CODEWITHSUNDEEP
djangoheroku
Aidas Bendoraitis
Aidas Bendoraitis

Reputation: 4003

Media files on Heroku

If I host a small Django website on Heroku and I am using just one dyno, is it save to upload media files on that server, or should I necessarily use AWS S3 storage to store media files? What are other alternatives for media storage?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2984

Answers (2)

dkarchmer
dkarchmer

Reputation: 5594

Using S3 is the way to go (alternatives are the Azure and Google offerings). There are several other advantages for using S3, mostly ability to service files without stressing your small server.

While your site is small, a dyno is very small as well, so a major advantage of S3, if used correctly, is that you can have the backing of the AWS S3 infrastructure to service the files. By "used correctly", I mean that you want to upload and service files directly to/from S3 so your server is only used for signing the S3 urls, but the actual files never go through your server.

Check https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/s3-upload-python and http://docs.fineuploader.com/quickstart/01-getting-started.html (I strongly recommend Fine-Uploader if you can use the free version or afford the small license fee.).

Obviously, you can also just implement S3 media files in django using django-storage-redux, but that that means your server will be busy uploading files. If that's ok for your small server, then it is ok too.

Upvotes: 4

Daniel Roseman
Daniel Roseman

Reputation: 599480

No, it is never safe to store things on the Heroku filesystem. Even though you only have one dyno, it is still ephemeral, and can be killed at any time; for example when you push new code.

Upvotes: 5

Related Questions