How Homify delivers millions of interior design images seamlessly with ImageKit

Homify is a global platform that inspires homeowners and connects them with interior designers through millions of high-quality images of home interiors. Delivering this visual inspiration seamlessly across 50+ countries requires fast, reliable, and high-quality media delivery at scale.

In 2021, Homify migrated its media delivery to ImageKit to cut costs, scale effortlessly, and preserve the high-quality visual experience its global audience expects.

Key stats

"The straightforward pricing model, the capability to retain our existing image transformations and SEO with very little work from our developers made ImageKit an easy choice. ImageKit fit right in and worked smoothly without breaking millions of images already indexed on search engines."
-Kai Kalka, CTO, Homify

The challenge: Balancing cost, scale, and SEO stability

As Homify scaled, its costs with the existing media solution increased quickly, not only for delivery bandwidth and the image transformations for different devices, but also for storing both the original and transformed images. Because every asset had to reside in the solution provider's storage, Homify was paying high fees even for outdated and rarely used files.

At the same time, more than a million transformation-based image URLs were already indexed on search engines. Any change to those URLs risked significant SEO losses and drops in organic traffic.

The Homify team needed a solution that:

• Allowed them to use their own cloud storage (AWS S3), without vendor lock-in
• Preserved existing URL structure to maintain SEO rankings
• Scaled seamlessly without engineering overhead
• Processed images in full compliance with GDPR

ImageKit features used

• Seamless integration with AWS S3 Cloud Storage
  Homify migrated all its files from its previous provider to Amazon S3, ensuring full control and avoiding vendor lock-in. Simply connecting this S3 bucket to ImageKit unlocked world-class optimization, transformation, and delivery, without changing workflows.
  The process is simple: new assets are uploaded to S3, and ImageKit instantly delivers optimized versions worldwide through its built-in AWS CloudFront CDN.

• Quick migration with URL rewriter without breaking SEO
  With more than a million transformation-based image URLs already indexed, SEO stability was critical. ImageKit's URL Rewriter seamlessly mapped existing transformation patterns onto ImageKit equivalents, preserving the exact same URL structure. As a result, Homify migrated without breaking SEO or disrupting the user experience.
• Lightweight, mobile-first transformations at lower cost
  Homify uses ImageKit's URL-based transformations to resize, crop, and optimize images on the fly for any screen, from mobile to high-density displays. Automatic compression and format conversion to WebP deliver faster load times and lower bandwidth usage. And with no charges for transformations or generated storage, Homify improved both user experience and unit economics without incurring additional costs.

• GDPR-compliant image processing and global CDN
  ImageKit's delivery is powered by AWS CloudFront's 700+ edge locations worldwide, backed by processing and caching in Frankfurt, Germany. This ensures GDPR-compliant processing while delivering media within milliseconds to Homify's 50+ international markets.
• Fully automated content updates
  With ImageKit's API-driven cache invalidation, Homify ensures that any content update is instantly reflected across its platforms. This eliminates manual cache management, keeping images fresh and accurate everywhere, without adding developer overhead.

Key results

• No vendor lock-in: Full control of image content in their own AWS S3
• SEO preserved: 1.2M+ indexed URLs migrated without disruption
• Significant cost savings: Eliminated charges for generated storage and transformations
• Faster global performance: Integrated CDN and Frankfurt processing reduced load times, keeping design galleries snappy worldwide

What’s next

Homify plans to expand media processing to video, currently hosted on YouTube. As they scale visual storytelling, ImageKit's video processing and delivery capabilities will enable them to bring this in-house while maintaining performance and consistency.

Conclusion

With ImageKit, Homify modernized its media stack with a scalable, low-overhead solution, cutting costs, preserving SEO, and reducing engineering effort. The migration not only safeguarded their image footprint but also prepared the platform for global growth and future media formats.