You are looking for free images to use with your creative projects, publishing websites, and blogs. Maybe you’re an aspiring photographer looking for inspiration. Or, you may be a student working on a project, or an entrepreneur. You do not have to pay huge money upfront to get a license to use some images when you can use free stock photo sites to get royalty-free images.
Whatever your profession, this list of the best free stock photo sites will ensure that you’ll always have access to copyright and royalty-free images.
Stock Up
There are a number of free stock photo sites available on the internet. But, some of them don’t have a search engine, and you will have to browse through the site to find the best free images you are looking for. Stock Up fixes this problem by making sites like Unsplash and others completely searchable.Stock Up has a direct link to index websites that give the app permissions, unlike other free stock photo sites. The free stock photo site brings together many websites with royalty-free images. The best free images on Stock Up are licensed by Creative Common O and are in the public domain.
Pros:
- Makes stock photo sites with no search option searchable like Unsplash
- Search is pretty fast
- Dozens of free stock photo sites available within one single app
Cons:
- Lacking filters
- Need for credits for a link to the license if you use one of the photos
- Don’t have photos that have a more specific context like “drinking coffee”
Key Features: Combines different sites | Makes sites searchable | Direct link to index websites | Dozens of free stock photo sites | Search fast
Visit: Stock Up (Free)
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Pexels
Work on both your mobile and desktop with Pexels. The free stock photo site gives you access to high-resolution photos and videos. If you are looking for royalty-free images to include in your presentations and social media, or as your wallpapers, you can use Pexels. You can also level your photography skills by connecting to the global community of Pexels.
Upload free stock images and see the positive impact your work can have. The free stock photo site uploads fresh photos and videos every day. You can choose to support photographers who contribute images to Pexels by donating to their PayPal or saying thanks on their social media.
Pros:
- Helpful website for creative writing
- Great site for pictures to use for quotes
- High-quality pictures and videos
Cons:
- It is difficult to download video from Pexels to phone
- Download button does not show up when clicked
Key Features: Level your photography skills | Connect to Pexels global community | High-quality pictures and videos | Fresh content added every day | Support photographers
Visit: Pexels (Free)
Unsplash
Unsplash empowers creativity by letting you download free photos and upload pictures that you capture. It has over one billion images that creators use for artwork and presentation. Anybody can join the Unsplash community. If you are a pro in capturing photos or not, you can contribute to the best free images.
You also don’t require a pro camera for the images. Capture them on your phone camera. Your images are always welcome in Unsplash. In the new version of the free stock image site, two elegant widgets are added to the home screen. It also has a wallpaper widget that shows random royalty-free images.
Pros:
- Upload images you capture in phone
- Easy to find images
- High-resolution images
Cons:
- No save option
- Asking for unwanted permission
- Metadata of photos not shown
Key Features: Wallpaper widget | Upload images on phone | Search fast | High-resolution images
Visit: Unsplash (Free)
Splashbase
Splashbase is a search and discovery platform that allows you to get whatever free image you want. It offers you high-resolution photos from travelcoffeebook, littlevisuals, and newoldstock. The free stock photo site allows a Creative Commons license. This will allow for a combined video search and finer media segmentation.
Splashbase has a variety of free stock images, so that you can work in your next project comfortably. These royalty-free images are collected from various sites and also from contributors from around the world. One unique thing about Splashbase is that they have their own API that developers can use.
Pros:
- Free app
- Collects images from many sites
- Own API that developers can use
Cons:
- Site seems to load slow
- Confusing download button
Key Features: Offers photos from different stock photo sites | Video search & finer media segmentation | Own API | CC0 licensed
Visit: Splashbase (Free)
Startup Stock Photos
Startup Stock Photos is used by millions. It delivers free startup, office, and tech photos ready for your next project. The free stock photo site has a Creative Commons 0 license without credits, so it can be used for commercial purposes as well. Many big tech companies use Startup Stock Photos for the best free images.
The free stock image site was developed as a solution to a social media agency, Sculpt. Now, the royalty-free images site is completely free and offers stock photos for free for startups, bloggers, publishers, and freelancers. Free stock images of the site have been made into trending memes and packages into top-selling templates.
Pros:
- Free and useful for startups
- CC0 without credits
Cons:
- No search option
- Confusing user interface
Key Features: CC0 licensed without credits | Free and useful for startups | Free images | High-resolution photos
Visit: Startup Stock Photos (Free)
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Moveast
Moveast contains photos and images captured by a Portugese man who travels east. The owner of this free stock photo site offers all images at zero cost.
Moveast has three parts, each part will contain 50 photos. The free stock photo site offers resources and tools for starters. If you know about any tools and have interesting photos in hand, you can submit them to the site.
Pros:
- High resolution images
- Quick and efficient
- CC0 licensed
Cons:
- Not many categories of images available
- No search option
Key Features: 150 images in total | Quick and efficient | High-resolution photos | CC0 licensed | Good resource for starters
Visit: Moveast (Free)
Travel Coffee Book
Travel Coffee Book is a photoblog that provides the best free images captured by photographers around the world. The images mainly travel photographs. Ten new images will be added every ten days to this free stock photo site. All images uploaded to this site have a CC0 license, so they are free of any copyright restrictions.
Travel Coffee Book is mainly created for non-commercial purposes like education, study, and research. The royalty-free images are suitable for teaching and learning. Image sources also include museum digital collections, stock images, photo archives, and image search engines.
Pros:
- Created for non-commercial purpose
- Free images
- Image search engine available
Cons:
- Too many ads
Key Features: Travel photographs | Used for non-commercial purposes also | Education purposes | Image search engine | CC0 licensed | New images added in every 10 days
Visit: Travel Coffee Book (Free)
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Designers Pics
Designers Pics is created with the aim to deliver royalty-free images to everyone. The developers also mention that this free stock photo site is an ongoing project and they are adding fresh free stock images every month. You can use them for personal as well as commercial uses absolutely for free.
