The 6 best free stock photo sites in 2025

You can download all the images you find on Travelcoffeebook.com and do whatever you want with them. Also, additional details about the location and the gear they used are below each image. Whether you use a free stock site or pay for higher-quality photos, be sure to read any copyright restrictions carefully, so you understand what you can and can’t do with the media you choose. If it seems too good to be true, you may end up paying a higher price later. Picography stands out for its advanced search filters, which help you find the perfect image you’ve been searching for. Another positive is that all photos are Creative Commons Zero licensed, which means they’re free for personal and commercial use with no attribution.

• Yet, these reviews often also included comments that the value for the money may not be what it should.
• There are also savings available if you pay upfront for the whole year.
• It’s not mandatory, but consumers may donate to artists as a way to thank them for their work.
• However, top-performing contributors can negotiate licenses with royalties, allowing them to sell images on a per-use basis.
• You will also appreciate this list with great alternatives to Shutterstock, and if you’re looking for lower prices you should definitely check these agencies cheaper than Shutterstock.

Also, with millions of downloads since its inception, Picjumbo is one of the greatest free stock photo depository sites. Decorate your online space with fantastic pictures and make a strong first impression. Stockphotos.com is a smaller stock site specifically aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. For us, this is one of the best stock photo websites, perfect for blog posts or social media.

It’s not been updated in a couple of years but it’s still worth going through the archives to see if you can find something unique to use in your projects. My Stock Photos is a directory of over 1,200 free stock images from the team at Theme Isle. Free images are only available in low resolution JPG and you must add a credit link to Icons8.

Getting started with Getty Images is one of the most user-friendly experiences out there. You can browse right away, and you’ll only have to create an account when you’re ready to pay. To register you just need to put in your basic personal info, and you’re able to start downloading photos. Dreamstime proudly declares itself to be the world’s largest stock photo platform with an impressive user base of 32 million individuals. This juggernaut of a platform offers a variety of royalty-free images. Established in 2000, Dreamstime offers a vibrant and dynamic community-driven platform.

What’s the difference between Royalty-Free and Rights Managed license?

While these images won’t win design awards, they’re perfectly adequate for blog posts, social media, and internal presentations. Paying users get access to more sophisticated models like Flux 1.1 (comparable to Google’s Imagen3) and the Mystic models, which produce more polished and artistic results. Freepik has evolved beyond its origins as a stock image platform into a creative ecosystem where AI generation takes center stage. best stock photography sites The platform balances a traditional library of assets with powerful AI tools that let you create custom visuals on demand.

Best stock photo site for unlimited downloads of photos

While many websites offer free photos, Vecteezy stands out by providing a safe platform. Vecteezy must approve every contributor before they can upload photos and other resources. But some websites also provide quality photos at an affordable rate that you can consider if you have a small budget.

Best Stock Photography Library of 2025

Hundreds of high resolution images are added to its site weekly, and they are all free from copyright restrictions. You can search photos by keywords, such as “book,” “happy,” or “people,” or sort photos by date taken, amount of views received, the most downloaded and the most commonly viewed. Not all stock photos are freely available to use — known as the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license — in fact, many times they will be covered by the original photographer’s copyrights. Many of the stock photo sites I tested now offer AI-generated images, either alongside human-generated photos or instead of them. I found 123RF to be the most useful option because, while it does offer AI-generated stock images, you can choose to filter those results out. This feature makes your image search much easier since both types of content are gathered in one place for you—but you don’t have to wonder which is which.

Storyblocks pricing options differ from their competitor’s systems. Like many other sites, they have membership options that allow users access to a special member library. Once a customer has signed on, they receive unlimited access to the library. Per month, their membership may seem as though it’s one of the pricier options out there.

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• If you want premium content or video, Adobe Stock offers “credit packs” that start at $49.95 for 5 images.
• I also know at least a dozen good photographers who submitted portfolios and couldn’t become part of the team.
• IStock offers three types of subscriptions—basic, premium, and premium + video.
• So I spent several weeks reviewing dozens of stock photo websites—and I narrowed it down to the six best.
• Upload is straightforward, but their review process can feel like rolling dice—sometimes your “boring” images sail through, and your passion project gets the boot.
• Pixabay is another excellent option to get free stock photos in different categories.

And with the Getty name backing them up, all of their content meets premium standards. Like Adobe, Shutterstock offers customers two separate purchase options. However, there are a few differences between the two, notably in the way they run their à la carte systems. Instead of offering credits, Shutterstock allows users to select image packages with their initial purchases. The choice of stock photo site depends heavily on specific content needs and budget, making it essential to evaluate each platform’s unique offerings. The best free stock photo sites are the ones that are serious and trustworthy because then you are a bit safer when it comes to the legality of their images.

Right off the bat, Planet Stock Photo has a lackluster website experience. The site looks old-fashioned and has a lot of discordant colors, and different text fonts and sizes. While there are some interesting advertised features like AI-generated images, the company doesn’t strike users as being the most reliable site for stock photos. Overall, Crestock might be a solid choice for customers looking for single photos for the low price of $1 per photo (if small images work for your project). However, you may want to check elsewhere if you’re looking for top-quality, high-resolution photos that are worth the cost. While Crestock may serve as a viable choice for those mindful of budget constraints, it falls short of delivering the quality and uniqueness that could make projects stand out.

Where can we use stock website photos?

Though they are fewer and further between than their for-profit counterparts, they often offer up content that rivals more expensive options. We’ll go over a few of our favorite, completely free options to provide some perspective. PxBee is a subsidiary of Fotor Photography, an online photo editing suite.

It hosts more than 186 million resources, including stock photos, videos, illustrations, and vectors. If you are looking for quality photos for your eCommerce store, DepositPhotos is a perfect choice. Shutterstock has built its reputation on having the largest collection of stock photos anywhere, backed by pricing that won’t break the bank. Unlike many competitors, Shutterstock offers substantial discounts when you commit annually, bringing a 10-image monthly plan down from $49 to just $24.91 per month. Pexels maintains a collection of 3.2 million stock photos and videos.

Make sure to check how you can use the images before you download. The selection includes over 180,000 images in categories such as business, travel, technology, people, and nature. Images are free to use in personal and commercial projects with the CC0 license. Snapwire Snaps is a Tumblr blog that originally added 7 new free photographs from some of the world’s most talented photographers each week.

Certain details, including but not limited to prices and special offers, are provided to us directly from our partners and are dynamic and subject to change at any time without prior notice. Though based on meticulous research, the information we share does not constitute legal or professional advice or forecast, and should not be treated as such. AI is revolutionizing most online spaces, and stock photos are no exception. With the advent of generative AI, it’s possible to feed your exact specifications into an AI image generator like Midjourney and get a unique, often sophisticated, result. The ability to generate fresh new photos that match your exact needs might mean stock photos will soon become a thing of the past. Like Gratisography, almost all of the images at picjumbo are from the site’s founder, Viktor Hanacek.

Unsplash uses its own license that lets you use all the images commercially for free and without the need to provide credit to the photographer. Some are the labor of love of a single photographer generously giving away their images for free, while others specialize in a particular niche. Visual appeal is a must in today’s world of web design and what simpler way to accomplish that than by adding some stunning, eye-catching photographs?