UploadKit vs Bytescale

Bytescale is an upload and media hosting service with paid plans and a free trial. It is the cheapest paid starting point of the vendors on this list at $7/mo, and it supports external storage such as AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, Google Storage and DigitalOcean Spaces.

UploadKit differs on the free plan, the open-source SDK and the component library. It does not differ on bring-your-own-bucket support, since both offer it.

Sources (checked October 2026): Bytescale pricing. Vendors change prices; confirm on their site before you decide.

• You want the cheapest paid plan

  Basic at $7/mo is below UploadKit Pro at $15/mo. If 10 GB of storage and bandwidth is enough, it costs less.

• You upload very large files

  Bytescale Advanced lists a 100 GB max upload and Plus lists 5 GB. UploadKit tops out at 5 GB on Team.

• You use DigitalOcean Spaces or Google Storage

  Those are listed as supported external storage. UploadKit documents S3, R2 and MinIO adapters.

• You want to start without paying

  UploadKit Free has no time limit: 5 GB storage, 2 GB bandwidth a month and 1,000 uploads a month. Bytescale lists paid plans with a trial.

• You want more included capacity per dollar on Pro

  At $15/mo UploadKit Pro includes 100 GB storage and 200 GB bandwidth. Bytescale Plus at $35/mo includes 50 GB of each.

• You want an open-source SDK and a component library

  The SDK and 40+ React components are MIT licensed and ship as code you can restyle.

If your Bytescale account points at your own bucket, the files are already yours to keep. Point the UploadKit storage adapter at the same bucket, add an upload route that authorizes users, and swap the client component. This is the button from the Next.js quickstart:

npm install @uploadkitdev/next @uploadkitdev/react

import { UploadButton } from '@uploadkitdev/react';

export default function ProfilePage() {
  return (
    <UploadButton
      route="imageUploader"
      onUploadComplete={(files) => {
        console.log('Files uploaded:', files.map((f) => f.url));
      }}
      onUploadError={(error) => {
        alert(`Upload failed: ${error.message}`);
      }}
    />
  );
}

The button needs an upload route and a provider; the Next.js quickstart walks through both.