You are welcome to contribute to the images in Designers Pics. Images are categorized into architecture, business, food and drinks, people, technology, and many more. You can download as many royalty-free images as you want.
Pros:
- Different categories of photos available
- No download limits
Cons:
- You cannot sell these photographs
Key Features: Fresh stock photos added every month | Images are arranged into different categories | Unlimited downloads
Visit: Designers Pics (Free)
Death to The Stock Photo
Death to The Stock is artist-owned cooperation. The free stock photo site offers unlimited downloads of stock images. New images are added every month. You can create your own library of images. The best free images are gathered from a network of global artists, and after the final touch-up, they are delivered to your libraries.
Free stock images of different categories are available for businesses, designers, and large brands and organizations. Death to The Stock also offers a premium service for $10 per month with easy one-click download and access to all photos in the cloud storage.
Pros:
- Create own library
- New images are added every month
- Good customer service
Cons:
- Only premium version gives you access to all photos in the app
Key Features: Unlimited downloads | Full access to 4500+ photos | Creative feedback on photos | Do what you want to do license | Can easily search all library
Visit:Â Death to The Stock Photo (Free, Premium)
Foodies’s Feed
Foodie’s Feed is created by food photographer Jakub Kapusnak. It is a resource of natural-looking images of food. The site offers you ten presets that were made to make the food really pop. The free stock images available are bright, colorful, and sharp.
If you like these presets, you can try out these too. You can begin editing these awesome Lightroom presets suitable for both bright and dark photography. They are compatible with RAW ad JPEG photos. In addition, the product is suitable with Lightroom 4-6 and Lightroom CC.
Pros:
- Ease of use
- Good Customer service
- Offers commercial use images
- Allows photo upload support
Cons:
- Does not accept debit and prepaid cards, Google Pay and Amazon Pay
- Does not offer video library
Key Features: 10 food photography Lightroom presets | Bright & colorful | Vibrance | sharpness | Free help files and support
Visit: Foodie’s Feed (Free, Premium)
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Mazwai
Mazwai is a free stock video site with free stock clips. You don’t have to sign up for the website to download free stock videos. It was created to provide free, high-quality, and cinematic-style stock footage. There is an option called “Browse free video clips” which takes you to the page full of free videos from different categories.
Video clips are hand-picked by experts giving quality visual content. Moreover, these content has safe licensing. Mazwai only work directly with selected artists and you can be sure that all video clips come with necessary permissions. If you would like to contribute to the video clips, you can mail them your content.
Pros:
- Safe licensing
- Videos hand-picked by experts
- Free stock video clips
Cons:
- Only work directly with selected artists
Key Features: Free stock video clips | Hand-picked by experts | Simple | Safe licensing
Visit: Mazwai (Free)
Jéshoots
Jéshoots gives licenses to users to use products from its website for personal as well as commercial purposes. All the photos and mockups in Jéshoots are under CC0 license. You can use the royalty-free images, copy, and modify them without asking permission and without paying credits.
The free stock photo site also allows its users to use the photos in PSD, HTML, and Power Point presentations. It doesn’t allow you resell, share , and transfer images as the free stock images contributes to the core value of the products. It has a good customer service, you can mail them your queries.
Pros:
- Images can be used without asking permission
- No attribution required
- Good customer service
Cons:
- Images can’t be resold or shared
Key Features: Original thematic photos and mockups | Safe licensing | Free photos | Good customer service | Photos used for commercial purposes
Visit: Jéshoots (Free)
Super Famous
You can take a look at the free stock photo site and see breathtaking images. Super Famous has natural patterns and contrast images. Super Famous images are available under the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. You can use the images for your own purposes provided the credits are given.
When you scroll down to the bottom, you can see gradient images that can be used as wallpapers, website backgrounds, app backgrounds, and more.
Key Features: CCA 3.0 licensed | Gradient images | Images have natural patterns and contrast
Visit: Super Famous (Free)
Pixabay
Pixabay offers over one million royalty-free images, illustrations, and vector graphics. There are thousands of video clips too. The developers released the site under CC0 license, so you can do whatever you want with the stock free images. You can use the site for personal as well as commercial purposes.
The free stock photo site has a fast search engine and you can swipe through the search results. You can also directly download and share the content. Also, these contents can be liked and you can message and comment to connect with other members. In the next version of the app, you can directly upload images from your device.
Pros:
- Free commercial use policy
- Nice layout
- Good customer support
Cons:
- Images are not arranged in categories
- No upload feature for members
- Does not show tags and camera info for all images
Key Features: Fast search | User-friendly interface | Swipe through search results | Content can be liked | Directly download and share images, videos, and music | One-click image viewer
Visit: Pixabay (Free)
Picography
Picography allows you to use the free stock images, and copy, edit, or share them. You can use them for personal as well as commercial purposes. If you want to upload images to the free stock photo site, firstly, you should agree to the terms and conditions. Then, you should agree that you will never advertise the photographs captured by you after uploading.
Picography has been providing stunning royalty-free images to millions of people for the past three years. It is a top source for high-resolution and free photos. There are different categories of free stock images arranged in alphabetic order.
Pros:
- Use, copy, edit, and share photos
- Use for commercial purposes
Cons:
- Cannot advertise photos after uploading to the site
Key Features: Use, copy, edit, or share photo | Personal and commercial purposes | CC0 licensed | High-resolution and free images
Visit: Picography (Free, Premium)
These are the best free stock photo sites on the internet you can use to find images and videos, without the issue of copyright. Do try out these sites for your next project and let us know which was the finest site for you to find out royalty-free stock images.