Speed up your website
with ultra-fast CDN

Why use an image CDN?

Our CDN network is composed of servers strategically located across various data centers worldwide. By delivering your content from the nearest cache server, we significantly reduce the load on your origin server. This approach improves loading speeds for your audience, improves user experience, and minimizes the risk of downtime. Additionally, it decreases the strain on your origin server and provides protection against threats such as DDoS attacks.

What image formats are supported?

ServeProxy supports all major image formats including JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP, and SVG files. Most formats are automatically converted to AVIF for optimal compression and performance. Animated GIFs are converted to WebP to preserve animation while reducing file size. SVG files are cached as-is but undergo basic security sanitization to remove potentially harmful scripts.

How long are items cached?

Items are cached for 7 days in our local cache, and for 14 days on the Cloudflare edge. This setup ensures that content is delivered quickly to users by reducing the need for repeated fetching from the server. It keeps things running smoothly and efficiently, even during traffic spikes, as frequently accessed data is readily available. Plus, it helps reduce server load, which can improve overall site performance.

What optimizations are being performed?

All static images are converted to the modern and efficient AVIF image format with 35% quality compression for optimal file size reduction. Animated GIFs are converted to WebP format to preserve animation while significantly reducing file size. SVG images are excluded from conversion but are cached and undergo security sanitization. These optimizations typically result in 50-75% smaller file sizes while maintaining visual quality.

Are there any usage limitations?

Yes, to maintain service stability and prevent abuse, there is a limit of 5,000 uncached requests every 10 minutes per IP address. Addresses exceeding this limit will be blocked for 1 hour. There is also an image file size limit of 5 MB - larger files will be rejected. Additionally, we use Cloudflare "family" DNS servers (1.1.1.3 and 1.0.0.3) on our nodes to prevent certain restricted domains from being cached through our service.

How does HTTPS handling work?

ServeProxy automatically enforces HTTPS for all image requests. If you provide an HTTP URL, it will be automatically upgraded to HTTPS before processing. This ensures secure delivery of your images and maintains the security of your users' connections. The service follows redirects up to 5 times to handle URL changes.

How can I see if my images are being cached?

The best way to check if your images are successfully being served from our cache is to open the browser tools in Chrome or Firefox. If the file is served from our cache you will see the following headers:

The node that served the image and the MD5 hash for the origin image URL are also shown for debugging purposes.

How are animated images handled?

Animated GIFs receive special treatment to preserve their animation. Instead of converting to AVIF (which doesn't support animation), animated GIFs are converted to the WebP format, which maintains animation while providing significant file size reduction. Static GIFs are treated like other images and converted to AVIF for maximum compression.

What security measures are in place?

ServeProxy implements several security measures including rate limiting to prevent abuse, automatic HTTPS enforcement, SVG script sanitization to prevent XSS attacks, and Content Security Policy headers for SVG files. We also use family-safe DNS servers to block access to potentially harmful domains. The service validates all URLs and rejects self-referential requests to prevent loops.

How does cache validation work?

ServeProxy supports standard HTTP cache validation using ETags and Last-Modified headers. When browsers request an image they've already cached, our servers can respond with a 304 Not Modified status, saving bandwidth and improving load times. This works seamlessly with browser caching mechanisms and ensures efficient content delivery.

What happens if an image fails to process?

If an image fails to download, is corrupted, exceeds size limits, or cannot be processed, ServeProxy returns a detailed JSON error response with the specific issue. Common failure reasons include network timeouts, invalid image data, unsupported URLs, or server errors from the origin. All errors are logged for monitoring and debugging purposes.

Can I track usage and statistics?

While ServeProxy doesn't provide a dashboard, you can monitor cache hits through response headers and track your rate limit usage via the X-RateLimit-Remaining header. Each successful response includes the serving node information and image hash for debugging. For high-volume usage, consider implementing your own analytics based on these response headers.