Best and popular Pixabay alternatives will be described in this article. Hello and welcome to the fascinating and wacky world of stock photographs. Both the exact thing you’re looking for and “a young zombie surfing with a smartphone outside the office” can be found occasionally.
Because it provides over 2 million free-ninety-nine photos, vectors, movies, and music clips, Pixabay is one of the most popular stock photo websites. However, it’s not the only website offering stock photos. Depending on your preferred style of stock pictures, you could choose one of these Pixabay substitutes.
An overview of Pixbay
Pixabay provides 2.3 million+ premium stock images, drawings, vectors, movies, and musical compositions.
You can easily find the stock photo you need by typing a term into the search box and perusing the results to see what’s available for your blog, social media posts, or website.
With Pixabay’s stock content licence, you are free to use the images for both commercial and noncommercial purposes across print and digital media without giving credit.
To make the content your own, you can also edit or change it.
On other stock or wallpaper services, you cannot sell unedited copies of photographs or share content.
Pixabay has the cool feature of allowing donations to the stock contributors.
You can pay to a contributor whose work you like by simply connecting your PayPal account to your Pixabay account.
But not everyone may be a fanatic of Pixabay.
You may find the sheer volume of photographs daunting given the abundance of stock photos at your disposal.
It could take you a while to look through all the photographs to pick the one you like the most if you’re not lucky.
And you might not ultimately find what you’re looking for.
Because of this, having a few Pixabay alternatives at your disposal is useful while looking for the ideal stock image.
Top 10 Pixabay Alternatives In 2024
Top 10 Pixabay Alternatives are explained here.
1. Shutterstock
The goal of Shutterstock is to provide “creative professionals from all backgrounds and businesses of all sizes with fantastic material and cutting-edge tools, all on one platform” to help them generate their best work.
Throughout 1 billion photographs, video clips, and music tracks have been downloaded from the site over the course of its existence, so it appears to be progressing in that direction. Also check freshdesk alternatives
Shutterstock offers a wide selection of high-quality photographs, videos, audio, templates, and editorial images thanks to its more than 1 million contributors.
Through Turbosquid, the platform also provides 3D models.
The library contains more than 350 million photographs, and 102,000 new ones are added each day.
Contrary to Pixabay, not all of these pictures are available for free.
Without creating an account, you can download certain photos for free.
While other images are available for a one-time fee or through a Shutterstock subscription plan that entitles you to a set number of paid photos, videos, music tracks, and other items each month.
To locate what you’re searching for without having to sift through all that stuff yourself, use Shutterstock’s curated collections.
You can find what you’re searching for quickly and easily thanks to the carefully curated categories that include anything from “living at home” to “portraits of diversity.”
Why you want it: Shutterstock gives you access to editorials, celebrity photographs, and more. This is another pixabay alternative.
Plans begin at $29/month (paid annually), and on-demand packs are available for a fee per image.
2. Pexels
A Pixabay substitute called Pexels provides cost-free, premium stock photos and videos that you may use for both business and non-commercial projects.
Although the quality of the images on this website is comparable to that of Pixabay, you will undoubtedly find pictures here that you won’t find on any other stock photo website.
Pexels also offers curated collections around various topics, making it simpler for you to find what you’re searching for, albeit it isn’t quite as well-organized as Shutterstock.
You can browse through popular collections, suggested images, photography by topic, and even photographs by colour under the “Discover” page.
You do not need to provide credit to the photographer when using photographs from Pexels, but if you appreciate their work, you can donate.
Beyond the ability to receive donations, this platform also helps its producers in other ways.
It has pictures on its home page, a leaderboard of the artists who have received the most downloads, and a follow option that lets you know when a creator posts new work.
Compared to Pixabay, Pexels offers a more user-friendly layout, and the carefully selected collections make it simpler to browse without feeling overwhelmed.
3. Adobe Stock
This is another pixabay alternative. Another site like Pixabay that provides royalty-free images, drawings, videos, and audio files is Adobe Stock.
