This is an update to my old post written in 2009 with latest additions and deletions. Following are the best sites to find royalty-free, public domain, and creative commons licensed images, videos, music to use on your blog / business site or in your YouTube shorts or Insta reels.
1. Pixabay: From being third in the list when this post was first written to reaching first, Pixabay has come a long way. It now offers over 5 million HQ images, videos, music, illustrations and vectors. It doesn’t need any attribution, but if you like the images, you can donate to the original creator. Link is just down the image download link.
2. Pexels: Pexels also offers high-quality photos and videos. It also doesn’t need attribution. It doesn’t offer incentive to the uploader. This is my second go to site for free pics and videos.
3. FreeImages: Stock.Xchng, which was the only top site when this article was first written offering high-quality images, is now FreeImages. It now offers photos as well as vectors, clipart, PSD and icons. The main downside of this site is it doesn’t show the resolution of the image you are downloading, which is a common thing now in free stock photo sites. You won’t know the dimensions until you download it.
4. Flickr: It has millions of photos you can use for your site or blog with attribution. Flickr photos are tagged with Creative Commons licenses. Use the advanced search to find the image you need. Don’t forget to select the license at the bottom. Browse photos by license here.
5. FreeDigitalPhotos.Net: I used this site earlier for downloading medical field related images, which weren’t available on any free image sites. The biggest limitation is they offer small size of the image (400 px in width) for free and you need to pay if you need a bigger size image. You also need to give a link back to the site in the form of “author/site name.”
6. MorgueFile: They have around 4-lac photos in high resolution, which you can use for your work without any attribution.
7. Public Domain Pictures: It has a huge number of quality pictures you can use without attribution. Very high resolution of the images are offered at a premium, 3 cents per pic, offered as a $3 dollar bundle. If you use an image in your work and would like to donate to the creator, you can find the option on the right side of the image.
Know a better or bigger site than these? Do let me know and I will add to the list.
thank you!