Direct-to-S3 Upload with Presigned URLs

Part of the MediaBridge series. The Upload Problem The obvious way to handle file uploads in a web app is to pipe them through the backend: browser sends the file to your server, server writes it to S3. This works. It also means every upload byte travels twice - once from the browser to your server, and again from your server to S3. Your server becomes a bottleneck, your bandwidth bill doubles, and large files tie up server connections. ...

February 7, 2026 · 6 min · 1163 words · Sagar Nayak