

Show HN: Firesize – On-the-fly image resizing, no code required - vanstee
http://firesize.com/

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ComputerGuru
Nginx can do this with the ngx_http_image_filter_module (included in stock
distribution): [https://neosmart.net/blog/2014/nginx-wordpress-images-
with-n...](https://neosmart.net/blog/2014/nginx-wordpress-images-with-
ngx_http_image_filter_module/)

~~~
egonschiele
The image filter module is really neat, but for people reading it is limited
to basic functionality like crop and resize. It supports PNG, GIF and JPEG,
but PNGs are usually too large and GIFs are low quality, so you are stuck with
JPEGs. Not sure if webp support is on the way or not.

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jaredstenquist
Looks great. I see mention of limits, but there is no pricing page. It's hard
to adopt a service if I have no idea what it will cost me.

I have used Embed.ly's similar service in the past. There is a sizable free
tier (25,000 images) and it works more or less the same.
[http://embed.ly/display](http://embed.ly/display)

~~~
vanstee
If you join during the beta, we'll grandfather you in to the free plan (no-
limits). I should make that more clear on the homepage though. Thanks.

~~~
jaredstenquist
Awesome! One line about that should do the trick.

Is the only way to "join" via Heroku? Or is there another place I can create
an account?

~~~
vanstee
Yep, but only for the MVP. Adding our own signup form is something we're
working on.

Send me an email at firesize@helpful.io and I can manually hook you up with an
account though.

------
vanstee
This was built by our awesome community on Assembly. If you have any feedback
or want to get involved and help us continue to build this, check out the
project on Assembly:
[https://assembly.com/firesize](https://assembly.com/firesize)

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blowski
Bit off-topic, but... it feels like there's a trend towards "x as a service"
away from "x as open-source software". Is that something other people are
seeing, or is it just my imagination?

~~~
sfeng
This is actually also an OS project it appears: [https://github.com/asm-
products/firesize](https://github.com/asm-products/firesize)

~~~
nthtran
Firesize uses ImageMagick, which in my experience consumes more memory and is
slower than libvips [1] for simple image resizing/optimization.

I built a simple image-resizing server with a query string API using libvips
[2]. This is based on sharp [3], a good wrapper of libvips for Node.js.

[1] [https://github.com/jcupitt/libvips](https://github.com/jcupitt/libvips)

[2] [https://github.com/nthtran/imgop](https://github.com/nthtran/imgop)

[3] [https://github.com/lovell/sharp](https://github.com/lovell/sharp)

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jdotjdot
Do you have a utility that lets me port over my named transformations from
Cloudinary? Also, is there any way to pull images directly from an S3 bucket
rather than from my Heroku instance?

~~~
vanstee
Oh nope, but that would be pretty sweet. I'll throw that in the queue of
things to build next.

We just grab whatever image you include in the url, so as long as the images
in your S3 bucket are public, Firesize should be able to resize them just like
normal.

~~~
jdotjdot
I like your pricing model much more--I don't like how Cloudinary charges me
for storage, because I don't want them to store the images, just transform
them.

What I would need to move over to yours are the following features: *
Reorienting the picture based on exif data * Picture gravity via face
detection * Way to ensure no one else maliciously uses my account (e.g.,
domain whitelisting/CORS, only pulling from my S3 bucket, something like that)
* Renaming the output file image on the fly

Obviously, I'm only one customer, so don't do anything based on just me! But
if it's at all helpful, these are one potential user's needs :)

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Retr0spectrum
One small issue is that it doesn't correct for gamma. Most browsers don't even
do it properly, so it isn't a very important issue at all.

Demo:
[http://firesize.com/100x100/g_center/http://www.4p8.com/eric...](http://firesize.com/100x100/g_center/http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma_dalai_lama_gray.jpg)

More info:
[http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html](http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html)

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michaelmior
Is there anything yet to prevent abuse? For example, in the case of
Cloudinary, they allow signing of URLs[0] to prevent anyone from just using
your account to serve arbitrary images.

