I just wanted to explain how images work in Adalo. They are not stored in the database. They do not get stored in Amazon S3. They ARE stored in Imgix. Just for context, imgix charges $3 000 yearly for 25 000 images. I believe the largest Adalo app has 150,000 users. So if every user on that app has a profile picture, Adalo is paying $18 000 for that one app yearly (without negotiated rates). Imaging, $3 000 for 25 000 images. I think the people in this chat have used more that that!
If 25 000 images on an S3 bucket costs $1/month, why is Adalo paying $300 to Imgix (or x300 more) to store the images? Because no-coders do not understand software. If your user uploads a 5mb photo to S3 and you have a list of 30 users on a page, then you need to download 150mb of photos before the page loads. Customer service nightmare. “My app is soooo slow”. Imgix processes the image to all formats and compression. If you need a 150x150 avatar image rather than 5mb, Imgix will give you a 15kb image. The x300 is paid so that you don’t need to understand how that works.
So, if you go with S3 as a no coder to save money your app will almost certainly become unbearably slow!
If you wanted to build Imgix on your own, you would spend $500 000 in developers fee to solve the $10/month bill.
At the end of the day, it is a poor situation you are in, but you must understand Adalo is in North America and must pay North America prices. Last time I was in Shanghai I bought a Pizza Hit pizza and calculated that my order was equivalent to a month’s wage for the office cleaner. Sad, but true.
All that to say, to build an App from scratch without Adalo, my company has a $10 000 entry fee to start an app. We cannot do it cheaper for the most basic login. Adalo has reduced that to $100. To build the apps you are building, without Adalo would cost thousands of dollars, so when adalo asks for $10 (at $10 they are losing lots of money) it is okay. If the customers cannot afford that, tech might still be out of reach for them (again terrible to say, Adalo has reduced the bar 100 fold but still our of reach).