Pinion: Resumable File Uploads for PHP

(Without Fighting upload_max_filesize ) You deploy your app. A user picks a 400 MB video. They hit upload. The progress bar freezes. Then — nothing. You check the logs. POST Content-Length exceeded post_max_size . Again. We've all been there. The fix is usually "raise PHP limits" or "use S3." Both work — until you're on shared hosting, a legacy VPS, or a client who won't touch php.ini . That's the problem Pinion solves. What is Pinion? Pinion is an open-source resumable chunked upload protocol for PHP. Instead of one giant multipart/form-data request, the browser sends the file in small parts (default: 5 MB). The server stores each part, then assembles the final file on disk. Three steps. That's the whole contract: init → upload parts → complete Package Registry Role pinoox/pinion Packagist PHP server engine @pinooxhq/pinion-client npm Browser client Protocol id: pinion · version: 2 Why not just use S3? Object storage is great. But sometimes you need files on your server : A CMS media library on local disk A Laravel app without cloud budget Shared hosting with no S3 SDK An admin panel behind a simple PHP API Pinion isn't a CDN or a storage service. It's a protocol — a stable HTTP contract that works in plain PHP, Laravel, or Pinoox. How it works (30-second version) sequenceDiagram participant Browser participant API participant Disk Browser->>API: POST /init (filename, size, fingerprint) API-->>Browser: upload_id, chunk_size, missing_indexes loop Each part Browser->>API: POST /upload (chunk + SHA-256 hash) API->>Disk: store part end Browser->>API: POST /complete API->>Disk: assemble file API-->>Browser: done ✓ Resume is built in. The client sends a fingerprint ( name:size:lastModified:type ). If the connection drops, the same file picks up where it left off — only missing parts are re-uploaded. Integrity too. Each part gets a SHA-256 chunk_hash . The server can reject corrupted chunks before they pollute your disk. Server side: 10 lines of PHP composer require pinoo