The 10 Best Free Stock Image Sites

Do you want amazing free stock images? That you can use practically for any purpose?

We are about to give you the 10 absolute best places to get free stock images. 👍

How do we know that these are the 10 best ones? We have used all the major free stock image sites on the web, and this is our firm verdict.

Btw, all the images on this page are from these truly free sites. What do you think? 🤔 All other images on Topimagesites are from paid sites.

To make this guide as user-friendly as possible, we have only included sites where no attribution is required (meaning you don’t have to credit the source when you use the image).

We have also only included sites that has a search option, so that you can search for the images you want instead of having to look through all of them.

In addition, we have only included websites that have images that you can use freely, both for commercial purposes and personal use.

The images on these free websites are covered under either a creative commons zero (CC0) license, a royalty-free license, a rights-managed license or its own custom license (which will normally be very close to a royalty-free license).

What are our thoughts on using free stock images?

In certain circumstances, they can be super helpful. However, not always.

If you have a small project, for instance a blogpost that only needs a few images, you can normally find what you need on these truly free stock images websites. 👍

If you on the other hand need lots of images (lets’s say more than 30), you might struggle finding what you need, and you might spend lots of time searching.

Here is the deal:

One single paid stock image websites often has more than 100 million images. If you add together all the images from the truly free websites on this page, you get about 10 million images.

With fewer images available, it is more difficult to find exactly what you need.

Also, if you need super high quality images, you may not find what you need on the truly free stock image sites.

Although the quality of images on free stock image websites can sometimes be great, the quality on paid stock image websites is normally significantly better.

Why?

Because in order for an image to be accepted to the paid stock image sites, it has pass a very strict quality review process. As a result, low quality images are rejected and you are left with super high quality images.

We have tested this in practice:

We tried using free stock images for a high-profile project for which we needed about 75 stunning images. We searched all the major free stock image websites. But we only found about 20-30 images we were happy to use.

That is still good, because we were able to find some really great ones. But in order to complete the project we also needed to use images from paid stock image sites.

Therefore:

If your project is high profile and high quality, we recommend using only high quality images.

With the paid stock image websites, you are more likely to get better quality. And also find exactly what you need.

Also, the images you select will typically be much more unique.

Free stock images are often used by thousands (or sometimes tens of thousands) of people. Simply because they are free.

You are therefore likely to encounter them on several websites, blogposts, social media posts, etc.

Paid stock images on the other hand, are normally significantly less used. Therefore, when you use these paid images, they will normally be significantly more unique.

Conclusion?

Free images are good if you need few or if quality is less of a concern. If you need lots of images, or if quality is important to you, paid stock images is a better bet.

In any case, we have found that mixing free and paid images can sometime yield great results. 👍

Here Are Our 10 Favorite Free Stock Image Websites

Dreamstime is one of 3 premium paid stock image websites featured on our free top 10 list.

Why?

Because Dreamstime offer 15 FREE images. You can in other words, choose any 15 images from their more than 150 million images.

Totally free! Because you can cancel before any payment is due.

Other stock image websites where you can buy individual images often charge $30 per image. Here you get 15 for FREE!

This offer is too good to resist!

You can choose photos, vectors and illustrations.

The images are covered by royalty-free and rights-managed licenses.

Shutterstock has a similar offer. But instead of 15, you can get 10 FREE images.

In other words, you can browse through their library of more than 300 million images, and pick any 10 you want.

This offer also also too good to let slip!

With that many images available, you are highly likely to find images that suit your needs. You can also do an advanced search and select between photos, vectors and illustrations.

The images are covered by royalty-free and rights-managed licenses.

Adobe Stock is also a premium paid stock image website.

And Adobe lets you choose any 10 of its images for FREE.

Which means that you can search through all the Adobe Stock images and pick any 10 you like. This offer is also too good to pass up.

You can select from more than 100 million images that cover almost any imaginable subject. Hence, you you are very likely find what you are looking for. You can select photos, illustrations and vectors.

The images are covered by royalty-free and rights-managed licenses.

Pixabay is our favorite of the truly free stock image sites. It has about 2 million images and you can choose as many as you want without limitation.

As you search for images, you can narrow down your search by photo, vector, illustration, orientation, size, color, etc., as well as browse by category.

When you look at an image, it will tell you how many times it has been liked and added to someone’s favorites. You can also choose the size of the file before you download an image.

We find that the image quality of Pixabay is normally very good.

Not only that: Pixabay also gives you free videos! 👍

The licenses are covered by the creative commons zero (CC0) license .

Unsplash is our second favorite among the truly free stock images sites. The image quality is great, and it is particularly a great place to find free images about nature, landscapes, cityscapes and scenery.

Unsplash has a collection of more than 2 million images.

When you open an image, it will tell you how many times it has been viewed, how many times it has been downloaded and also how many likes it has.

The Unsplash license is a custom license, but is similar to a royalty-free license.

Rawpixel has a little over one million free stock images, and you can choose any you wish.

The quality of the images is relatively good. And you can do advanced searches.

The images are either under a royalte-free or creative commons zero license.

Freeimages has more than 300,000 images and you can download as many as you want without limitation.

Quality is good for the most part.

You can also download images in various size formats. And in addition, you can see how many likes and dislikes each image has received.

The images are under a custom license.