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PHP SDK

Last updated: Dec-02-2025

The Cloudinary PHP SDK provides simple, yet comprehensive image and video upload, transformation, optimization, and delivery capabilities through the Cloudinary APIs, that you can implement using code that integrates seamlessly with your existing PHP application.

SDK security upgrade, June 2025
We recently released an enhanced security version of this SDK that improves the validation and handling of input parameters. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of the SDK to benefit from these security improvements.

How would you like to learn?

Resource Description
PHP quick start Get up and running in five minutes with a walk through of installation, configuration, upload, management and transformations.
Video tutorials Watch tutorials relevant to your use cases, from getting started with the PHP SDK, to uploading, transforming and analyzing your images and videos.
Sample projects Explore sample projects to see how to implement Cloudinary functionality such as upload and delivery with transformations.
Cloudinary PHP SDK GitHub repo Explore the source code and see the CHANGELOG for details on all new features and fixes from previous versions.
Cloudinary Academy Try the free Introduction to Cloudinary for PHP Developers online course, where you can learn how to upload, manage, transform and optimize your digital assets.

Install

Use Composer to manage your PHP library dependency, and install Cloudinary's PHP library directly from the Packagist repository.

  1. Run the following command in the root folder of your project to add the SDK and update your composer.json:

    This automatically adds the SDK under the require section in composer.json, like this:

  2. Install dependencies including Cloudinary's PHP package:

    (If you don't have the necessary permissions you can run the file itself: php composer.phar install)

Note
Make sure that the composer autoload.php is required in any file that will include Cloudinary code, for example: require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

Configure

You can set the required configuration parameters, cloud_name, api_key and api_secret either using the CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable, or using the config method in your code.

You can set the configuration parameters globally, using either an environment variable or the Configuration::instance method, or programmatically in each call to a Cloudinary method. Parameters set in a call to a Cloudinary method override globally set parameters.

To define the CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable:

  1. Copy the API environment variable format from the API Keys page of the Cloudinary Console Settings.
  2. Replace <your_api_key> and <your_api_secret> with your actual values. Your cloud name is already correctly included in the format.

For example:

Set required configuration parameters

In a simple PHP app, you can set the Cloudinary configuration globally using the Configuration class. This works as long as everything runs in one place.

But in apps with frameworks, modules, or multiple entry points, the global config may not always be available. In those cases, use a separate instance configuration instead.

To set the required configuration parameters globally in your PHP application using the Configuration class:

Tip
To generate transformation URLs, you only need to configure the cloud name. The API key and API secret aren't required for URL generation.

Set additional configuration parameters

In addition to the required configuration parameters, you can define a number of optional configuration parameters if relevant.

You can append configuration parameters, for example upload_prefix and secure_distribution, to the environment variable:

Or you can use the Configuration method in your code, for example:

Configure instances

When your application becomes more complex (e.g., using frameworks, multiple modules, or different product environments), you'll need to handle your Cloudinary configuration using multiple instances. A global configuration may not be applicable across all the different areas where Cloudinary is used.

You can configure a Cloudinary instance either through a JSON object or programmatically. Below are examples for both methods:

You can also configure parameters for an instance via an environment variable, for example:

Note
You also need to include the classes you use in your code, although your IDE should warn you when you need to include a class. All available namespaces and classes are found in the src folder of the PHP SDK, and in the PHP reference guide.

Configuration video tutorials

The following tutorials can help you install and set up your SDK.

Use

Once you've installed and configured the PHP SDK, you can use it for:

  • Uploading files to your product environment: You can upload any files, not only images and videos, set your own naming conventions and overwrite policies, moderate and tag your assets on upload, and much more. See example
  • Transforming and optimizing images and videos: Keeping your original assets intact in your product environment, you can deliver different versions of your media - different sizes, formats, with effects and overlays, customized for your needs. See example
  • Managing assets: Using methods from the Admin and Upload APIs, you can organize your assets, for example, list, rename and delete them, add tags and metadata and use advanced search capabilities. See example

Quick example: File upload

The following PHP code uploads the dog.mp4 video to the specified folder, and using the public_id, my_dog. The video overwrites the existing my_dog video if it exists. When the video upload is complete, the specified notification URL receives details about the uploaded media asset.

Learn more about upload

Quick example: Transform and optimize

Take a look at the following transformation code and the image it delivers:

This relatively simple code performs all of the following on the original front_face.jpg image before delivering it:

  • Crop to a 150x150 thumbnail using face-detection gravity to automatically determine the location for the crop
  • Round the corners with a 20 pixel radius
  • Apply a sepia effect
  • Overlay the Cloudinary logo on the southeast corner of the image (with a slight offset). Scale the logo overlay down to a 50 pixel width, with increased brightness and partial transparency (opacity = 60%)
  • Rotate the resulting image (including the overlay) by 10 degrees
  • Convert and deliver the image in PNG format (the originally uploaded image was a JPG)

And here's the URL that's automatically generated and included in an image tag from the above code:

In a similar way, you can transform a video.

Learn more about transformations

Quick example: Get details of a single asset

The following PHP example uses the Admin API resource method to return details of the image with public ID cld-sample:

Sample response

Learn more about managing assets

Sample projects

Take a look at the PHP sample projects page to help you get started integrating Cloudinary into your PHP application.

Related topics

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