Building a Self-Hosted Cloud-Native File Sharing App with Cloudflare R2 and Turso

I Built the Open Source “Microsoft Edge Drop” Replacement Using Cloudflare R2 + Turso

Developer Russell launched Cliff Drop, a self-hosted cross-device sharing tool inspired by Microsoft Edge Drop. The system utilizes a decoupled architecture splitting structured metadata into Turso and heavy files into Cloudflare R2.

Why This Matters

Modern full-stack engineering requires moving beyond monolithic single-server models to specialized storage layers that balance data integrity and cost. Utilizing S3-compatible R2 storage eliminates egress fees while edge-replicated SQLite provides global performance without the overhead of managing distributed Postgres clusters.

Key Insights

• Turso (libSQL) provides edge-hosted SQLite for low-latency global reads as demonstrated in the 2026 Cliff Drop project.
• Cloudflare R2 offers S3-compatible object storage with zero egress fees to prevent bandwidth cost surprises.
• Drizzle ORM is used to maintain SQL familiarity while interacting with distributed edge database characteristics.
• Native WebSockets integrated into SvelteKit enable real-time synchronization across devices.
• Security is enforced through Argon2id password hashing, HTTP-only cookies, and CSRF protection headers.

Practical Applications

• Use case: Implementing global file sharing with Cloudflare R2 to eliminate egress costs. Pitfall: Using local disk storage which limits scalability and complicates backups.
• Use case: Deploying Turso with Drizzle ORM for distributed data integrity. Pitfall: Defaulting to single-instance SQLite which lacks global availability and replication.

References:

• https://github.com/RussellJapheth/cliff-drop
• https://dev.to/_russell/i-built-a-self-hosted-microsoft-edge-drop-replacement-using-cloudflare-r2-turso-2gg0