I built a completely zero-cost photography portfolio by using Telegram as an image storage backend.

The idea is simple:

I upload photos to Telegram, retrieve the image URLs, and store them in a Firebase-backed database that powers my portfolio website.

👉 Live demo: https://photo.1chooo.com

From a custom dashboard, I can:

• Manage the display order of each photo

• Pin selected photos to the homepage

• Upload images directly to Telegram

• Organize photos into different slugs (collections)

• Rename photos

• Delete photos from a slug

• Modify slug names dynamically

Everything is designed to be flexible and easy to manage without paying for traditional image hosting or CDN services.

The entire project is open source, and the website design is inspired by shud.in.

Source code: https://github.com/1chooo/photo

I’d love to discuss the idea, hear feedback, or explore improvements together.

If you’re interested in using this approach to build your own photography portfolio, feel free to reach out as well.

See Reddit post for video demo: https://www.reddit.com/r/react/comments/1pr9mk6/telegram_as_storage_a_0cost_photography_portfolio/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button