The demand for high-quality images and visual content is greater than ever. Stock photo sites are an essential resource for designers, marketers, and content creators looking for images to use in their projects. In this article, we've put together a list of the best stock photo sites in 2024.
Best stock photo sites
These are the best stock photo sites in 2024, offering a range of high-quality images, videos, and illustrations. Whether you're a blogger, marketer, or designer, these sites offer a wide range of options to fit your budget and project needs.
1. Shutterstock
Shutterstock is one of the largest and most popular stock photo sites, offering over 350 million images, videos, and music tracks. Their collection is diverse, including everything from abstract backgrounds to lifestyle photos, making it a go-to for designers and marketers. Shutterstock has also recently incorporated an AI image generator on its website to provide users with a new way to create unique and custom images.
2. Unsplash
Unsplash is a newer stock photo site that has quickly become popular for its unique and high-quality images. They offer a vast collection of free images, and the site is easy to navigate, making it a favorite among bloggers and social media managers. Unsplash also offers a paid subscription service called Unsplash for Business, which provides exclusive access to high-quality images and tools to help businesses create visual content.
3. Adobe Stock
Adobe Stock is an excellent option for designers and creative professionals as it is integrated with Adobe Creative Cloud apps. Their collection includes millions of high-quality images, videos, and illustrations, and users can license content directly within Creative Cloud apps. Adobe Stock also offers a wide range of pricing plans, making it accessible to businesses of all sizes.
4. Getty Images
Getty Images is another popular stock photo site, offering a vast collection of high-quality images, illustrations, and videos. They have a broad range of subjects, including sports, travel, and business, and offer exclusive content from professional photographers. Getty Images also provides an easy-to-use search engine and offers various pricing plans to fit different budgets.
5. Pexels
Pexels is another free stock photo site that has quickly become popular among content creators. They offer high-quality images, videos, and illustrations, and their collection is continually expanding. Pexels also has a user-friendly search engine and offers a range of categories, making it easy to find the right image for your project.
Generated images have become a pivotal trend in artificial intelligence. Midjourney and DALL-E showcase how algorithms can create compelling visual content based on abstract inputs. This development opens up new possibilities for artificial content creation, inspiring artists and developers to explore novel forms of creativity.
Notable mentions
If you're looking for art photos, photos showcasing cultural diversity, or searching for videos shots, you may want to explore alternative stock photo websites that could be beneficial for your needs. Some sites have a particular focus on these themes, while others offer free downloads that sometimes don't even require attribution.
Explore the different options available to find the site that's right for you.
Premium stock photo sites
- Deposit Photos: Well-known stock photo site with a wide theme.
- Death to Stock: Unique offer of art photos and videos.
- Envato Elements: well-known portal with a wide range of formats.
- Photocase: Original lifestyle and art photos.
- Storyblocks: Focusing mainly on video and audio, it also includes the possibility of editing directly on the website.
- TONL: Culturally diverse stock photos.
Free stock photo sites
- BURST/Shopify: Focusing mainly on lifestyle photography.
- Foodies feed: Focusing on food.
- Free Images: Wide range of photos.
- Free Nature Stock: Focusing on nature.
- Freepik: One of the best free stock photo sites, a wide offer, including templates and vector graphics.
- Gratisography: Little eccentric lifestyle photos.
- Kaboom pics: Focusing mainly on lifestyle photography.
- Life of pix: Focusing mainly on lifestyle photography and videos-
- Picjumbo: Wide range of photos.
- Pixabay: Well-known stock photo site with a wide theme offer.
- Realistic Shots: Photos suitable for social networks.
- Reshot: Interesting source of lifestyle photos and vector graphics.
- StockSnap: Various lifestyle photos.
- Stockvault: Focusing mainly on lifestyle photography.
Conclusion
Finding the right stock photo site can play a crucial role in building a company's visual identity while avoiding the costs of hiring a professional photographer. It's important to take the time to select high-quality, relevant images that align with the company's image and values.
While free stock photo sites can be a valuable resource for startups or social networking, it's important to be mindful of copyrights and any restrictions that may apply to the images. Ultimately, investing in quality stock photos can help businesses create a strong visual presence and maintain a professional image.