You can buy a subscription plan to receive a certain number of assets each month or use credits to acquire stock assets when you need them.
The fact that Adobe Stock connects with Creative Cloud is its main advantage.
This means that you can import a stock image from Adobe Stock without having to pay for it when working on any design in an Adobe software.
Once the design is complete, you just have to pay for the photos you actually used.
With this method, you may test out several assets to determine which performs best without having to pay for them all.
Adobe Stock also enables you to buy credits for specific photographs as you need them, unlike some paid stock photo platforms that only offer membership options.
For individuals who just occasionally need to buy assets rather than stock photographs on a monthly basis, the on-demand option is fantastic.
Finding what you’re looking for on Adobe Stock is simple because to the curated collections and categories of photos.
Additionally, this site offers journalistic photos that provide newsworthy stock images and videos from around the world, as well as an improved Premium stock photo library.
Why you want it: Because it connects with Creative Cloud, this stock photo site is the simplest to use if you already use Creative Cloud.
4. JumpStory
Jump Story, a competitor to Pixabay, seeks to revolutionise the stock photo market by providing unique, high-performing photographs that stand out from the more typical photos that can be found on other stock photo websites. This is another pixabay alternative.
The platform searches for pictures of “genuine persons with authentic emotions” using machine learning.
Finding stock photos that accurately depict the real world is their aim.
JumpStory’s more genuine approach to stock photography may appeal to you if you’re tired of using images of people that seem TOO HAPPY TO BE REAL.
You won’t have to look far to see photographs of people with various body shapes or racial origins because they strive to include greater variety in their images.
Additionally, JumpStory makes it simple to find the kinds of photographs you need.
Using filters, you may define your preferences for orientation, location, colour, and other factors as you browse through millions of images, movies, drawings, vectors, and icons.
The built-in photo editing tools in JumpStory are another intriguing feature.
With its straightforward but powerful photo editor, you may crop and resize pictures while adding text, altering the contrast, or adding your own logo.
In fact, the background can be removed!
Why you want it: JumpStory provides a wide range of genuine photographs that appear to have been taken by you (if you were a professional photographer).
5. Gratisography
Even though Gratisography is just another free stock photo website, it stands out because its images strive to be unusual, intriguing, lovely, and other qualities that commodity photos frequently lack.
The website bills itself as offering the “quirkiest collection of high-resolution free stock photos” in the world. Also check Google AdSense alternatives
Even if it is difficult to live up to that claim, it only takes a few minutes of site-surfing to see how unique Gratisography’s photos are from other free stock images.
This is another pixabay alternative. In contrast to other websites, Gratisography boasts a carefully curated selection of “just the most intriguing photographs, the ones with a personality, a perspective, or a narrative to tell,” rather than a big quantity.
This platform’s photos allow for both commercial and non-commercial usage.
The images can be altered or customised to become uniquely yours.
(You can even charge for the job that uses these altered photos.)
You cannot, however, sell them unchanged or distribute them on other websites.
Without creating an account, download free images and vectors.
However, unless you want to pay for them, take care not to click on the sponsored advertising from Shutterstock!
6. Storyblocks
The necessity for accessible, reasonably priced stock content for creatives led to the creation of Storyblocks.
Storyblocks offers high-quality stock video, music, and photo collections at a reasonable price via a subscription-based business model.
For a cheap monthly fee, Storyblocks offers limitless downloads.
The files you downloaded while your subscription was active are still available to you for unlimited use after it expires.
On Storyblocks, pictures can be used without paying any royalties.
Additionally, they are available for unlimited worldwide use on both private and public projects.
Any content that you use in projects under $20,000 is covered under the standard licence.
When compared to other platforms, Storyblocks stands out because of the wide selection of stock videos that are available to subscribers with unrestricted access.
Millions of HD and 4K films, motion backgrounds, and After Effects templates are all available in their library.
To make it additional comfortable for you to locate what you’re searching for, these are also organised into sections like “wanderlust inspired” and “lyric video templates.”
