Free photo banks are splitting the community. Some people don’t allow them, others strongly discourage them. Everyone has to make up their own mind. Personally, I like to use them and in this article I will share with you the best ones.
Remember that you always need to carefully study the licensing conditions that photo banks have.
1. Pexels
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Pexels is a photo library with the most beautiful photos I know. When I want a photo from a photo library, I head here without thinking. The photos are often more artistic, which is why they don’t look like “classic stock photos”.
It’s true that Pexels doesn’t have as many photos asPixabay, however, their quality makes them the obvious choice for me.
Pexels also offers nice videos.
2. Pixabay
It is probably the largest photo bank with photos for free use.
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Most of the photos on this platform really scream “I’m from a photo bank”, however, you may have a lucky hand.
3. Unsplash
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Unsplash is another one of the photo banks I like to visit. In a way, I feel like it’s a cross between Pexels and Pixabay.
Anyway, even though there are a plethora of free photo banks, I never look elsewhere than these three.
4. Aggregators
Aggregators of photobanks aim to have all photobanks in one place. This is so you can search for your photos in one place and not have to switch between banks.
Logically, the photo banks don’t like this very much, which often results in them not letting you view their content on the aggregator, but redirecting you directly to themselves.
I had a good experience withhttp://thestocks.im, however, it seems that the platform has changed and its use is more like a “list” of all possible banks than a direct search.
Another aggregator is then:https://allthefreestock.com.
5. unDraw (free illustration)
unDraw Katerina Limpitsouni is brilliant. The website is 4 years old and although the illustrations can be seen in various places (including my website:)), the market is still not saturated with them.
In addition to a really great range of illustrations, the database also has a great feature where you can choose your own complementary colour for the illustrations to set you apart.
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So if you’re looking for illustrations for your project, unDraw may be the perfect place to start.
6. Gratioshgraphy
Photos fromGratiosgraphy are original, nice and free. However, it is true that now you can see them quite often in various places…
But if you don’t think so, be sure to check it out:
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Bonus – Google images
You can also search for images for your projects directly inGoogle images. However, as you can guess, most of the images found will not have a license that allows you to use the images freely.
Therefore, it is necessary to filter only those that have such a license:
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Again, I strongly recommend finding out what each license allows. You can definitely use this knowledge for all the sites mentioned above…
Happy searching!
Those were my favorite photo banks. Let me know in the comments what experience you have with the banks!
