Using a custom upload provider with Strapi Cloud

Strapi Cloud supports custom upload providers, which we recommend when you need:

• Advanced file control capabilities

• Caching and automated optimizations

• Enhanced security features

• Private files or bucket access

Important considerations:

• Our support team cannot assist with external upload provider issues

• We cannot help debug provider-specific:

  • Caching problems

  • Security configurations

  • Performance issues

• We cannot support integration of third-party upload providers that Strapi doesn't maintain

• When using AWS S3 behind AWS API Gateway, uploads are limited to 10MB due to API Gateway's payload size restriction

Officially supported upload providers:

• @strapi/provider-upload-aws-s3 for Amazon S3

• @strapi/provider-upload-cloudinary for Cloudinary

AWS API Gateway considerations

When deploying Strapi behind AWS API Gateway with the AWS S3 upload provider, file uploads larger than 10MB will fail due to API Gateway's payload limit. This limitation cannot be bypassed from within Strapi.

Recommended workaround: Configure your frontend application to upload large files directly to S3 using presigned URLs, bypassing the API Gateway entirely. Strapi can then store the file metadata after the upload is complete.

For more information about presigned URLs with upload providers, see the private providers documentation.

For detailed setup instructions, visit our Strapi Cloud upload provider guide.