We all know how high-quality photos are essential for a designer, blogger, marketer, or small business owner.

These captivating images can greatly improve user experience, boost engagement, and increase conversion rates. 

However, the inherent problem is how premium stock photos can be expensive and finding useful images free and safe for personal and commercial use takes a lot of time and can be confusing. This results in many content creators struggling to find reliable sources for quality images. 

My favorite part? There is an increasing number of free online photo banks offering thousands of high-resolution images without the need for licensing or attribution problems or difficulties. These platforms offer various professional-grade pictures for your social media, ads, websites, and presentations, all for free. 

In this guide, we’ll go over 12 best free online photo banks that offer beautiful, royalty-free images for your personal or commercial projects, explaining their strengths, uniqueness, and how to effectively use them, without compromising on copyright law. 

What Are Free Online Photo Banks? 

Free online photo banks, popularly known as free stock photo websites, are digital platforms that offer users access to photos at no cost. They are your best bet when you need high-quality visuals, particularly when you prefer to avoid expensive licensing fees or navigate complicated legal terms. 

These platforms host contributions from artists, photographers, and many other creative jobs you can learn from platforms like Kemp Center, all of whom share their work under open-use licenses, such as: 

• Creative Commons Zero (CC0): This type of license lets you waive copyrights. It simply means that authors transferred their work to the public domain, renouncing the exercise of any rights to the work under copyright law. 
• Royalty-Free with Commercial Use: These photos can be used without paying recurring fees, though some may still require attribution. That is, you don’t have to pay continuous royalties each time you use a copyrighted material, such as a picture, song, or video, in your commercial or for-profit endeavors. 

Benefits of Using Free Online Photo Banks 

As cost-effective as free stock photo websites are, they also provide practical, creative, and legal advantages for several professionals. Here are the top benefits of using free online photo banks: 

1. Cost-Effective Visual Content 

The most obvious benefit of using these images is that they are completely free of charge, making them perfect for bloggers on a tight budget, small businesses and startups, and various non-profit organizations and educators. 

You have access to countless useful professional-quality photos without spending on licensing or subscriptions. You can check out our guide on promising remote jobs to find out more about what you could need these sites for. 

2. Easy and Instant Access 

These websites are designed for your convenience. It isn’t mandatory that you sign up, and there are no payments required. Furthermore, you have access to simple keyword searches, filters, and instant downloads in high resolution. 

3. Commercial Use with Minimal Restrictions 

Many free photo banks like Freepik offer images under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) or other royalty-free licenses, which allow usage for your commercial purposes, let you edit, modify, or fine-tune these images. 

Furthermore, depending on the license type, you can skip attribution and licensing. This way, your creative juices can flow without worrying about legal troubles. 

4. A Broad Range of Content 

These free photo banks cover several categories of content, ranging from business and tech to lifestyle and fashion, nature and travel, food and drinks.  

Whether you need an abstract landing page or a cute artistic background for your social post, ads, or presentation, there’s always something for you.  

5. Legal Peace of Mind 

You run the risk of grave copyright violation from using various Google images or random pictures from the internet. However, these platforms provide visuals with transparent licensing information, safe-for-commercial-use photos, and images from verified contributors.  

This way, you are at peace knowing your content is safe and compliant. 

How to Choose the Best Free Online Photo Banks 

There are several free picture banks on the internet, but they are not all the same. Understanding what makes a photo bank genuinely beneficial is important to achieve the best results for all your creative endeavors. 

Here are some criteria for selecting the best free photo banks among the rest: 

1. Licensing Clarity 

The most important criterion you should consider is a clear, user-friendly license. It’s best to only use free photo banks that state whether images are free for personal and commercial use, offer Creative Commons Zero (CC0) or royalty-free images, and clearly indicate if attribution is mandatory.  

To be on the safe side, you should always read the license page, even on trusted sites, to avoid copyright issues. 

2. Picture Quality and Resolution 

The best platforms offer high-resolution, professional-grade photos that are mobile and desktop friendly, suitable for print and digital use, and include top-notch lighting, modern styles, and composition. 

You should avoid sites with outdated or pixelated images and terrible picture quality that can hurt your brand’s appearance. 

3. Search and Filter Tools 

A good free photo bank makes it easy for you to find exactly what you need, as quickly as possible. Look out for keyword search with relevant filters by orientation, tagging, color, category, etc., with curated collections or trending topics.  

These platforms should include search functionality that saves your time and helps you find niche content. 

4. Image Variety and Niche Groups 

The perfect free stock photo website will offer you a wide and well-rounded library, including business, fashion, tech, food, travel, and nature, niche topics, e.g., mental health, remote work, minimalism, a mix of various photography styles, and several others.  

Whatever you are looking for, in whatever style you require, you will find it! 

5. Photographer Credit and Community 

You should also look out for platforms that intently highlight individual contributors and portfolios. Ones that let you follow and support artists, encourage community contributions, and offer transparency. We have noticed that these platforms often provide more specific, authentic, and creative images. 

The 12 Free Online Photo Banks 

Now that you can confidently choose the perfect free photo banks for your needs, I’ll now show you the top 12 free online photo banks. These platforms meet the criteria mentioned and are suitable for your everyday use. 

1. Freepik 

Freepik, founded in 2010, is a popular platform with the main goal of creating a platform for designers to find free graphic resources. This platform offers free and premium visual assets, including vectors, stock photos, illustrations, and PSD files. It’s especially useful for graphic design, social media, marketing, and web projects. 

Here, many assets are free to use with mandatory attribution, however, the premium plan removes this requirement and unlocks additional content for your use. You should note that the free resources are licensed for personal and commercial use, but you should check each file’s terms. 

