Today was supposed to be simple: upload some images to my blog and add a newsletter signup. Instead, I spent 8 hours down rabbit holes comparing object storage pricing, CDN configurations, and email marketing platforms. Welcome to my brain.
But hey, at least I made some decisions. Let's talk about what I learned.
The Image Storage Crisis
Here's the thing about static blogs: images are a problem.
I'm building this site with Next.js as a static site generator. Everything is markdown files, deployed to Cloudflare Pages. Clean, simple, fast. But where do I put the images?
My first instinct was "just commit them to the Git repo." Bad idea. Really bad idea.
After asking Perplexity and Claude about this, here's what I learned:
- GitHub repos have a 1GB soft limit
- Git isn't designed for binary files
- Every image update bloats your repo history forever
- Your build times become miserable
So I needed external object storage. Which led me down the AWS S3 vs Cloudflare R2 rabbit hole.
AWS S3 vs Cloudflare R2: The Hotlink Attack Scenario
I'm paranoid about bandwidth attacks. Someone hotlinks your images on Reddit, goes viral, and suddenly you owe AWS $900 for egress fees. It happens.
So I did what any reasonable person would do: I asked Claude and Perplexity to compare costs for a 10TB hotlink attack scenario.
AWS S3 + Cloudflare CDN:
- Best case (95% CDN cache hit): ~$70/month
- Worst case (cache purge attack): $900+
- Still charges egress fees even to Cloudflare
Cloudflare R2 + Cloudflare CDN:
- Normal operations: ~$0.15/month (just storage)
- Under 10TB attack: ~$32 (just request fees)
- Zero egress fees. Ever.
Yeah, R2 wins. It's not even close.
The math is simple: R2 has zero egress fees by design. AWS charges $0.09/GB to send data anywhere, even to Cloudflare's CDN. With R2, you only pay for storage ($15/TB/month) and API requests ($0.36 per million reads). Bandwidth is completely free.
Even if someone launches a massive hotlink attack and generates 10TB of traffic, I'd pay around $32 in request fees. With S3, that same attack would cost $900+ in egress alone.
Decision made: Cloudflare R2 it is.
Setting Up R2 (Or: Why I Didn't Actually Configure Anything)
Once I committed to R2, I went deep into research mode. Spent hours chatting with Claude and Perplexity about WAF rules, rate limiting, cache policies, signed URLs, API token management, and all that security theater.
Then I realized something: I'm on Cloudflare's free plan.
Most of those advanced security features? Not available on the free tier. WAF custom rules? Nope. Advanced rate limiting? Nope. Bot Management? Nope.
And honestly? I didn't care. Here's what I actually did:
What I actually set up:
- Added a custom domain to my R2 bucket
- That's it
What Cloudflare automatically handled for me:
- SSL certificate (auto-provisioned via Let's Encrypt)
- CDN caching (default aggressive caching for static assets)
- Basic DDoS protection (included on free plan)
- Edge network delivery (300+ locations worldwide)
Claude and Perplexity kept suggesting I implement signed URLs for "maximum security." The idea is you generate time-limited URLs that expire after an hour or whatever, so even if someone hotlinks your images, the URLs stop working.
Sounds cool. Also sounds complicated and time-consuming.
I made a pragmatic decision: R2 + Cloudflare CDN is probably enough.
Here's my reasoning:
- R2 has zero egress fees, so even if someone hotlinks my images, I'm not paying for bandwidth
- Cloudflare's CDN will cache everything anyway, so R2 barely gets hit
- I'm running a personal blog, not hosting classified documents
- The worst case scenario is... someone uses my CDN for free? And I pay a few cents in request fees?
I can always add signed URLs later if I actually need them. For now, I'm shipping with the basics.
One thing that did confuse me: after uploading 2-3 test images, my R2 dashboard showed 106 Class A operations and 313 Class B operations. I thought I was being attacked.
Nope. Turns out that's completely normal. It's Cloudflare's CDN warming caches across edge locations, DNS verification, SSL provisioning, and health checks. After 24-48 hours, those numbers drop to near zero because everything stays cached.
Good enough for day one.
Hosting: VPS vs Cloudflare Pages
I also briefly considered moving from Cloudflare Pages to a VPS server. The idea was more control, more flexibility, maybe faster builds.
Then I remembered why I chose Cloudflare Pages in the first place:
- Free (as in $0/month)
- Fast (deployed on Cloudflare's edge network)
- Simple (git push = auto deploy)
- No server maintenance
With a VPS, I'd be managing Nginx configs, SSL certificates, server updates, backups... for what benefit? Slightly more control?
