చిత్రం
What will you upload today?
A modern image hosting platform built to learn distributed systems. Upload, organize, and share your images with automatic AI tagging.
Why Chitram?
Chitram (చిత్రం - "image" in Telugu) started as a learning project to understand distributed systems in practice. What began as a simple image upload API evolved into a production-ready platform with automatic AI tagging, background job processing, and OAuth authentication.
Each phase added new complexity - from basic CRUD to Redis caching, MinIO storage, Celery workers, and OpenAI Vision integration. The journey of building Chitram taught valuable lessons about system design, deployment debugging, and the importance of incremental complexity.
Features
Automatic AI Tagging
Images are automatically tagged using OpenAI Vision API within seconds of upload. No manual tagging required.
Smart Thumbnails
Automatic thumbnail generation with background processing for fast gallery loading.
Secure Authentication
OAuth login with GitHub and Google via Supabase, or use local authentication.
Private by Default
Your images are unlisted - accessible only via direct URL or your personal gallery.
Redis Caching
Lightning-fast metadata retrieval with Redis caching. Sub-50ms response times.
MinIO Storage
S3-compatible object storage with MinIO. Scale horizontally as your library grows.
Built With
FastAPI
Async Python API
PostgreSQL
Database
MinIO
Object Storage
Celery
Background Jobs
Redis
Caching
OpenAI
Vision API
HTMX
Interactivity
Tailwind CSS
Styling
Platform Stats
20
Images Hosted
7
Active Users
Development Journey
Part 1: AI Provider System
Strategy pattern for swappable AI providers. Switch between OpenAI, Google Vision, or mock providers with zero code changes.
3 min read →
Part 2: Manual → Automatic
Why we built a manual endpoint first before adding Celery automation. Incremental complexity saves debugging time.
3 min read →
Part 3: Deployment Debugging
5 cascading infrastructure bugs and the Storage Factory Pattern that fixed them. Code duplication causes production bugs.
3 min read →
Ready to get started?
Join Chitram and start uploading your images today.