Cost-Effective Stack — MongoDB + Cloudflare R2 + Payload

The Developer Dilemma: Great Stack, Tiny Budget

You’ve been there.

AWS S3 hit you with egress fees like it’s charging rent in Mumbai 🤑
You needed a CMS that didn’t melt under real-world schema changes 🤹‍♂️
Your stack costs more to host than your actual product makes 🧍‍♂️💸

We needed a dev-first, wallet-friendly, no-nonsense stack.

So, I built one.

🚀 The Stack:

Payload CMS for content modeling and auth
MongoDB Atlas for flexible, fast NoSQL storage
Cloudflare R2 for zero-egress, globally distributed file storage

All glued together for zero-dollar infra on personal projects — and scalable when needed.

🍃 Why MongoDB Works So Well with Payload

MongoDB’s document-based structure fits naturally with Payload's collection-based approach. Combine that with:

✅ Official MongoDB adapter
✅ Generous free tier (512MB on Atlas — plenty for blogs, MVPs)
✅ Schema flexibility without migrations (take that, SQL 🤺)
✅ Smooth scaling when your side project blows up

Code setup:

1import { buildConfig } from 'payload';
2import { mongooseAdapter } from '@payloadcms/db-mongodb';
3
4export default buildConfig({
5  secret: process.env.PAYLOAD_SECRET,
6  db: mongooseAdapter({
7    url: process.env.DATABASE_URI,
8  }),
9  // Collections, globals, etc.
10});

🛠️ Easy to plug. Easy to scale.

☁️ Cloudflare R2: The Free-Speech, Free-Egress S3 Alternative

The moment you stop treating AWS like your landlord and move to R2, everything feels lighter:

🎉 10GB free tier
🎯 No egress fees
🌍 Global distribution by default
💡 S3-compatible API (so existing plugins work!)

R2 Adapter in Payload:

1import { buildConfig } from 'payload';
2import { s3Adapter } from '@payloadcms/plugin-cloud-storage/s3';
3
4export default buildConfig({
5  // Database config
6  
7  upload: {
8    limits: {
9      fileSize: 5000000, // 5MB, adjust as needed
10    },
11  },
12  
13  plugins: [
14    s3Adapter({
15      config: {
16        endpoint: process.env.R2_ENDPOINT,
17        credentials: {
18          accessKeyId: process.env.R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
19          secretAccessKey: process.env.R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY,
20        },
21        region: 'auto', // R2 doesn't use regions like AWS
22        forcePathStyle: true, // Required for R2
23      },
24      bucket: process.env.R2_BUCKET_NAME,
25    }),
26  ],
27});
28

💸 Bye-bye egress charges, hello budget-friendly file hosting.

🚢 Deploying the Stack for ₹0/month

MongoDB Atlas (M0 tier) — your noSQL base
Cloudflare R2 — media storage done right
Vercel (Hobby) — serverless frontend and API hosting

Put together, this gives you a full-blown CMS stack that doesn’t start the month with your credit card screaming.

⚙️ Pro Tips for Performance

🧠 Index your MongoDB for fast queries
🖼️ Image transformation via Cloudflare Images
💾 Smart cache headers for static assets from R2
🌐 Edge functions via Vercel for near-instant TTFB

🔍 Monitor Before You Regret

Even if you’re not paying (yet), monitor usage:

Set up alerts in MongoDB Atlas
Track R2 usage in Cloudflare Dashboard
Vercel offers analytics for both serverless functions and frontend

💡 Final Thoughts

Payload CMS + MongoDB + R2 gives you the indie dev dream stack:

✅ Secure
✅ Cost-efficient
✅ Developer-first
✅ Highly scalable

No more wondering if the CMS or infra will buckle — and no more memes about AWS invoices.

Cost-Effective Stack — MongoDB + Cloudflare R2