22 Amazing Sites With Breathtaking Free Stock Photos (2024 Update)

Free stock photos

Photography has always been an integral part of design. Unfortunately, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing cheesy stock images of people in suits shaking hands. Not only are a lot of these stock photos tacky, but they cost a lot of money.

Thankfully, there’s been a growing number of websites with beautiful stock photography popping up all over the web. Best of all, they’re free!

In this post, we’ve curated a list of awesome websites for free stock photos.

Bonus: We’ve included 5,000,000+ of these free stock photos into our graphic design tool. Get started with Snappa for free!

Quick Note About Licenses

Many of these photographs are free from copyright restrictions or licensed under creative commons public domain dedication. This means you can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

However, some photos may require attribution. We’ve done our best to identify which license they fall under but we still advise you to do your own research and determine how these images can be used.

With that out of the way, let’s dive into our top picks for free stock photos.

1. StockSnap

StockSnap free stock photos

StockSnap.io 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 free stock photos

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.

3. Unsplash

Unsplash free stock photos

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 (by Shopify)

Burst free stock photos

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 — everything from DIY beard oil to Aliexpress LED sneakers. You can also find more general photographs as well.

5. Vecteezy

Vecteezy free stock photos

Vecteezy has over a million free stock photos and a curation team that manually reviews every image submitted to the site. Their search is powerful – you can filter the images results by color, orientation, style, number of people, age of people, and more.

Vecteezy requires attribution but includes signed model and property releases for every free photo. This protects you (and your projects) from legal risks.

6. Pixabay

Pixabay example image

Pixabay offers a large collection of free stock photos, vectors and art illustrations. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.

Want an in-depth review of the stock photo sites? We made a video where we cover the top 5 sites, as well as go through their unique features! Check it out:

7. Reshot

Reshot free stock photos

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.

8. FoodiesFeed

FoodiesFeed free stock photos

FoodiesFeed offers thousands of beautiful realistic free food pictures in high resolution. It’s the perfect stock photo site for food bloggers.

9. Gratisography

Gratisography free stock photos

Gratisography offers free high-resolution pictures you can use on your personal and commercial projects. New awesome pictures are added weekly and are free of copyright restrictions. All pictures are captured by Ryan McGuire of Bells Design.

10. Freestocks.org

Freestocks free stock photos

Freestock offers a wide range of high quality photos all released under Creative Commons CC0.

11. Picography

Picography free stock photos

Picography contains beautiful free stock photos submitted by Dave Meier and various other photographers. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.

12. Foca

Foca free stock photos

Foca is a collection of high resolution photos provided by Jeffrey Betts. Jeffrey specializes in photos of workspaces and nature. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.

13. Picjumbo

PicJumbo free stock photos

Picjumbo is a collection of totally free photos for your commercial & personal works. New photos are added daily from a wide variety of categories including abstract, fashion, nature, technology and much more.

14. Kaboom Pics

KaboomPics free stock photos

Kaboom Pics offers a wide variety of high quality free stock photos including abstract, city/architecture, fashion, food, landscapes and more. Photos can be used for commercial purposes but cannot be sold or redistributed.

15. SkitterPhoto

SkitterPhoto free stock photos

SkitterPhoto offers a wide variety of free stock photos and are released under Creative Commons CC0. All pictures are authentic and created by Skitterphoto’s owners.

16. Life of Pix

LifeofPix free stock photos

Life of Pix is a resource created by the LEEROY creative agency offering free high-resolution photos with no copyright restrictions.

17. Little Visuals

LittleVisuals free stock photos

This mention comes with a bit of sad news. The owner of the site Nic passed away but his photos remain in his memory. All photos that have been posted were released under the creative commons license public domain dedication.

18. New Old Stock

NewOldStock free stock photos

Vintage photos from the public archives free of known copyright restrictions.

19. Jay Mantri

JayMantri free stock photos

7 new photos released every Thursday under the Creative Commons CC0 license. Jay Mantri posts some really nice photos with a variety of different themes.

20. Picspree

PicSpree free stock photos

Backed by Getty Images, Picspree provides a large selection of high quality stock photos completely royalty free. With easy searching and frictionless downloading Picspree is an excellent resource for small businesses and web professionals looking for high quality photos without the worry of licensing.

21. ISO Republic

ISORepublic free stock photos

ISO Republic offers a broad range of photos; they add new images every day under for free under the CCO license.

22. StyledStock

StyledStock free stock photos

StyleStock offers free feminine stock photography for every woman entrepreneur. The collection is totally free for your commercial & personal works.

Bonus: If you’re looking to whip up graphics for social media, blog posts, ads and more using these free stock photos, get started with Snappa for free.

Conclusion

As you can see, there’s a growing number of fantastic resources for stock photography. These websites have become a blessing for designers, marketers and bloggers. No need to rely on cheesy stock photos anymore!

About the author: Nick Le is the marketing manager at Snappa. He has published several articles relating to social media marketing.