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WordPress Media Offloader

WordPress Media Offloader

Hippius Media Offloader moves your WordPress media library onto Hippius, a distributed cloud storage platform where every file is encrypted and split across independent machines. Your images, videos and documents stop filling up your hosting disk, and your site serves them straight from Hippius.

Your files live on Arion, our own storage engine. Each one is split into 30 pieces (10 data and 20 parity) using Reed-Solomon erasure coding, then spread across the network with the CRUSH algorithm. Even if 20 machines go offline at the same time, your files still rebuild.

The plugin talks to Hippius over the standard S3-compatible API, the same one you'd use for AWS S3. There's no code to change, no proprietary SDK to learn, and no IPFS setup to wrangle.

Get the plugin

Install Hippius Media Offloader from the WordPress plugin directory at wordpress.org/plugins/hippius-media-offloader. This guide covers version 1.0.6 or later.

What this plugin does​

  • Migrates your existing WordPress media to Hippius in bulk.
  • Offloads new uploads automatically, in the background, a few seconds after they're uploaded.
  • Serves migrated media from Hippius URLs wherever WordPress builds a media link, including every image size and responsive srcset.
  • Shows real-time migration progress, and lets you stop a migration and pick it up again later.
  • Lets you keep local copies as backups, or delete them to free up disk space.
  • Tracks migration status, errors, storage usage and your account balance from one dashboard.

What this plugin doesn't do​

  • It isn't a CDN. If you need global content delivery, put a CDN in front of Hippius.
  • It doesn't back up your WordPress database, only your media files.
  • It doesn't create your storage bucket yet. You create the bucket in the Hippius Console first, then enter its name in the plugin.
  • It doesn't encrypt files on your server before upload. Hippius encrypts them at rest, so miners only ever see encrypted bytes, but media served on a website is public by design. If you want client-side, end-to-end encryption for files only you can read, use the Hippius Desktop app.

How Hippius stores your files​

Every file you offload ends up on Arion, our distributed storage engine:

  • Erasure coding. Each file is broken into 30 pieces (10 data and 20 parity) with Reed-Solomon.
  • CRUSH placement. Those pieces are spread across independent machines, so up to 20 can fail before your file is ever at risk.
  • Encrypted at rest. Hippius uses envelope encryption: every chunk is encrypted under its own key, and those keys are in turn wrapped by a key management service. Miners only ever see encrypted bytes.

Because it's plain S3 underneath, any S3 tool works with Hippius too. The S3 compatibility matrix lists every supported operation.

What it costs​

Your storage is paid from your account balance, or with an S3 plan. Downloads are free, only storage is billed. You can top up your account balance by card, Bitcoin, USDC, TAO or Hippius tokens (hAlpha). See Console Billing for prices and plans.

Where to go next​