server or in PicGo's local config. Never put them in front-end JS — leak them and someone can delete your whole bucket.