Free Photo sites - "The Monster List"
Getting images for free is great, and there is a lot of choice out there, but sourcing images from a free site can have its drawbacks, the license that the images are provided with is different on every site you use. Some sites prohibit commercial use of the image, most require an attribution, some require you register or signup to a newsletter to access the images, some ask that you seek permission first etc.
A word of warning: Expecting that nobody will notice if you make use of an image that you just take without permission is foolish, tools like TinEye make it free and easy to find who has used an image without permission, and stock agencies like Getty and others use paid services like picscout.com track image misuse, bill the offender, taking legal action if images are not removed. If you are using images without the correct license, someone will catch up with you sooner or later. Here's a typical forum quote "I currently have a demand from Getty images for $1200 over an image I hot-linked to in a blog entry 2 years ago."
With that in mind, here's our definitive list of resources providing free stock photos with a table of comparisons. This table only sites sites with their own custom license types, sites with Creative Commons images, Pubic Domain Images and CC0 Dedications have also been reviewed.
| |
 Commercial Use Allowed |
 Attribution Required |
Free Signup Required? |
Guide Resolution
|
Approx size of Collection |
(v) = Varies ?=Approx/Guesstimate, Always confirm the license information before you use any image you find on a site listed here.
| StockVault |
No |
Yes |
No |
2000px(v) |
139,000 |
| Community of more than 3000 photographers sharing their photos, note: non commercial use only |
| Morguefile |
Yes |
No |
No |
3000px(v) |
400,000? |
| Community of photographers sharing their photos, also contains a large selection of free work available under an attribution license. I rate this one highly. |
| freeimages.com (was SXC.hu) |
Varies |
Varies |
Yes |
1500px(v) |
380,000 |
| StockXchange, one of the first sites to 'share' stock photos, a range of licenses, some require attribution or permission, owned by Getty images to promote their microstock site 'istockphoto' |
| freeimages (.co.uk) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
1000px(v) |
21,000 |
| easy browsing and instant download, variable image quality but some good pictures to be found, and a photographer upload area with growing collection of images. |
| freedigitalphotos.net |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
400px(v) |
20,000? |
| There's a catch - only the lowest web resolution images are free the rest cost $5 |
| unsplash.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
varies |
?LOTS! |
| After initially levering CC0 licenses, this site now offers images via its own attribution free license. stylish new imagery, useful for inspiration |
| freepixels |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
1600px(v) |
6500 |
| well rounded collection, good search and some really quite good stock and conceptual images on offer, resolution varies 1852x2200 |
| pexels.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
Varies |
Lots! |
| Another site that started out aggregating CC0 images, and has many images sourced from other CC0 websites listed here, some images uploaded direct by photographers under a custom license, nice site, navigation and search. CAUTION: I found images from kaboompics marked as CC0 on pexels, linked to direct from the kaboompix site (but not marked as CC0 on kaboompix) |
| rich & wild |
Yes |
No |
No |
3800px(v) |
? |
| similar to above but no premium option/search, a free fortnightly feed of great looking photo creativity in your inbox |
| Dreamstime (free section) |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
2700px(v) |
100,000(?) |
| Another commercial provider with free archive, special link to the free images at bottom right of their homepage. |
| 123rf (free section) |
Yes |
No |
No |
400px(v) |
32,000 |
| 10's of thousands of free images accessed via the "free stock images" link on the home page. |
| photogen |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
2000px(v) |
1,900 |
| small collection, good search and no link needed but registration required. |
| imageafter |
Yes |
No |
No |
1600px(v) |
5-10,000? |
| The place to find textures and backgrounds, plus a selection of reasonable stock photos |
| X imagebase.davidniblack.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
2000px+ |
"1000's" |
| high quality small collection, license is a little vague "treat as PD" or creative commons attribution if you like? lots of good people photos up to 3072x2048 and some nice powerpoint backgrounds |
| creepyhalloweenimages |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
2000px(v) |
100's |
| niche site with Halloween theme stock images and clipart |
| X freephotosbank |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
2000px(v) |
6000? |
| convenient navigation but somewhat low in quality images |
| X freefoto.com |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
1000px(v) |
13000 |
| you might want an ad blocker if you visit this long running, commercial ridden site, free for non commercial use - venerable old site that I think has been around as long as I have |
| freestockphotos.com |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
800px(v) |
1000 |
