Pixabay has been a favorite site for finding high-quality stock images for years, with over 400,000 photos, videos, and more. When a creator uploads their image onto the site, they must sign a Pixabay license, which allows others to use the content without worrying about copyright issues. While the platform is great, you may want to find an alternative, and fortunately, there are plenty of excellent sites to choose from.

Let’s take a closer look at the Pixabay alternative websites you can use for all of your stock image needs.

1. Freepik

Two subscription options provide users with a multitude of features and thousands of images.

Overview

Freepik has grown in popularity thanks to its free and paid subscription options. It is great for those who aren’t tech-savvy, as the interface is easy to use and understand, offering you access to photos, vectors, and PSD.

Users can quickly search for a wide variety of images simply by entering a phrase into the search bar, which is great if you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for. The site is known for its more modern, high-quality images, making it a favorite among users everywhere.

2. Unsplash

Upload your own photos and access new images daily with this popular site.

Overview

Unsplash is an excellent site for businesses and eCommerce owners to use for their websites. It allows you to upload your own images and releases ten new stock photos every ten days, ensuring you have access to the newest and hottest photos available.

All of the images are high-quality, and there are multiple categories available, like travel, fashion, animals, architecture, textures and patterns, health, wallpapers, and more, making it easier than ever to find the photos you need for a variety of uses. There are over a million images in the Unsplash library, and the user community is massive, with over 100,000 photographers who eagerly post their images regularly. 

3. Ouch

The go-to library for diverse and high-quality illustrations

Overview

Ouch by Icons8 is a comprehensive illustration library that offers 100,000 free and premium vector illustrations in 200+ art styles. It caters to designers, marketers, and content creators who need high-quality visuals to enhance their projects. Ouch provides a vast collection of styles including flat, 3D, hand-drawn, and abstract illustrations, ensuring that users can find the perfect illustration for any project.

4. LibreStock

Access images across the entire internet instead of a site-specific library for an almost unlimited amount of copyright-free content.

Overview

Unlike Pixabay, LibreStock searches multiple sites like Flickr, Shutterstock, and pexels, finding free photos in response to the user’s search query. Due to these indexing capabilities, you can access a greater number of photos than traditional stock image sites. Fortunately, for users, the interface is easy to navigate, but your search results will vary depending on what content is available on other platforms.

5. StockSnap

Daily uploads and CCO licensing make StockSnap a popular option for business and personal use.

Overview

StockSnap is an exciting site since it uploads new, high-quality images daily, and they are all copyright and attribution-free, so it’s perfect for both personal and business use. The interface is progressive, allowing you to filter your searches by upload date and view number, which is great if you’re searching for recently added photos or popularly chosen options.

While all of these features are great, the best part about StockSnap is, hands-down, its image stream, which works similarly to a social media site by featuring trending images and helping you access the most popular pictures on the site. Unlike other stock image sites, StockSnap aims to develop a community of passionate photographers eager to showcase their work to the world. Users can access photos from specific photographers or from a large library of images from across the globe. There are multiple categories available, including love, wallpaper, business, beach, and much more!

6. Shutterstock

Take your stock images to the next level with the editing features available to users on Shutterstock.

Overview

Shutterstock is one of the most popular stock image sites thanks to its advanced features and large image library. Unlike Pixabay, you do have to pay before you can download images, but if you’re willing to put out a bit of money, the features are more than worth it. Users have access to thousands of quality copyright-free images, illustrations, music tracks, vectors, icons, stock footage clips, and graphics, with thousands of new high-resolution photos added every day.

There is also an editing tool that offers many different functions, including grunge brushes, neon animated typeface, film grain overlays, and more. Once you’ve purchased an image, you can perform a variety of edits, including resizing, without ever leaving the site. There is even a file converter and collage maker that allow you to create custom images in no time. There are dozens of categories to browse through, including food, healthcare, abstract, vintage, and more. 

If you would like to use Shutterfly for eleven or more users, please contact their team for pricing details.

7. Flickr

All free photos are uploaded by the artists and creators but not all images are free, as the site uses different licensing categories.

Overview

While Flickr is similar to Pixabay in that it does offer free stock photos for users to use, it differentiates itself by having eight licensing categories, so there are costs associated with some photos. It’s important to check the CC licensing before you use the photo to determine if you need to pay tribute to the creator. Fortunately, there is a creative commons section where users can access a large library of quality photos in different categories and use them without cost.

Among these sections is an Attribute License area, where all of the images are available for use by anyone, but you must list the creator’s name, ID, and credentials with each one. While it may seem overwhelming knowing which images you can use for free and which ones require additional information or cost, Flickr does allow you to sort and categorize your search by specific conditions and restrictions. Doing this ensures you only see the types of images you want to use, saving you time in the long run.

8. Pexels

Access thousands of high-resolution images and videos that are copyright-free!

Overview

Pexels is an excellent site for anyone who needs to access stock image photos and videos that are free and very high quality. The library is full of over 30,000 aesthetic photos from numerous niches and topics, and searching for the perfect image is simple, thanks to the multiple search options and parameters. There are images that work perfectly for business and personal use, and the site uploads new photos daily, which are handpicked by Pexel’s dedicated team.

This hands-on involvement ensures all the images on the site are CCO-licensed and free for all users. Not only does this extensive choosing process benefit the user, but it offers excellent exposure for the photographers as well by featuring the best daily photos as a first page feature. Search for images from a wide category selection, including popular searches, leaderboard, and popular images. 

Conclusion

If you’re looking for high-quality stock image sites that are like Pixabay, check out the ones on the list above!