Unsplash

Beautiful, free high-resolution photos for everyone

From $0/mo

About Unsplash

Unsplash has become the default source for free stock photography, powering images across millions of websites, apps, and presentations worldwide. The platform's curation standards result in consistently higher quality compared to older free stock sites, with a focus on authentic, editorial-style photography over generic stock aesthetics. The Unsplash API allows developers to integrate on-demand photo access into applications with up to 50 requests per hour on the free tier. Unsplash for Teams (now part of Getty Images' ecosystem following acquisition) provides advanced features for commercial use cases. Native integrations with Figma, Sketch, