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Back in the day (and by “the day,” I’m referring to the mid-2010s), it seemed kind of difficult to find free stock photography. Maybe it was just me, but almost every time I found an image I liked, it would either clearly require payment, or I would discover that it had some kind of complicated copyright associated with it. My few trusted go-to’s were Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels, probably in that order. Now these were by no means the only ones that existed. I simply found a few that worked, had several million images, and were free, and stuck to them. However, as is the case with most things internet-related, it’s easy to find many great options these days. (The fact that a large percentage of the population now walks around with mini computers doubling as extremely high-quality cameras in their pockets isn’t the only reason, but it’s certainly a contributing factor.) Now before we start with the list, I want to briefly explain the purpose of free stock photos, and what “free” actually means.
Check out the video version!
What counts as free stock imagery, and why does it matter?
As convenient as it would be to grab the perfect image off of Google Images and slap it on your website, brochure, or mailer, there are certain copyright rules that need to be followed. A photographer owns the rights to their image, and you are only allowed to use it if given permission to do so. If you publish a photo without the creator’s approval, you can end up in legal trouble due to copyright infringement. In extreme cases, this could result in heavy fines, and in rare circumstances, even jail time. Plus, knowing that you’ve stolen someone else’s work is just as bad, right?
The good news is there are literally millions of photos that are available online, posted freely by the creators. How do you know if they’re free? Look for terms such as “free for commercial use” and “Creative Commons.” Some of these allow for personal use of the photo only (think: something not for-profit, like a party invitation), but others allow for personal and professional use. Often, each image on the website you’re looking at will specify what sort of license it has. It may also tell you if you need to do something like attribute the creator of the image, or if you need to sign up for anything to access the image. Some key Creative Commons licenses to know are CC0 and CC BY. Both permit commercial use, but CC BY requires proper attribution, while CC0 does not. When in doubt, always check! Here are Unsplash’s licensing rules, for example.
Our Free Stock Photo Website Picks, in No Particular Order
Below you’ll find a list of our favorite stock photo websites, all offering millions of high-quality images. Again, these are not the only options, but rather some of the most popular and reputable ones. Unfortunately for us, most of these sites now include some sort of subscription-based model which is needed for access to all images (we point these out in our entries), but you can certainly still get great use out of them by going the completely free route.
Important note: When you’re searching these sites, we highly recommend that you filter out AI-generated images, where applicable. There is usually a button or toggle where you can choose to see only “real” results made by humans. Real photos tend to have better and more artful composition, they don’t have odd artifacts or nonsensical elements, and they don’t have that distinct AI veneer to them. You can also find sets of related images, often all taken in the same photoshoot, when using real photos.
1. Pixabay
Pixabay is a great choice for photos. Overall, it boasts over 5.7 million royalty-free assets at the time of writing this post, including illustrations, vectors, videos, music, sound effects, and GIFs. We’ve used it for photos as well as graphics in the past, but I find photos to be their much stronger suit. Their graphics can be a bit hit-or-miss in terms of quality. As with all entries, go ahead and read their rules. For example, you can download and use their images in their original form, but you’re not allowed to sell copies of content without making meaningful alterations. As a side note, Pixabay is now owned by Canva, allowing for easy integration with the website.
2. Pexels
Good news: This one is completely free, no strings attached! Pexels is a great option that has over 3 million free images and videos. It currently does not offer illustrations or graphics. Like Pixabay, this website is also owned by Canva, so it allows for easy Canva integration as well as photo editing. And for the photographers, designers, and DIYers out there, Pexels contains plugins that let you edit stock photos directly from within Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Sketch, and Figma.
3. Unsplash
Unsplash has probably been our most-used website for free stock photos over the years. It has a large library of free and high-quality photographs, and as of late offers great vectors and illustrations as well. While you can still access a ton of free assets, know that it isn’t completely free anymore. It was actually bought by Getty Images a couple years ago, and Unsplash now offers the subscription-based Unsplash+, which grants you access to the full library of over 6 million assets, as well as unlimited monthly downloads. It’s still definitely worth checking out the free images though.
4. Freepik
Freepik has historically offered access to millions of images, vectors, videos, and PSDs, and have offered great filtering options which can help you find exactly what you’re looking for. Over the past year, it’s safe to say they have pivoted hard towards facilitating AI-generated content. On their free plan, you are allowed 10 downloads a day of their free-tier photos, vectors, videos, fonts, are more. You can also generate a small amount of sounds using AI, as well as things like several AI mockups and icons per day. However, if you choose the higher-tier paid plan, they offer pretty robust options, including unlimited daily AI image generation and downloads of their stock content, and access to content on Flaticon, as well as the creation of tens of thousands of AI videos, sounds, and graphics. At the time of writing, their lowest tier paid plan is $69/year, and their highest is $1900/year.
