---
id: cloudinary
version: "1.45.0"
license: Released under the MIT license.  Contains MIT licensed code from https://bitbucket.org/chrisatlee/poster   
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# cloudinary — Python and Django SDK for Cloudinary

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 2.3M/mo

## What it is and what it does

Cloudinary is a Python SDK that connects your application to Cloudinary's media management platform, handling image and video uploads, transformations, optimization, and delivery. It abstracts the complexity of working with media assets by providing high-level functions for common tasks like resizing, cropping, filtering, and generating secure delivery URLs. The package includes first-class Django integration through form and model helpers, making it straightforward to add media management to Django applications.

The SDK sits between your application and Cloudinary's cloud infrastructure, managing authentication, request formatting, and response parsing. It supports a wide range of transformation parameters and can generate optimized tags for embedding images and videos in web pages. With low install friction and active maintenance, it's designed for developers who want to offload media handling to a specialized service rather than managing assets locally.

Use it for:

- Upload user-generated images and videos to Cloudinary while handling validation and storage in a Django web application.
- Transform images on-the-fly (resize, crop, apply filters) and generate optimized URLs for responsive web delivery.
- Generate secure, signed URLs for media assets to control access and prevent unauthorized distribution.
- Integrate media upload forms into Django models and admin interfaces using the SDK's Django helpers.
- Optimize and convert video formats for multi-device playback across web and mobile platforms.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Cloudinary Python SDK provides image and video upload, transformation, optimization, and delivery through Cloudinary's cloud platform, with built-in Django integration and secure URL generation.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, uses a permissive MIT license, and offers low install friction. It's well-suited for applications that need reliable media management and transformation without building that infrastructure in-house. Django projects in particular benefit from its native integration. Install it if you're using Cloudinary or considering a managed media platform.

## Install

pip install cloudinary
uv add cloudinary
poetry add cloudinary

## Installing cloudinary

Before you install: Low install friction with only three lightweight runtime dependencies (six, urllib3, certifi). Active maintenance with a recent release 44 days ago and ongoing repository activity.

License in practice: MIT license (permissive) allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; includes MIT-licensed code from an external source.

Quickstart:

pip install cloudinary

import cloudinary
cloudinary.utils.cloudinary_url("sample.jpg", width=100, height=150, crop="fill")
cloudinary.uploader.upload("my_picture.jpg")

Requires a Cloudinary account and API credentials configured in your environment to authenticate uploads and transformations.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package supports Python 2.7 as indicated in the version support table, given that Python 2.7 reached end-of-life in 2020.
- Current state of Django 1.11 and 2.x support claims, as these Django versions are no longer actively maintained.

## Package facts

- License: Released under the MIT license.  Contains MIT licensed code from https://bitbucket.org/chrisatlee/poster    (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 2.3M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

image upload and transformation, video management sdk, cloudinary python integration, image optimization and delivery, django media management, cdn asset management, image crop resize filter, media-management, django-integration, cdn-delivery

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