the customer

Making moments meaningful

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Buildfire provides the tools and infrastructure to help anyone launch a polished, functional mobile app – without the need for engineering resources. Their platform supports drag-and-drop customization as well as developer-built plugins, giving users complete control.

Apps built on Buildfire span industries, but one standout use case is a recipe app with over 5 million active users and a built-in social network. Each recipe features rich visuals and encourages users to share their own images – meaning Buildfire must support both static content and high volumes of user-generated media.

“We don’t just serve the app owner,” explains Ayman Habeb, Director of Engineering. “We also handle the images their users upload – and those images need to look great and load fast.”

the challenge

Visual performance for a growing platform

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As Buildfire scaled, image delivery became more complex. Every app had different layout needs and device contexts, which required real-time resizing and cropping. Load times and rendering issues became more noticeable, especially for apps with international user bases.

Buildfire also faced infrastructure limitations:

• Reliability problems with their previous vendor resulted in complaints from end users in certain countries.

• Security concerns around image tokens meant it was difficult to track and protect usage.

• Cost inefficiencies emerged as traffic grew, straining budgets and requiring a more scalable model.

What the team needed was a secure, cost-effective image solution that integrated smoothly with their Amazon S3 storage and could power dynamic transformations at scale – all without compromising on speed.

the solution

A seamless image pipeline that scales with users

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Buildfire partnered with Imgix to integrate image rendering, resizing, and delivery into its platform. Using Imgix’s secure and scalable CDN, the team ensured that images – whether uploaded by app owners or their users – would be reliably and quickly delivered in any format or size.

This enabled several key improvements:

• Real-time resizing and cropping based on device context, ensuring the best experience across all views.

• Reliable delivery worldwide, with performance monitoring confirming 100% image delivery success since the switch.

• Faster app load times, including support for preloading images in apps with offline capabilities.

• Centralized hosting with Buildfire’s existing S3 infrastructure, simplifying deployment without changes to existing workflows.

“When we made the switch, our goal was for users not to notice,” said Habeb. “And they didn’t. But what we did notice was a complete drop in image-related complaints.”

the results

Better images, faster apps, and fewer headaches

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By upgrading their image delivery infrastructure, Buildfire improved performance and reliability across thousands of live apps. Apps now load faster, images render more consistently across devices, and user-generated content is handled with ease.Security and cost control have also improved. With signed URLs and usage tracking, Buildfire now has visibility and protection across its entire image pipeline – all while serving over 6.8 million image requests each month.

Building what’s next for visual app creation

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With a strong image foundation in place, Buildfire is looking ahead. The team is actively exploring AI-powered features like auto-tagging to help users organize media faster and more intuitively. By listening to customers and prioritizing simplicity, Buildfire aims to bring even more visual intelligence into its platform – all while keeping the experience easy for creators of all skill levels. In doing so, they’re not just powering today’s apps, but enabling a future where anyone can build beautiful, high-performing mobile experiences.