| very limited selection, low resolution and images contain a stamp which must be left in place or replaced with a text credit |
| unprofound |
Yes |
No |
No |
1024px(v) |
? |
| creative and unusual site full of artistic PD images organized and browsed by colour |
| adigitaldreamer/gallery |
? |
? |
No |
3000px |
1000+ |
| high resolution but limited range of images, no license details provided |
| studio25.ro |
? |
? |
Yes |
0px |
~4000 |
| site that seems similar to the old SXC.hu, registration required to download |
| amgmedia.com/freephotos |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
700px(v) |
100? |
| painful navigation!, and very low resolution, you might find something for a web project here |
| freelargephotos |
No |
Yes |
No |
1200px(v) |
20000 |
| a good travel/scenic location based library, non commercial use only or buy a $50 commercial license |
| cepolina photo |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
1024px |
5800 |
| great navigation via category, colour and geographic location. downloads in various sizes but the maximum is 1024 pixels |
| bigfoto.com |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
1200px |
500? |
| you need to browse this useful but small collection manually, attribution required but can be omitted if you pay a $5 license fee |
| photorack.net |
Yes |
No |
No |
640px(v) |
27,000 |
| massive collection (suspiciously so?), looks like it's no longer updated, and pitiful resolution of most of the photos makes for limited application - lack of search is also annoying |
| fromoldbooks.org |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
1800px(v) |
2500 |
| collection of scanned illustrations from out of copyright books, organized by title |
| X mayang's textures |
Yes |
No |
No |
2560px(v) |
3800 |
| Credit is welcomed, simple site with huge selection of textures and backgrounds of all kinds |
| X amazingtextures |
No |
N/A |
Yes |
1600px(v) |
2000? |
| just when you thought the world did not need another texture site! these textures are repeating so they can easily be used in 3d rendering, free for personal use, $20 for commercial |
| aarinfreephoto |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
504px |
950 |
| photos are watermarked and very low res, reasonable range of subjects |
| freemediagoo.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
1000px |
200? |
| some interesting 3d rendered images, audio, textures and flash animation, mostly very low res photos, not much use |
| ancestryimages |
No |
Yes |
No |
1600px(v) |
16500 |
| old scans of maps and books not for commercial use |
| holylandphotos.org |
No |
Yes |
No |
1600px(v) |
1000's? |
| do check the terms, "in general 4 images can be used without permission" with a credit, images of the "holy land" |
| X bajstock.com |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
2800px(v) |
5,000? |
| images from one photographer, some good conceptual images and locations in France, high resolutions |
| DHD Multimedia Gallery |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Varies |
35,000 |
| very eclectic mix of images by various contributors, this site has been running for more than 15 years! |
| Cromavista |
Yes |
No |
No |
1024px(v) |
100? |
| Spanish site with various architectural, creative and location photos |
| paulbates.com |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
1820px(v) |
50? |
| small gallery from individual photographer, flowers, sunrises and sunsets, yawn |
| textureking |
Yes |
No |
No |
1600px(v) |
1000? |
| well edited collection of texture and backgrounds, nice site layout |
| freerangestock.com |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
2400px(v) |
10,000 |
| more than 2000 images in their in house catalogue + thousands of other images contributed by users |
| X photl.com |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
1200px |
10,000+ |
| amazing quality photos (professional stock level), you need to create an account to download the images, for free you can access only lower resolution images, higher resolution images are via subscription |
| X freewebphoto.com |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
700px(v) |
5000 |
| registration required and 5 image download daily limit, good quality subjects lots of conceptual subjects covered which are also available for purchase if a higher resolution is needed or web use license without attribution, free for web use only |
| X stickstock.com |
? |
? |
No |
1200px(v) |
1000 |
| some nice illustrations but no terms are listed, anyone can upload anything? could have the potential to be copyright infringement nightmare! |
| pachd.com |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
1024px(v) |
1500 |
| some nice isolated images of flowers, food, and travel locations, license for USD 1.99 if you don't want to include an attribution. |
| fontplay.com/freephotos |
Yes |
No |
No |
2624px(v) |
5500 |
| simply described as free photos with no further terms listed this site contains all sorts of interesting things! |
| allfreeimages.net |
? |
? |
Yes |
2624px(v) |
1200 |
| some useful conceptual stock subjects as well as the usual architecture and landscapes |
| sunipix.com |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
600px(v) |
1000? |
| mostly nature and location / landmark images plus a few concepts like biology and finance, only available at low resolution |
| freestockphotos.biz |
Yes |
Varies |
No |
2400px(v) |
15,000 |