Freepik stands out for its search filters, huge library, and access to editable formats, perfect for designers and marketers who need more than just regular images. 

2. Slidesgo 

Slidesgo is another free stock photo platform that offers professionally designed PowerPoint and Google Slides templates, several of which include high-quality stock photos and graphics. Perfect for educators, marketers, students, and business professionals looking to quickly create visually appealing presentations for various purposes. 

Many of these templates are free with attribution required, while premium users gain access to additional templates without attribution. Note that all the designs are editable, and many come with built-in infographics, icons, and image placeholders, making it easy for you to edit and customize. 

Although Slidesgo is not a traditional photo bank, this platform is a valuable resource for people who require visuals and structure in one ready-to-use format. 

3. Flaticon 

Flaticon is one of the largest online collections of free icons and vector graphics, where you can find several downloadable icons in formats like SVG, EPS, PNG, PSD, and many others. Widely used by designers, developers, and marketers for apps, websites, infographics, and presentations, it has a database that you can use to create all kinds of designs. 

Its free icons are available with attribution, while a premium subscription removes all attribution requirements and offers access to exclusive and unique content. The platform also features a built-in icon editor for easy customization. 

4. Pixabay 

Pixabay is a creative community that distributes copyright-free photos for various uses. The site contents are released under the Pixabay license, which allows you to use them even for commercial purposes, without attributing authorship. 

It offers over 4 million royalty-free assets, including photos, videos, illustrations, vectors, and even music. Great for bloggers, content creators, marketers, and small businesses in search of high-quality visuals without licensing worries. 

At Pixabay, users enjoy a clean interface, advanced search filters, and categories covering several categories. It is your go-to platform for diverse, safe-to-use media that supports various projects. 

5. Unsplash 

Unsplash is a website dedicated to sharing stock photos under the CC0 free license. With over 2 million photos, it’s widely used for various blogs, websites, social media, presentations, and creative projects.  

With its modern aesthetic, intuitive search, and curated collections, and thus only the best resources were included in the offer. No matter what you are looking for, it is ideal for anyone with a stylish, slightly more sophisticated taste. 

All images are free to use under the Unsplash license, allowing commercial and personal use with no attribution required, though credit is appreciated.  

6. Pexels 

Pexels offers several top-notch free stock photos and videos, suitable for your social media, websites, ads, and presentations. Known for its modern, diverse visuals and strong search features, Pexels is a reliable go-to for people who need photos and video content in one place. 

An additional advantage is the ability to search for photos based on the dominant colors. However, you can only choose one color. The platform also makes available resource filtering by size and orientation.  

All assets are free under the Pexels license, allowing personal and commercial use with no attribution required. 

7. Freeimages 

Freeimages is a long-standing stock photo platform that offers a wide range of free photos for personal and commercial use. It covers a wide range of categories, ranging from business to nature, education, food, style, and more. 

These resources are free to download, but many come with a custom license that may require attribution or usage restrictions, so it’s important that you check individual file terms and conditions. 

While the site includes ads linking to premium stock sites, Freeimages remains an important tool for creators looking for basic, royalty-free visuals without signing up for a subscription. 

8. VisualHunt 

VisualHunt aggregates high-quality free stock photos from across the web, including images under the Creative Commons and public domain licenses. It’s especially useful for bloggers, designers, and marketers seeking a wide variety of styles in one place. 

Many images are free for commercial and personal use, but licensing varies—some require attribution, while others are completely unrestricted. Always check the license shown next to each image. 

9. StockSnap.io 

This platform offers a large and growing collection of high-resolution, royalty-free photos, great for your blogs, websites, social media, and ads. On this site, new images are added weekly, keeping the library fresh and relevant. 

With its clean design, trending image categories, and strong search functionality, it is ideal for users seeking modern, professional-quality visuals, safe from legal hassle. 

10. Kaboompics 

Kaboompics is your best bet for stylish, high-quality lifestyle and interior photography. Popular among bloggers, designers, and social media marketers looking for modern, aesthetic visuals, it provides a custom color palette with each photo, helping creators maintain brand consistency. 

Images are free for personal and commercial use with no attribution required, though credit is appreciated. So, if you prefer fashion-forward, elegant, or flat-lay visuals, you should check out Kaboompics. 

11. Life of Pix 

Life of Pix offers a curated library of high-resolution, royalty-free photos contributed by several photographers and creatives. This website is especially strong in landscape, urban, and artistic photography, perfect for people seeking great resources in unique, natural-looking visuals. 

All images are free for personal and commercial use with no attribution required, and it partners with Life of Vids to offer free video content. 

12. Foodiesfeed  

Foodiesfeed is a niche free photo site that offers a rich collection of free, high-resolution food photography. Perfect and famous among food bloggers, restaurants, marketers, and designers who need unique, authentic, appetizing visuals. 

These pictures are free for personal and commercial use under the Creative Commons license, with no attribution required. 

Finding High-Quality Visuals – Summary 

Finding the perfect visuals for your work shouldn’t cost a lot of money. So, if you’re building a website, creating or designing a presentation, working on your blog, or launching a marketing campaign, there are a ton of photos you can use. You can benefit from the digital marketing course if you’re looking to dive into this niche. They can also serve as places to post your images after you learn photography. 

With this guide, you can find whatever you need, and at no cost at all! In addition, you will avoid unnecessary frustration and wading in a sea of ​​photos of questionable quality and aesthetics. Here is another guide on the best online graphic programs out there, if that’s what you’re interested in. 

Now that you know where to look, take your designs to the next level with mesmerizing graphics and stunning photos. Perhaps they’ll allow you to find a new job even without experience.