Top 8 Free Stock Photo Websites For Designers

As a designer, you would want to have the best premium photos which you can use for your designs. Premium designs offer more options and, of course, they come in high-quality.

However, although premium seems to be the best choice, not all have the luxury to afford it. If you are just starting out in your design career or you’re simply having problems with money, it would be best if you start out with free stock photos.

Now, you may think that free stock photos are not as good as premiums, and for some that’s true. However, not all free stock photos are bad; you just need to know where to find them!

In this article, we are going to list down the top 8 free stock photo websites where you can find some of the best photos online for your design project – all for free!

Without further ado, let’s get started!

1) Pixabay

Pixabay is one of the most well-known free stock photo website on the internet, and that does not come with a surprise.

Pixabay has a very large collection of high-quality images, hence you can mostly find any images that you want. Pixabay also offers free illustration and vectors should you need them for your design.

Pixabay’s images are also easy to download: just answer a CAPTCHA question and you’re done! You can also create a free account if you don’t like answering CAPTCHA questions every time you download.

2) Pexels

Pexels is another well-known free stock photo website on the internet today. Pexels contain a well-curated collection of free stock photos! If you are planning to use videos for your project, you can have free stock videos from Pexels as well!

3) Unsplash

Another giant in the free stock photo website group, Unsplash boasts more than 300,000 amazing, beautiful, and high-resolution images! Most of their images came from over 50,000 contributors, so you can say that their images are taken from the heart!

Despite its big collection of high-res images, Unsplash actually does not offer much variety of options compared to other stock photo websites. However, it always promises high-quality images for your project or design!

4) Morguefile

Morguefile is quite different compared to most in this list. Unlike stock photo websites like Pixabay and Unsplash that contains virtually every type of photo, Morguefile focuses on photos about random people, nature or simply everyday life.

So, if you are looking for big header images, featured images for blog or background images for themes, you may not find them on Morguefile. However, if you are looking for simple photos that depicts nature or everyday life – such as a mountain or a man pouring coffee on his cup – then you can get them on Morguefile!

5) Stockvault

Stockvault have tons of free stock images, wallpapers and even texture if you’re looking for free textures online.

However, unlike big stock photo websites like Pixabay and Unsplash, Stockvault does not have plenty images in their collection as these websites. Nevertheless, Stockvault is carefully curated and have daily new additions, so you can still get great photos from them.

6) PicJumbo

PicJumbo is a free stock photo website that was created by Viktor Hanacek last 2013. It all started after Hanacek’s image submissions were rejected by big stock photo websites because of his photos’ “lack of quality”. After receiving such rejections, Hanacek decided to build his own stock photo website, and hence PicJumbo was born!

Over time, PicJumbo eventually grew to where it is today. And no, you won’t describe PicJumbo’s photos as having “lack of quality” – being considered as one of the best free stock photo website today, getting featured in some of the biggest online publications and having more than 2.5 million downloads two years after it was created will tell you otherwise!

7) Reshot

Reshot is like most stock photo website except for one thing – Reshot is a community with a mission to give photographers, especially new photographers, a platform to share their creative work.

Reshot’s images are well-curated and simply amazing. But above all, they are completely free (of course!)

8) Gratisography

The last but not the least, we have Gratisography! Gratisography is also like other stock photo websites (of course), but it has its own quirks like the few ones listed here.

In terms of quantity, Gratisography won’t compare to big stock photo websites like Unsplash and Pixabay. However, they’re not aiming to provide plenty of high-quality, high-res free stock photos. Instead, they’re aiming to provide free unique stock photos for anyone who wants them! Or as they put it, Gratisography is the “world’s quirkiest collection of high-resolution free stock images.”

If you are looking for such free quirky stock photos, then you know where to find them – at Gratisography!

Final Thoughts

Here are some of the best stock photo websites to download free stock photos. Not only they’re free, but they come in high-quality and high-resolution!

Each website also offers different features, so we hope that you can find the stock photo website/s that will meet your needs!