No thanks. I like writing blog posts in markdown files and pushing to GitHub. Cloudflare Pages handles the rest.
Decision made: Staying on Cloudflare Pages.
The Email Marketing Pivot: Mautic to Kit.com
Yesterday I spent 6 hours setting up Mautic, a self-hosted email marketing platform. It was painful but it worked.
Today I discovered Kit.com (formerly ConvertKit) has a free plan with 10,000 subscribers and unlimited sending.
Wait, what?
I spent all day yesterday fighting through Mautic installation errors, PHP version conflicts, memory limit issues, and Nginx configurations... and there's a free SaaS option that does everything I need?
Here's the thing: my use case isn't complicated.
I don't have email sequences. I'm not building complex automation workflows. I don't need A/B testing or advanced segmentation or lead scoring.
I just need to send broadcast emails to people who want to read my blog posts. That's it.
Let's compare:
Self-hosted Mautic:
- Cost: $5/month VPS + $19.95/month SendGrid = $25/month
- Setup time: 6 hours of debugging
- Maintenance: Manual updates, backups, security patches
- Features: Everything (automation, sequences, landing pages, etc.)
- Reality: Using 5% of the features
Kit.com Free Plan:
- Cost: $0/month (up to 10,000 subscribers)
- Setup time: 10 minutes
- Maintenance: Zero
- Features: Broadcast emails, basic forms, tagging
- Reality: Exactly what I need right now
For a blog that currently has zero subscribers, spending $25/month and 6 hours of setup time on features I'm not using was absurd.
I pivoted immediately.
Implementing Kit.com Newsletter
Setting up Kit.com was embarrassingly easy compared to yesterday's Mautic nightmare.
What I actually did:
- Created a Kit.com account (free)
- Created a form in the dashboard
- Got the form embed code
- Asked Claude Code to implement it for me
- Claude built the React component, added it to all the pages, created the modal, fixed CSP issues
- Done
Yeah, I didn't write any of the implementation code myself. I just told Claude Code "add Kit.com newsletter forms to my blog" and it handled everything.
I went with the embed form approach because it's fast and easy. Kit.com gives you a script tag, you drop it in, it works. No complicated API integration needed for basic newsletter signups.
Sure, I could use the Kit.com API directly for more control.
But why? The embed form does everything I need right now. When I need more advanced features like custom workflows, programmatic tagging, or subscriber management, I'll implement the API. Not today.
What I Actually Learned Today
After 8 hours of research and implementation, here's what stuck:
1. Cloudflare R2 eliminates egress anxiety
- Zero bandwidth costs regardless of traffic
- ~4x cheaper than AWS S3 for CDN use cases
- Perfect for static assets (images, videos, etc.)
2. Don't self-host what you don't need to
- Mautic was cool but overkill for a blog with zero subscribers
- Kit.com's free tier is more than enough for now
- I can always migrate later if I outgrow it
3. Free tiers are incredible in 2025
- Cloudflare Pages: Free hosting + CDN
- Cloudflare R2: 10GB storage + 10M requests/month free
- Kit.com: 10,000 subscribers + unlimited emails free
- Total cost: $0/month
4. "Good enough" beats perfect
- Didn't implement signed URLs or custom WAF rules
- Cloudflare's free tier handles the basics automatically
- Ship now, optimize later if needed
5. Decision paralysis is real
- Spent 6 hours comparing S3 vs R2
- The answer was obvious after 30 minutes
- Just pick something and ship
The Wins
Despite the analysis paralysis, I'm happy with where I landed:
- Image storage: Cloudflare R2 + CDN (attack-proof, $0/month)
- Hosting: Cloudflare Pages (fast, simple, $0/month)
- Email marketing: Kit.com (free up to 10k subscribers)
- Total monthly cost: $0
Tomorrow I'm writing actual blog content instead of obsessing over infrastructure.
Maybe.
Today's Stack: Next.js, Cloudflare Pages, Cloudflare R2, Kit.com
Hosting: Cloudflare everything (R2 + Pages + CDN)
Cost: $0/month (living the free tier dream)
Time spent researching: 6 hours
Time spent implementing: 2 hours
Decisions made: 3 (Cloudflare R2 over AWS S3, Cloudflare Pages over VPS, Kit.com over Mautic)
Lessons learned: Yesterday's 6 hours on Mautic wasn't wasted - now I know how self-hosted email works, even if I'm not using it