Finding a website full of high quality and royalty-free stock images that are free to use can be tough task. It can take you almost as long to find the right image as it did to write your content!
In an effort to save you hours of searching I’ve compiled a quick list of some of the best stock photo sites I frequent most when searching for free stock photos for websites while I’m working on client projects.
All of the sites listed below allow you to use the stock photos on their website however you’d like (on both personal and commercial projects), royalty-free and with or without attribution.
Have fun.
1. Unsplash.com
Unsplash.com has some of the best free stock images I’ve found online and a very easy-to-use interface.
Infact, I use Unsplash so much that I wanted to give back so I created my own user account as a contributor and regularly upload my own high-resolution photography for other people to use in their projects, free of charge.
2. Pexels.com
Pexels.com is generally the second site I visit if I’m unable to find a suitable image on Unsplash.
Pexels.com is one of the largest free stock photo directories on the web.
It’s content is curated from it’s own user base as well as other stock photo sites around the internet and put them together in one convenient place. Pexels.com is great for finding photos of people doing things, which makes it a great place to find photos for website projects.
3. StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io offers a large database of free stock photo images with hundreds of high resolution images added weekly.
One of my favorite features of StockSnap.io is the ability to see which photos are trending. This can give you an idea of what type of photography is popular at the moment if you’re looking to match the style.
4. Pixabay.com
Pixabay.com offers over 1 million+ high quality stock images and videos (and illustrations now, too).
In my opinion, the images and videos on Pixabay seem a bit more ‘cookie-cutter’ than the other sites listed above, which is why I’ve listed it fourth in the list, but you can still find some great free stock images on this site.
5. LibreStock.com
Librestock.com is a site that isn’t talked about as much as the other free stock photo sites but it’s extremely powerful – it’s a search engine for free stock photos.
Librestock.com scans and indexes the best free photos from the top stock sites, allowing you to “find that perfect image much, much quicker.”
This site is a great place to quickly find high quality free stock images from sites all over the web. I have noticed that there are images on sites like Unsplash that I haven’t been able to find on Librestock but perhaps they just hadn’t updated their index yet?
Wrapping Up
Now that you know my top 5 free stock photo sites for finding royalty-free, high resolution images, do you have any of your own favorites you’d like to see added to the list? If so, drop them in the comments below!