5. Vecteezy
In short, Vecteezy has a ton: Millions of free vectors, images, stock photos, templates, and videos. However, note that their free images all require attribution – more on that shortly. Beginning in 2008 as a vector platform, they expanded their library to include photos in 2020, and things continued growing from there. (Side note: We greatly prefer this site’s vectors, compared to Pixabay!) Their search function works great as well, which is always a plus. This is another one that has a paid Pro version, so be sure to toggle on that “Free License” option when searching for images. The free options require attribution in the form of adding “vecteezy.com” somewhere in your photo or final piece though, so you can choose to pay for Pro to avoid that. Remember that to find images taken by photographers, you’ll want to filter out the AI-generated options as well – it’s accumulating a lot of those.
6. Stockvault
Okay, we confess that we’ve never given this one a try. But Stockvault looks great, and offers over 150,000 free stock photos, textures, backgrounds and graphics – no attribution required for many. Simply use their search filter to find images that are free for commercial use. It has actually been around since 2004, so we really have no excuse at this point. It may have a comparatively smaller photo library than the others, but it is also less well-known, meaning that you’re more likely to come across photos on here that haven’t been downloaded as much by other users. So it wins points for uniqueness. Note that its premium plan is powered by Shutterstock, granting access to several hundred million images, but going this route is of course, no longer free.
7. Burst (powered by Shopify)
Burst is a stock image platform that is powered by Shopify. However, you don’t need to have a website that uses Shopify to take advantage of these royalty-free, high resolution images. No attribution is required here, but it is appreciated by the photographers. While Burst doesn’t have as many stock photos as some of these other options (they state “thousands”), they make up for it in quality. One thing we noticed that you need to be mindful of is how you word your search terms. For instance, when we searched “movie,” we only got 5 results, and when we searched “movies,” we got 20. However, searching for “kids movie” showed over 700 results, though most of them depicted just kids, or just movie themes.
8. Flickr
Hugely popular in the late 2000s/early 2010s, Flickr is a bit of an outlier in this list. It is an online community for photographers to share their photos, a little like Instagram for photographers. And because of this, its image count is astronomical – it states tens of billions, at the time of writing – and the majority of the images do not feel like stock photos. Some photographers on this platform will choose to make their images free for commercial use, or have attribution be required. If unsure, you can message the photographer, and they can give you express permission to use their photo(s) if they so choose. Note that at the time of writing, free accounts are limited to 1,000 uploads, only 50 of which can be private. Its Pro plan does not have these limitations.
9. Wikimedia Commons
Don’t sleep on this one! It may not have business-oriented imagery, but it has an amazing range. I mean, it’s what Wikipedia draws from. It’s technically where the public domain images used for Wikipedia entries are stored. Many of these photos are in the public domain, meaning they are free for commercial use. As a general rule of thumb, if a work was published before 1931, it is in the public domain in the U.S. As for Wikipedia itself, many of their images do require attribution. Check out this article to learn how to do that correctly, or go straight to the source and read Wikimedia Commons’ reuse guidelines.
10. Library of Congress
Compiling this list is really making me realize that I did not take enough time to explore all my options in the past. According to their website: Located in D.C, the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, videos, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps, and manuscripts in its collections. The Library preserves and provides access to a rich and diverse source of knowledge. The Prints & Photographs Division specifically consist of more than 14 million items, and you can find their archives online. There are photos dating back to the 1850s, and the subject matter includes historic figures and events (of course), architecture, landscapes, people from many different backgrounds and cultures, and tons of preserved cartoons, fine prints, and other artwork. The Library does not own rights to material in its collections and much of it is public domain. Look for the “Rights Advisory” section see confirm your usage rights. Whether or not you want to use any of these images for a project, we recommend browsing through the archives for pure education and interest’s sake.
Bonus: Google’s Advanced Search
To Summarize
Overall, copyright law can be complicated, and we hope that at the very least, we’ve given you some good resources to bookmark for future business and/or personal projects! If you’re unsure whether you can use a certain image, we recommend reviewing the source’s licensing guidelines carefully.
….Alternatively, if you’re tired of clicking and fiddling around on different sites, you can just fork out a few dollars and buy something on iStock.