Why you want it: If you frequently download stock content, the affordable subscription with unlimited downloads is the best option for you.
Unlimited access is available for $30 per month.
7. Unsplash
A generous photography community powers Unsplash.
You may find photos of just about anything you need, from business and work photos to nature or architecture shots, on our database of over 2 million free high-resolution images.
You don’t have to sort through the very terrible (or really bizarre) stock photos to get to the excellent stuff because the Unsplash team handpicks the images.
Enter your search term in the search field or browse the featured image subjects at the top of the page.
There is always new stuff on the website because photographers are always submitting new content.
In reality, the site is updated every 10 days with 10 new royalty-free photographs.
Therefore, if you are having trouble finding something one week, you might succeed the following week.
The Creative Commons Zero licence applies to each and every image posted to Unsplash.
This indicates that both personal and commercial usage of the photographs is permitted without charge.
It is not necessary to give attribution to the photographer or Unsplash when using, copying, or editing the images for your own work or the work of a client.
In addition to organising images by topic (such as nature, health, fashion, animals, and travel), the site also organises photos inside collections according to textures, colours, moods, and themes.
This assists you in finding the image that truly conveys your message in the manner that you desire.
8. Startup Stock Photos
A specialised stock photo website called Startup Stock Photos makes up for the features it lacks with its ease of use and extensive selection of startup-related photography.
Since each image is licenced under Creative Commons Zero, you are free to use it without giving credit in any project.
This is another pixabay alternative. Startup Stock Photos provides precisely what it says on the tin.
Images showing individuals working, writing, designing, planning, making concept maps, and… well, whatever else a business might do, in startup environments and other pertinent images.
This platform lacks any fancy features.
There are no search or curated collections.
It’s merely a page with free images that you may download without creating an account or undergoing any elaborate procedures.
Despite the limited selection, everything is pertinent to a startup’s requirements.
9. ColorJoy Stock
A subscription-based stock photo platform, ColorJoy Stock offers three different levels of membership. Also check trello alternatives
When you become a member, you have access to more than 3,000 unique photos and Canva templates, which reduce some of the stress associated with content creation.
Traditional stock pictures frequently lack diverse depictions of women with a variety of skin tones and body types.
By providing stunning stock imagery that is both contemporary and inclusive, ColorJoy Stock is addressing the issue of underrepresentation.
These expert stock photographs give companies the opportunity to show up, establish trust, and expand their businesses in a way that is consistent with their ideals by presenting diverse women of various races and body shapes.
The photographs are exquisitely done and include strong, vivid images that honour all kinds of women.
Why you want it: This distinctive stock photo platform will enable you to showcase the diversity of women in your images if you’re looking for more inclusive imagery and/or your audience is made up of women.
10. Haute Stock
A premium visual content membership called Haute Stock provides expertly picked and styled stock pictures.
Additionally, the subscription provides videos, monthly marketing guidelines, designer branding elements, and configurable marketing templates.
In addition to providing you with stunning photographs to utilise in your content, Haute Stock also offers social media and blog post templates to help you with your entire visual marketing. This is another pixabay alternative.
In the Graphics Pack, you can also find collections of icons, backdrops, patterns, stickers, and other things.
This marketplace prioritises quality over quantity, and its stock photos are carefully chosen for contemporary firms looking for images that complement their branding and are clear, bright, and visually appealing.
Overall, the images included with this membership make firms appear as though they had a costly professional photoshoot.
Why you want it: If your company or one of your clients has a high-end or mostly female target market, you’ll adore Haute Stock’s gorgeous images and flatlays.
Choosing a  Pixabay alternative
But if you’re seeking for sites with readily accessible, high-quality stock photos, it’s a terrific place to start.
Shutterstock, Pexels, Adobe Stock, Storyblocks, and Unsplash are excellent places to start if you’re looking for a large selection of more generic stock photographs.
Jump Story, Gratisography, ColorJoy, and Haute Stock are all excellent options if you’re searching for something different from the conventional stock photo.
