hui sun

Posted on Mar 28

A Background-remover application finished by Ai

#ai #beginners

I Built a Free AI Background Remover Using Cloudflare Workers + D1

I spent my weekend building an AI background remover website, with both frontend and backend deployed on Cloudflare, costing almost nothing. Here's my development journey and some lessons learned.

🌟 Project URL

https://zmjjkk.xyz

🔧 Tech Stack

Frontend: Static HTML + JavaScript (Cloudflare Pages)
Backend: Cloudflare Workers
Database: Cloudflare D1
AI Background Removal: Remove.bg API
Payment: PayPal

🚀 Features

Free to Use: 3 free uses per day, no login required
Google Login: Cross-device sync after login
Credit Packs: Purchase credits via PayPal
Membership: Monthly/Yearly unlimited plans

💡 Key Highlights

1. Benefits of D1 Database

Previously I used localStorage, so users would lose their data when switching devices. After switching to D1, once a user logs in, their credits and membership sync across all devices.

-- User table structure
CREATE TABLE users (
  id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
  google_id TEXT UNIQUE,
  email TEXT,
  credits INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
  membership TEXT,
  membership_expire TEXT,
  total_used INTEGER DEFAULT 0
);

2. Interesting Uses of Workers

Workers aren't just for APIs - they can also serve HTML pages directly. One Worker handles all routes:

// Home page
if (path === '/') {
  return new Response(HOME_PAGE, {
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'text/html' }
  })
}

// Pricing page
if (path === '/pro') {
  return new Response(PRO_PAGE, {...})
}

// API endpoint
if (path === '/purchase' && method === 'POST') {
  return handlePurchase(request, env)
}

3. PayPal Integration Lessons

Sandbox and production have different API addresses, and sandbox testing sometimes has weird CORS issues. The final solution was to provide a manual payment confirmation as a fallback, in case the automatic flow fails after user pays.

📊 Cost Estimate

Service	Free Tier	Overage
Workers	100,000 req/day	$0.50/million
D1	5GB storage	$1/GB/month
Pages	500MB	Free
Remove.bg	-	$0.07/image

Currently with a few hundred visits per day, everything is within the free tier.

🔜 Future Plans

[ ] Add more AI features (background replacement, resize)
[ ] Batch processing support
[ ] Open API for developers

🤔 Reflection

This project made me rethink Cloudflare's product capabilities. The Workers + D1 + Pages combo is amazing for small to medium web applications - easy deployment, global CDN, and extremely low cost.

If you have similar ideas, try this stack! Feel free to ask questions in the comments!

Feel free to try https://zmjjkk.xyz and leave your feedback in the comments!

DEV Community