By Gavin Klose
(Co-founder, Feedsy)
This time last year we reviewed 7 free stock images sites for those looking for Australia-friendly images to use in their Feedsy stories or social media posts.
But how good are these sites and is it a case of you don’t get what you don’t pay for?
Well, since our last review, we have successfully managed to use these free sites without the need to use our own favourite paid image site, Bigstock.
And since our last review, a new player has emerged called Pikwizard with over 20,000 exclusive images from their library of 100,000+. They also have a free image editing tool, DesignWizard to easily add titles and other graphics to their images.
So, we’ve added the new kid on the block to a new shortlist of just 5 of our favourite sites:
Pikwizard
PEXELS
unsplash
pixabay
stockvault
We’ve summarised our findings with recommendations of the best free sites for you to bookmark.
Staying legal
First, let’s take a step back…
You know that if you need an image for your blog post that you can’t just search Google and use the first image you find – right?
That’s because you’d most likely be infringing copyright as you’ve not got permission to use it. In fact, it probably belongs to the original photographer or is licensed through a stock image library.
And stock image libraries take this very seriously. For example, Getty Images have been known to send legal letters to people (sometimes unknowingly) using a Getty Images’ image without paying for it first.
Now, whilst paid stock images from the likes of BigStock, Getty Images, Shutterstock, iStock and Adobe Stock are not going to blow the bank, sometimes you just need that one image and, rather than do an adhoc sign-up or image purchase, you’d prefer a no-strings-attached and, well, FREE option.
The right fit
The kind of images you are likely to want to use are similar to the ones we look for, we thought we’d share with you some of our favourite free stock image sites.
In other words, finding images about business, finance, wealth, travel, retirement, lifestyle, etc.
Now people say, you get what you pay for. But with paying nothing for images online does not mean you get nothing (legally).
In fact, you’ll be surprised by how easy and good it can be (for free).
Our stock image tests
For this review we searched all sites for these terms:
- office people
- mortgage
- retired couple
- family travel
We report on each:
- Quality and quantity of found images (and, yes, this is a little subjective)
- User experience (from searching to downloading)
- Search engine relevance (ie how useful are search results in displaying relevant images)
- Permitted use of images and photographer attribution (ie giving them a credit)
Pro and Cons lists and an overall score is given for each site.
And we provide a summary at the end.
Pikwizard
Search for: office people
Quantity: About 10 of the 3500 images found were relevant
Quality: 7/10 (especially compared to the 9/10 Premium (paid) images that were mixed amongst them)
Search for: mortage
Quantity: Only 1 of the 11 images found were relevant
Quality: 6.5/10 (not bad but not very Australian)
Search for: retired couple
Quantity: 300+ images (but none were useful as the ‘retired’ couples were in their 20’s!)
Quality: 6.5/10 (images were a little dark)
Search for: family travel
Quantity: Only 1 of the 3000+ images found was relevant
Quality: 6.5/10 (images were a little dark)
Simple Download page
Free image editing is available with Design Wizard.
Search rating:
- For our test search terms: office people, mortgage, retired couple and family holiday
- 12 images of the 6800+ displayed were useful or relevant (~0.18%)
- Ranked: 5th (compared to others in this review)
What we like about Pikwizard:
- Free Image editing with DesignWizard
- Professional looking and easy to use website
- Downloading is easy
- Many images of younger adults
- You do not have to give them nor the photographer a mention in your story (but it is nice to do so)
- Images are free for commercial and editorial use (and this is really clear on the download page).
What we don’t like about Pikwizard:
- Paid images are mixed within the free images with subtle labelling
- Free images are a little dark (especially compared to the better quality paid images)
- The total number of images found in a search is not displayed (which is a common feature in other sites).
Overall score for Pikwizard: 6/10
PEXELS
Search for: office people
Quantity: 1000s of the 43600 images found were good to use
Quality: 8.5/10
Search for: mortage
Quantity: 2 of the 6 images found were relevant for Australian use
Quality: 8/10
Search for: retired couple
Quantity: 8 of the 1930 images found were useful (as most other ‘retired’ couples were in their 20’s!)
Quality: 8/10
Search for: family travel
Quantity: Over 50 of the 3040 images found were useful
Quality: 7.5/10
Simplest Download page (with smaller image size options)
Search rating:
- For our test search terms: office people, mortgage, retired couple and family holiday
- Over 1060 images of the 48576+ displayed were useful or relevant (2.18%+)
- Ranked: 2nd (compared to others in this review)
What we like about PEXELS:
- Simple name is easy to remember
- Professional looking and easy to use website
- Consistent good quality of images
- Most images are suitable for Australian audiences
- Downloading is the easiest in this group
- You can choose image size when downloading
- You do not have to give them nor the photographer a mention in your story (but it is nice to do so)
- Images are free for commercial and editorial use (and this is really clear on the download page)
- Advertising of other paid image sites is below the free ones.
