Websites With Free Stock Photos You’ll Actually Use
Free stock photos that are actually worth using can sometimes be difficult to find. Sifting through stock image websites is often a daunting task and most of them only offer images that are obviously staged and that you shouldn’t be using in the first place. Thankfully, there are many professional photographers that give away free high-resolution photos that are worthy of being placed within your designs.
Picography
You can use any of the images on Picography however you like with the very low cost of absolutely nothing.
Unsplash
Unsplash offers high-resolution photos, pushing out 10 new photos every 10 days.
Public Domain Archive
Here you can find free photos that you can use in any of your creative projects. The site updates with new images every week.
Pexels
Don’t be put off by the cat image used in the pic above, this is really a good site. Use these images anywhere you wish, free for commercial use and no attribution required.
Jay Mantri
Make magic with the photos on Jay Mantri’s website. Feel free to use them however you wish.
Pixabay
Pixabay gives away free images and videos that are released free of copyrights under the Creative Commons CCO. In other words, you can modify, distribute and use them for anything you like.
Superfamous
You do have to give credit with the images on Superfamous. If you’re okay with that, they really do have some great photos on here.
Fancycrave
Fancycrave publishes two new photos every day. Every image on the site is free of copyright restrictions.
Cupcake
All of Cupcake’s photos are licensed under the Creative Commons license. Use them for commercial of personal use.
Magdeleine
Offers both Creative Commons license photos and Attribution Required photos. You can narrow your search between each license is you wish.
ISO Republic
You can use their images for personal and commercial projects. They have their own license which, in a nutshell, allows you to use them with no attribution required.
Gratisography
Free photos that you can use on your personal and commercial projects. New pics added weekly.
Barn Images
You can use photos in their free collection for both commercial and personal needs.
New Old Stock
Offers free vintage photos that are free of any copyright restrictions.
Trunklog
They have photos that are free for private and commercial use that don’t require any credit.
Boss Fight
Completely free to use photos with new images uploaded daily.
Getrefe
Free to use anywhere photos. Beware of pop-ups on this site.
Life Of Pix
Free photos with no copyright restrictions that can be used for commercial or private use.
FoodiesFeed
This site offers photos featuring food and goods related to food. Also free to use for just about anything.
StockSnap
Free stock photos you can use without any restrictions.
MMT
Free for commercial use photos with a very simple layout.
Raumrot
Use these photos for commercial or personal needs. Simple design with a nice grid layout.
Freely Photos
As the title suggests, these are free to use anywhere. Classified as Christian photos on the site.
Where Do You Get Your Free Stock Photos?
I’d like to keep this list updated with new sites as I become aware of them or as they make their way to the Interwebs. If you know of a site that belongs on this list, please let me know in the comment section. If I think it makes the cut, I’ll be happy to add it.
On a side note: With the exception of just a few, just about all of these sites give away their photos free for personal and commercial use. Let’s face it, that’s pretty awesome! I’d still read over each sites license before using the images, just to be safe.
12 Comments
+Add your commentI’ve been to a few of these sites but didn’t know about most of them. My new favorites are Picography, Freely and Jay Mantri. Great list! I’ve bookmarked it.
Excellent roundup! I’d like to add Death to the Stock Photo to the list. You have to sign-up with them, but they send free photos monthly to your inbox.
Thank you for sharing this list. It seems like the majority of people use Shutterstock or iStock, both of which have a variety of terrible stock images that they have to pay for.
Great list! Too many people use those cheesy stock images in their company sites. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this! I love how you displayed the websites. I’m a fan of the Freely site.
I found this through Stumbleupon. This is really going to come in handy for me and I appreciate you putting it together. I’ve used pay stock sites in the past and they usually charge a fortune. Thank you!
I love the vintage photos on New Old Stock. I’ve never heard of half of these sites. I can’t believe they give away such professional photos. What do they get out of it?
A lot of the photos that some of these sites have would be great for website background images, preferably the homepage. That’s been a growing trend for a few years now. Bookmarked, shared – Thanks!
Shawn, great stuff here!
Most of these are new to me. I’ve spent hours sifting through stock photo sites hunting for the perfect image only to find that it costs a small fortune to download the larger size. I look forward to diving into this list. Thank you!
The Pexels site is exactly what I needed. Thank you!
Glad to see you’re posting again. Welcome back!
Thanks, Igor! I took a little break to do some freelance work, but I’m back in the saddle again.