Images are the most valuable resource in the field of design whether it is print media design or digital design. Every designer needs high quality images to make hir or her designs look more appealing and user friendly. You need fresh stock images for every project according to the requirements. It can get really expensive to purchase new stock images for every new project especially if you are a small startup looking to cut extra costs in your projects. To solve this problem we have created a list of best websites that provide free stock photos for your projects.
Note: Most of the websites listed below provide the images under CC0 license (Public domain), which means you can use these images in your personal and commercial projects without any restrictions, but before downloading any images please go through the license of each website.
Unsplash
Unsplash is a community to share your stock photos under CC0 license. Only best photo submissions get featured on the homepage of the website. You will get amazing stock photos from Unsplash, its homepage is full of breathtaking shots taken by famous photographers worldwide. It is very easy to search for the required photo on this website using the tags and search bar.
Pixabay
It contains whopping 1.2 million free stock images along with vector graphics and free videos, which you can use in your personal or commercial projects for free.
Pexels
Pexels is another similar community of photographers to share and download free stock photos under CC0 license. It has beautiful leaderboard where you can find top photographers of all the time along with their best shots.
StockSnap
StockSnap is another large community of photographers where they can share their free photos under CC0 license. Anyone can download and use these free stock photos for personal or commercial projects with or without any attribution. Users can also create their account on the website to keep track of their favorite photos.
Gratisography
This free stock photos project is created by Ryan McGuire. All the stock images on this website are free to use for personal or commercial projects. Some primary photo categories on this website are Animals, People, Nature, Objects, Urban, Whimsical.
VisualHunt
VisualHunt contains free stock images from different sources on the internet. Anyone can easily browse new photos using the category links or the big search box on the homepage. Along with public domain photos (CC0 license), this website has photos under other licenses also.
Public Domain Pictures – Here you will find pictures under various licenses or even premium pictures. This website only provides lower resolution of the images for free, for full-size images you have to pay a download fee.
Public Domain Vectors – This website provides free vector images in various formats like SVG, EPS, AI and CDR. All the vector images are available under CC0 license which are free to use without any attribution or linkback.
PicJumbo – PicJumbo is managed by Viktor Hanacek, a 24-year-old photographer. It contains amazing stock photos ready to use for free in your projects. All the photos are well organized under proper categories and tags. This Website is regularly updated with fresh photos, so you will get unique photos every day you visit the website.
Life of Pix – Life of Pix offers very high quality free photos submitted by best photographers around the world. You will get amazing images from this website. These images can be used in personal or commercial projects according to CC0 license.
Magdeleine – Magdeleine is a small community just like Unsplash or Pixabay to share free photos. This website offers free photos under CC0 license or with attribution link required. Photos are arranged under various tags and categories like Nature, City & Architecture, People, Animals, Food, Technology, Objects, Abstract.
NegativeSpace – Another popular public domain stock photos website with some popular photo categories likes Art & Design, Business, People, Architecture, Food, Music, Transport, Typography etc.
SplitShire – SplitShire offers free stock photos and videos under the same roof. It contains 900+ high-quality free photos submitted by various professional photographers around the world. The photos are shared under CC0 licenses so that they can be easily used in a variety of web and print media projects.
ISO Republic – ISO Republic contains high-quality CC0 images which are ready to use personal or commercial projects. Photos on this website are divided into several categories likes Animals, Business, People, Technology, Travel, Food, Nature, Landscape, Sports etc. Currently, they have more than 3000+ CC0 images on their website which are ready to download.
KaboomPics – Another free stock photos website with a little restriction on the usage of the photos. You need to provide attribution to their website whenever you use their photos. You can check the usage terms and license on their website. They offer really good quality images and their website regularly updated.
Stokpic – Offers wonderful free photos to download under CC0 license. This website has a very user friendly navigation system for finding stock images.
FoodiesFeed -This website contains thousands of free high-quality food images, best for restaurant website designs, menu designs and more food related design projects. All the photos are listed under CC0 license.
Skitter Photos – Skitter photos is a Netherlands based stock photos website, which showcases very high quality CC0 images. All the images published here are free to use in personal or commercial projects.
Bossfight – Bossfight is daily updated with fresh stock images under various categories such as Tech, Objects, Nature, People, Animals, Food, City & Buildings. All the photos are published under CC0 license.
BarnImages – Barn Images is a small community of photographers with 2000+ free photos ready to download.
Snapwire Snaps – Snapwire Snaps is Tumblr based project maintained by the Snapwire team. This blog features public domain images shared by various talented photographers from all around the world. This is updated regularly, so you will get fresh content everytime you visit it.
LibreStock – Libre Stock is an image search engine, which crawls other free image websites and brings the results to you in a single place. By using this search engine you can browse 40+ free photos websites on a single page and download your required photos very easily.
EveryPixel – Every Pixel is similar to Libre stock which searches free photos from other popular websites and brings you the results in one place.
Glyph – Glyph is another amazing website which offers free stock images under CC0 license.
MMT – MMT has very beautiful stock photos to download for free. All the photos on MMT are taken and maintained by Jeffrey Betts. At MMT Jeff shares a wide variety of images under various categories like Macro shots, People, Nature, Flowers, Summer, Spring, Workspace, Office, Trees, New York, Urban, Clouds, Weather etc.
Free Photos – Another Image Search Engine to search CC0 images in one place. It has a very beautiful user interface for searching and downloading the free photos.
Free Range Stock – A community of photographers, where they can share their best shots for free. It also offers an amazing revenue sharing program for photographers through which they earn from their photo submissions using their Google Adsense account.
Nappy – Nappy provides free photos of black and brown people. All the photos are uploaded under CC0 license on this website. Some popular stock photo categories on this website are Active, People, Places, Food, Things and Work.
Iwaria – Iwaria hosts free African stock photos under CC0 license. All these photos include African People, African Culture, Places, Food, Fitness etc categories. Here you can search photos by tag or location name.
PicMelon – This website contains some high-quality hand-picked stock photos under CC0 license. You can also download complete pack of the photos in one click.
FocusFitness – As the name suggests FocusFitness provides fitness and diet-related free stock photos under public domain. You can use any of the given photos with or without attribution.
FoodiesFactor – Free to use Yummy food photos with or without attribution
Foodshots – Handpicked collection of free food photos from various online sources.
Morgue File – Challenge based free photos website.
SplashBase – Get high resolution free stock photos on this website.
New Old Stock – Collection of public domain licensed Vintage Stock photos.
SpaceX – A Flickr group by SpaceX to share public domain pictures of Space, Rockets etc.
Jeeshoots – A free photos website by Jan Vasek.
DesignersPics – Free photos taken by Jeshu John.
Libreshot – All the Photos here are taken by Martin Vorel.
Thepicpac – Free travel photo packs to download.
My Stock Photos – A curated list of beautiful stock photos available under CC0.
Nomad Pictures – Travel and food related stock photos captured during a nomad lifestyle.
Startup Stock Photos – Stock photos related to Startups, Business, People, Office Spaces and more.
Freely – Curation of Christian stock photos maintained by Daniel.
FancyCrave – Get fancy photos packs free to use in various types of design projects.
Travel Coffee Book – Regularly updated beautiful travel photos to download under CC0 license.
Free Nature Stock – Free Nature photography project maintained by Adrian Pelletier.
Please drop us a message if we miss any free stock photo website. We will add it to the list after verifying the submission.