Pixabay has a vibrant circle of creativity, which makes it easy and safe for social media managers and bloggers to use without commending the artist even for a business cause. But there are many sites out there dedicated to providing you free high-resolution images too. In this article, I will talk about some of the best Pixabay alternatives that you can use.
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⓵ Unsplash
This is a good Pixabay alternative. Unsplash allows artists and photographers to upload their high-resolution photos to the site which are then organized and presented using professional knowledge by a team of photo editors, to make sure only the best are released each day.
Having its members’ photos frequently uploaded to the website makes Unsplash one of the largest photography suppliers on the internet with over 850,000 photos. Those who sign up on this website can also present their photo collections to showcase their favorite images. Think of it as a Google for pictures. Unsplash makes it easier to find images, even when using a general search term. It also shows related and similar images.
Unlike Pixabay, you can choose to commend the photographer which is a good thing to do, and it also offers information for the photography credit after they have downloaded the image. All the pictures on the site are free to the public by the community of artists and photographers. It is legal and free to use any of the images for creative and marketing purposes.
⓶ Pexels
This is a great site that provides free high-resolution images and videos, unlike Pixabay which focuses mainly on images. Pexels makes it easier to discover images directly by choosing from a browse section or by searching for them.
Pexels has an intuitive interface and is very similar to Google and some other search engines. It is also very easy to connect with the creators using the “follow” feature. This keeps your homepage updated on all the recently uploaded images from these creators.
When using images from Pexels, you are not required to publicly commend the artists or photographers, but it’s still a good thing to do. Pexels also allows you to edit and modify the pictures.
The images on Pexels use two types of licenses: The Pexels license and the Creative Commons license (CC0) which allows you to use and edit the photos for commercial purposes.
⓷ Flickr
Flickr is a photo hosting platform that supports a society of people that can share and explore each other’s photos. Flickr is also one of the best Pixabay alternatives to find images with Creative Commons License (CC0). It is built for experienced photographers and photography lovers to display their work while exploring the work of others.
Flickr is more focused on the art of photography than most of the other social photo-sharing platforms out there, having over 35 million downloadable images on the site. Think of it as Instagram for pro-photographers, where you get a profile, upload a user photo and can also showcase up to 25 of your best photos and get comments from users who are lovers of your work. Flickr makes it easy to keep track of your media and can also add other user’s media to the gallery. It is widely used by bloggers and photo researchers for commercial use.
⓸ StockSnap
Stocksnap contains thousands of free high-resolution stock images for all your personal or commercial needs. All arranged into fitting groups for easy access. In Stocksnap, only the highest quality photos are curated from a huge pool of submissions and then making them available for use.
The Stocksnap tag-based category system helps you browse and locate images that convey the right content for your needs. Stocksnap updates its database with new high-quality photos daily and has numerous categories of photos to search from, which makes it distinct from others.
Stocksnap offers their photos under a simple CC0 license that lets you use the photos for literally anything with no attribution. The website is free but may not have enough free options. Pricing plans for Stocksnap may differ over time.
⓹ FreeImages
This is also another good Pixabay alternative with high-quality images and a wide range of collections. Freeimages has multiple groups and collections that you can browse to find photos, and also has a simplified category of images, and cross-linking them with tags allow the users to find photos easily using these tags.
Freeimages has a lightbox feature that allows users to customize a public list of favorite images and also allows contributors to upload their original photos to the site, which will then be reviewed to ensure that they follow the contributor’s rules and meet the platform’s standard.
The site has an extensive database of images, clip arts, and illustrations, and a simplified way of browsing for photos by color, resolution, orientation, most downloaded, most recent, and most viewed. It also gives image details such as ISO, exposure levels, time-taken, ratings, reviews, and so on.
Contents posted on this website are under CC0 license, hence, you are not required to commend the artists if the photos are being used for editorial purposes.
My Best Pixabay Alternative
I have reviewed five different Pixabay alternatives where you can get free stock photos. However, my best Pixabay alternative is Unsplash. It has a growing community of artists and photographers with a database of over one million free high-resolution stock photos, carefully picked by the website.