[0]
[http://cloudinary.com/blog/on_the_fly_image_manipulations_se...](http://cloudinary.com/blog/on_the_fly_image_manipulations_secured_with_signed_urls)

~~~
vanstee
Yep, we're actively building both url whitelists per Firesize account and url
signing.

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iokanuon
>You're images will be quickly delivered to your users

A typo. "You're" should be "Your".

~~~
vanstee
Ah! Thanks iokanuon. If you add a bounty on Assembly, I'll award you some
ownership for pointing this out:
[https://assembly.com/firesize/bounties](https://assembly.com/firesize/bounties)

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jastanton
Great :), first impressions:

I've seen a few of these before and the things I remember I liked about them
was the ability to provide a default image incase you cannot load the image.

Major kudos if you could do a g_face so you could center / crop around faces!

You say you provide a CDN and yet the images are loading slow under HackerNews
weight. I guess the type of people who are going to use these aren't super
concerned about being hammered!

Lastly the Heroku add-on, does that mean I can run your code on my Heroku
instance instead of rely on your site? That would be fantastic!

~~~
vanstee
Oh yeah a default would be nice. Good idea.

The image on the homepage isn't behind a CDN, but when you signup we give you
a custom subdomain which is behind a CDN. Although the initial loading and
resizing still takes a quick second, before we cache it.

Not exactly. The Heroku addon just means you can easily signup and manage
Firesize from the Heroku dashboard. Although the code is AGPL'd so you could
totally run your own hosted version of Firesize: [https://github.com/asm-
products/firesize](https://github.com/asm-products/firesize)

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seanalltogether
Quick bug report, g_none seems to not be working, instead it's just doing the
same thing as g_north

[http://firesize.com/720x100/g_none/http://i.imgur.com/hHpJsc...](http://firesize.com/720x100/g_none/http://i.imgur.com/hHpJscb.png)

[http://firesize.com/720x100/g_north/http://i.imgur.com/hHpJs...](http://firesize.com/720x100/g_north/http://i.imgur.com/hHpJscb.png)

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ahultgren
"This app is in region eu, firesize is only available in region us." Thats a
shame. But is guess getting manually hooked up would work for this case too?

~~~
vanstee
Oh yeah shoot me an email (firesize@helpful.io). We're working on making it
available in other regions as well. Sorry about that.

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sfeng
I built a JavaScript library which automatically applies this optimization to
all the images on any site it's placed on (using a MutationObserver):
[https://github.com/EagerApps/FireSize](https://github.com/EagerApps/FireSize)

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shachar
Very similar to Cloudinary, though they have more advanced features as well.
worth checking out IMO.

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fiatjaf
Free during beta, but how much will it cost after? Are you going to limit
access through the Referrer header? Why do I need a Heroku addon if I can just
use a Firesize URL from anywhere automatically? How much does it cost to run a
massive service like that?

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captn3m0
Hi,

I just recommended you to someone on weekendhacker chat earlier today. Glad to
see another assembly launch.

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kristopolous
I have an old project that does a similar thing:
[https://github.com/kristopolous/apophnia](https://github.com/kristopolous/apophnia)
... enjoy

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pajtai
what different things do you offer than cloudimage?
[http://cloudimage.io/](http://cloudimage.io/)

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xfalcox
We are using thumbor self hosted to solve a similar problem. It evens smart
crop with opencv features detection, like people faces.

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joshmn
g_center, assuming there are more options, could very well be a select option
with the other available options. :)

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imaginenore
Is this really a problem painful enough that you need a SaaS?

~~~
jaredstenquist
Depending on what you are building, yes. This can save a developer a good
portion of a day between the code, file storage and CDN.

~~~
vanstee
Yep that's exactly why we built it. To be honest it's not overly complex to
build yourself, but taking the time to get it right, setting up the CDN, and
maintaining background workers can be pretty expensive when you factor in
developer hours.

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ljqwfk83id
Just so you know, Web of Trust gives firesize.com a "Very Poor"
Trustworthiness and Child Safety rating.
[https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/firesize.com?utm_source=a...](https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/firesize.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=warn-
viewsc)

~~~
callumjones
Based on one comment in 2009, surely WOT needs a better algorithm for
refreshing these ratings as time passes.

