Stock images are difficult to find however through Shutterstock; access has been made easier. Shutterstock has more than over 160 million royalty images, music and videos for any project you have that needs pictures, etc. Though, there is a huge source of images, subscribing to shutterstock could be expensive and unaffordable to some. Finding alternatives that could give you cheaper or free sources is a very practical method to support any project you have.
Here are the best free shutterstock alternatives:
1. Foter
Foter has about 335 million stock pictures and 220 million of it is for commercial use. Good thing about this site is its photos are available for free. However, take in mind, you will have to credit the photographer whenever you will use a picture. Since Foter has a huge royalty-free pictures you could use, you will find this site as the best alternative you might find.
2. Vecteezy
You can find millions of free photos, videos, and vector illustrations at Vecteezy. Their team reviews every resource submitted to the site, so you can be assured that you’ll find only high quality images and videos.
Vecteezy also offers one of the best sitewide search engines in the industry. You can filter the search results by color, orientation, style, number of people, age of people, and more. Creating an account is optional, but if you choose to register, you can view your download history, organize resources in collections, and save your favorites.
3. Unsplash
If you need great photos, Unsplash is your best bet though it has fewer pictures than Shutterstock and Foter. Unsplash offers high resolution images which gives a feeling that they were taken by professional photographers. It offers free royalty license to use the images commercially but just like Foter, you will need to include a badge which credits the photographers.
Since this site has about 400,000 members who uploads images daily, it offers a great place to find pictures you need easily through its easy to navigate web.
4. Pexels
Though Pexels is considered as one of the smallest sites, their images are taken by professional photographers and offers high quality pictures. Most pictures you will find in this site are images of landscapes, people, buildings and other outdoor environment. The most amazing thing with Pexels is that all images has creative commons zero licensing which allows one to use their images for personal and commercial purposes.
5. Pixabay
Considered as one of the most popular site, Pixabay has about 1.1 million images which it could offer. Its images have creative commons zero licensing which would allow you to use their images for personal or commercial purposes without having to think about violating copyright. Aside from images, Pixabay also offers videos, vector graphics and illustrations.
6. Freeimages
Freeimages has about 400,000 royalty free images and is updated with new additions daily. Images are allowed to be used for personally and commercially purposes. However, to be able to access their images, you will need to sign up and create an account. This site also offers vectors and illustrations which you could access for free without having to ask permission or give credits to its artists.
7. The Stocks
This site gets images from other websites but rest assured, you could access images here for free. The only challenge you might encounter in this site is its speed in downloading its images and its images are not categorized which makes it difficult to find pictures that you will need. This site also offers free videos, audios, fonts, colors and icons.
8. Burst
Developed by Shopify, Burst has about 1000 images which could be used for business. If you need royalty-free stock photos for business, this site is best recommended since its images offer a business feel to its themes.
9. StockcSnap
Another site which ensures its images are creative commons zero licensed, StockcSnap offers free loyal images which are taken by a community of photographers. Finding for an image is made easy due to its images being categorized by filters of most trending, most viewed, most favorited and most downloaded.
10. Gratisography
This site offers high resolution images which were taken by professional photographers. Its images are categorized by filters such as nature, objects, people, animals, etc. If you are looking for cool and elegant pictures, Gratisography is for you.
11. ISO Republic
ISO Republic is another small scale site with around 3,000 images. Though they are considered as small, its images are offered for free and does not need to be credited. Images found in this site are high-quality and high resolution. Themes such as architecture, nature, urban, technology and people could be accessed in this site.
Conclusion:
Though Shutterstock is a great source for pictures, it could also be expensive for some and finding some alternatives could be the best solution to access images that one could use. The above featured sites are just a few which one could use as an alternative.
