Images play an important role in inhancing your blog or website. With images you can depict situations, indicate brands and also convey message visually. Images not all images you find on the internet are free to use, there are websites avaiable from where you can download and use images free of cost. We have listed in this blog the top 8 websites that you can use for stock images.
1. StockSnap
StockSnap has a large selection of beautiful free stock photos and high resolution images. The site also has a very handy search feature making it easy to browse through the thousands of images available. In addition, the site tracks views and downloads so you can find the most popular photos available. StockSnap adds hundreds of images on a daily basis and all photos are released under creative commons public domain – no attribution required.
2. Pexels
Pexels provides high quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. All photos are nicely tagged, searchable and also easy to discover through their discover pages. We can also download those images for free.
3. Unsplash
Unsplash offers a large collection of free high-resolution photos and has become one of the best sources for stock images. The Unsplash team combs through new submissions and features the very best photos on their homepage. All photos are released for free under the Unsplash license
4. Burst
Burst is a resource from Shopify that provides free stock photos for entrepreneurs. Some photos are licensed under Creative Commons CC0 while others fall under Shopify’s own photo license. Burst was launched to help entrepreneurs make better products, websites, and marketing campaigns. Most of the pictures are original photos that were taken in-house and are themed around trending business niches. You can also find more general photographs as well.
5. Reshot
Reshot is a massive library of handpicked free stock photos you won’t find elsewhere. Built for startups, freelancers & makers who are sick of tacky stock photos. Free to use commercially and editorially–no attribution required.
6. Pixabay
Pixabay offers a large collection of free stock photos, vectors and art illustrations. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0. Pixabay is a free-to-use website for sharing photos, illustrations, vector graphics, film footage and music. As of November 2017, Pixabay offers over 1,188,454 free photos, illustrations, and vectors and videos. All video and image files available on the platform can be used without attribution requirement and also for commercial aim.
7. Freestock
Freestock offers a wide range of high quality photos all released under Creative Commons CC0. Freestock has free photos, videos, vectors, icons, and editorial assets that are curated by creative-industry leaders — design and photography experts with years of professional experience.
8. Freepik
Freepik offers a high quality graphic designs: exclusive illustrations and graphic resources. They provide with great images that can be used in both personal and commercial projects, but all free material requires attribution to the author.
The disadvantage of using stock photography sites that offer free images is that the images tend to be very common. Content might appear repetitive. But these are cost effective solutions for most small businesses that run on a shoestring marketing budget. The content on these sites is growing everyday and there’s no doubt that free stock photography is a practical solution to get good content for your online media and markerting channels.