What we don’t like about PEXELS:
- Some searches have limited results
Overall score for PEXELS: 8/10
unsplash
Search for: office people
Quantity: 1000s of the 117400 images found were great
Quality: 9/10
Search for: mortage
Quantity: 3 of the 24 images found were suitable for Australia
Quality: 9/10
Search for: retired couple
Quantity: Only 1 of the 3222 images found was suitable (mostly couples in their 20’s)
Quality: 8/10
Search for: family travel
Quantity: Over 50 of the 12748 images found were useful
Quality: 8/10
Simple Download page
Search rating:
- For our test search terms: office people, mortgage, retired couple and family holiday
- Over 1054 images of the 133394 displayed were useful or relevant (0.80%+)
- Ranked: 3rd (compared to others in this review)
What we like about unsplash:
- Professional looking and easy to use website
- Consistent good quality of images
- Tags under images make it easy to search for similar images
- Most images are suitable for Australian audiences (but many for Asian demographics also)
- You can narrow your search results by clicking on “tags” at the top of the search page
- Downloading is easy
- You do not have to give them nor the photographer a mention in your story (but it is nice to do so)
- Images are free for commercial and editorial use
- No advertising of paid image sites (resulting in no confusion).
What we don’t like about unsplash:
- Name is hard to remember (upsplash, upwork?)
- No small image size options when downloading
- License use is not clear on the download page (but is once Download is clicked).
Overall score for unsplash: 8.5/10
pixabay
Search for: office people
Quantity: Over 100 of the 934 images found were useful including icons and conceptual imagery
Quality: 9/10
Search for: mortage
Quantity: Over 50 of the 416 images found were useful including icons and conceptual imagery
Quality: 9/10
Search for: retired couple
Quantity: 30 of the 38 images found were suitable
Quality: 7/10
Search for: family travel
Quantity: Over 50 of the 836 images found were useful
Quality: 8/10
Reasonably simple Download page (with smaller image size options)
Search rating:
- For our test search terms: office people, mortgage, retired couple and family holiday
- 230 images of the 2224 displayed were useful or relevant (~10.34%)
- Ranked: 1st (best in this review for its ease to find good images fast)
What we like about pixabay:
- Simple name is sort of easy to remember (pixel + ebay?)
- Professional looking and easy to use website
- Consistent good quality of images
- Most images are suitable for Australian audiences
- It has “conceptual” photos (eg icons or symbolic imagery)
- Downloading is easy
- You can choose image size when downloading
- You do not have to give them nor the photographer a mention in your story (but it is nice to do so)
- Images are free for commercial and editorial use (and this is reasonably clear on the download page).
What we don’t like about pixabay:
- Advertising of paid stock images are above the free ones which can be confusing (and tempting)
- Download page is a bit cluttered.
Overall score for pixabay: 8/10
stockvault.net
Search for: office people
Quantity: Over 10 of the 5031 images found (including icons and conceptual imagery)
Quality: 9/10
Search for: mortage
Quantity: Over 40 of the 120 images found (including icons and conceptual imagery but excluding those featuring Euros $)
Quality: 9/10
Search for: retired couple
Quantity: 0 of the 957 images found were suitable
Quality: 8/10
Search for: family travel
Quantity: Over 20 of the 3221 images found were suitable (although you had to skip most of the first page to find good ones)
Quality: 8/10
Download page
Search rating:
- For our test search terms: office people, mortgage, retired couple and family holiday
- 70 images of the 9329 displayed were useful or relevant (~0.75%)
- Ranked: 4th (compared to others in this review)
What we like about stockvault:
- Site is neat and reasonably easy to use
- Name is reasonably easy to remember (stock images + vault)
- Many images are suitable for Australian audiences (but most for European or Asian markets)
- It has more “conceptual” photos (eg icons or symbolic imagery)
- Paid images are separate and easy to identify from the free ones
- You do not have to give them nor the photographer a mention in your story (but it is nice to do so)
- Images are free for commercial and editorial use.
What we don’t like about stockvault:
- Downloading has too many options which is a little confusing.
Overall score for stockvault: 7/10
In conclusion
You can find great free images that are legal to use from the internet.
But there is a cost for being free.
Compared to paid stock image sites, there is less choice and a higher chance of lower quality images on free image sites.
So the cost is your time as you’ll probably need to try a number of free sites until you find the perfect photo.
Depending on your needs you may wish to prioritise your site search in this order:
- unsplash – gets the number one spot for the largest range of consistently good images and is the easiest to use without any paid image options to confuse or tempt you and with the added bonus of the top “tags” for filtering.
- PEXELS – second only to unsplash in its volume of search results so finding images a little less time consuming and has handy image size options when downloading but has more advertising to get in the way.
- pixabay – has a smaller range of images than the top two but the success rate is higher, however, is a little let down by annoying advertising and user experience on the download page (although it allows selecting image size).
- Pikwizard – relevant images were hard to find (especially if you wanted brighter photos) as it may be early days for this newcomer, however, the free image editor placed this site into fourth place.
- stockvault – if all else fails, try this site for your perfect free stock image.
Was this useful?
Do you have any free image sites that you love and would like to share with us?
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