What is an image hosting service? Beginners building websites might hear experienced webmasters mention using an image hosting service to store images. New webmasters may not understand what an image hosting service is or when to use one. So, Naiba here will explain the basics of image hosting services.
What is an image host?
From
Baidu Baike's explanation of image hosting：
An image hosting service generally refers to a server that stores images, which can be domestic or international. International image hosting services often have slow access speeds due to geographical distance, affecting image display speed. Domestic services are also divided into single-line, multi-line, and CDN-accelerated types. An image hosting service is specifically designed to store images and allows you to link to them externally; many are free.
Baidu Baike's explanation of image hosting should clarify what it is. You might wonder, 'I have my own server, why would I need an image hosting service?' Keep reading.
Why is an image host needed?
Typically, when building a website or browsing daily, reasons for using an image hosting service include:
- Temporarily sharing images via external links on other websites;
- Insufficient server hard drive space;
- Small server bandwidth, slow network speed;
- Not wanting to store images on your own server;
- Not having a server but wanting to share images.
An image hosting service is a server specifically for storing images, often referring to services that provide external image links. There are free and paid options. Some websites even allow image uploads without restricting external links, which can be used as image hosting services (utilizing others' bandwidth and servers).
Do I need an image hosting service when building my own website?
Based on Naiba's years of web development experience, it's not recommended to use image hosting services to manage images when building your own website, at least don't rely on free ones. Free is often the most expensive; if the service shuts down after years of operation, you could lose all your images. Can you accept that loss?
What if I don't use an image hosting service but my network speed is slow?You might say, 'I bought a domestic server with small bandwidth (e.g., only 1M), and it lags when loading many images. Not using an image hosting service is too slow.' How to solve this without an image hosting service? We can use cloud storage or CDN services, like the previously shared
Youpaiyun CDN tutorial for website acceleration. CDN and cloud storage also use third-party server storage and bandwidth, but you keep a copy of the original images on your server, so even if the third-party service fails, you don't have to worry about losing image data.
What are some free image hosting services?
A quick search online will reveal many image hosting services, such as imgchr and sm.ms in the image above, which are two well-known ones. As long as you explore, you won't worry about lacking options; you only need to worry about how to restore images on your website if the service suddenly becomes unavailable.
Summary
Using an image hosting service can save your website's server storage and bandwidth usage; a good one can speed up your site. When using an image hosting service, especially free ones, you must consider its stability and security—whether it might suddenly become unavailable and if you can quickly restore images used in posts and pages. If not, it's not recommended; consider using free CDN or cloud storage services (paid options aren't expensive either—don't believe in 'forever free').
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