| large collection of categorised images, with additional collections of PD, Creative commons and other license types, main collection does not require attribution but link is appreciated. |
| rgbstock.com |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
3000px(v) |
100,000 |
| large collection of user contributed images, registration required for download |
| littlevisuals.co |
Yes |
No |
No |
zip files |
? |
| sadly no longer updated, an archive of existing images downloadable as zip files |
| magdeleine.co |
Varies |
Varies |
No |
Varies |
small |
| nicely curated collection of images, varying licenses (attribution and CC0) search, but limited pool of images to choose from |
| picjumbo.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
Large |
~1000s |
| growing collection of usable images with a basic search tool |
| getrefe.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
? |
~? |
| mostly rubbish don't waste your time |
| stokpic.com |
Yes |
No |
Opt |
varies |
~350 |
| browse some of the images of subscribe for regular images delivered to your inbox |
|
kaboompics.com
|
Yes |
No |
No |
5000 (varies) |
17400 |
| nice photo collection, with a few categories presented in a blog style |
| barnimages.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
varies |
1000 |
| photo collection from various photographers, includes both free and upselling to a premium collection |
| bara-art.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
varies |
300 |
| great looking website with some very nice images, some very appealing landscapes and nature photography |
| en.freejpg.com.ar |
Varies |
No |
Varies |
varies |
10,000(!) |
| site claims to have 10,000 images, from search this seems unlikely, looks like a PD collection with few extra contributed images mixed in under various licenses. nicely put together |
| foodiesfeed.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
varies |
? |
| nice food photos collection presented as a blog |
| hiresstock.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
varies |
~500 |
| another nice collected presented in the form of a blog feed |
| photostockeditor.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
varies |
150 |
| photo editor tool website, with a small collection of nice work, no categories or search :( |
| goodstock.photos |
Yes |
Opt |
No |
4000 |
500 |
| sparsely populated categories and no search, nice images |
| highresolution.photography |
? |
? |
? |
varies |
? |
| all fir coat, no nickers. when I visited I found a nice looking site with broken links, some pointing to flickr profiles of various photographers, might as well have gone find the images myself (did I miss something |
| stockfreeimages.com |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
varies |
1.5M |
| lots of free stock photos, these are the images rejected from the dreamstime collection. |
| designerspics.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
varies |
150? |
| simple clean site, search and categories, but limited by image collection size |
| photober.com |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
<1000px |
1000 |
| nice collocation of commercial style stock, let down by small image size |
| trunklog.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
2000 |
~160 |
| very nice collection of inspiring insta style travel and landscape photos |
| X noblweb.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
2500 |
~200 |
| some nice sunny stock images and iconic locations, browse for something, no search or categories |
| titania-foto.com |
Yes |
No |
No |
4500+ |
~550 |
| reasonable size collection of objects, landscapes, nature, the usual free stock fodder |
More Free Image Sites:
Our Creative Commons site directory (free use images with an attribution, simplified licenses)
NB: Always confirm the license details before you use the images, all of the sites listed here clearly display their terms of use which must be followed but sometimes things change since we reviewed the terms. Commercial use usually means that you can use the images in advertisements NOT that you can create products for sale using the images - This is possible but in almost all cases you will need to contact the provider or buy an 'extended license'.
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Disadvantages of Free Sites
Although free sites are great, there is a good reason that most of the images on them are free, they are usually not up to the same quality as those on paid sites. They might be only be suitable for use as a small online images.
Just like with PD images it's often hard to find an image suitable for your needs unless your requirements are for simple non conceptual images like landscapes, flowers, nature or travel.
As a simpler and safer alternative you can look at microstock libraries (quality images, huge selection, easy search and priced from $1).
Free Photo Search Services
- X picfindr.com search displays results from 6 or 7 sites, some commercial (microstock), some PD and some independent free image sites.
- veezzle.com searches several free stock photos sites in one go.
stockphotos.io kind of like pintrest for stock photos (curation and categories rather than photo search)
-
Missing a Site / Add Listing
Think we have missed a site from the list? then let us know, but be sure that it's not already listed in our PD image sites or Creative Commons free image sites directories.
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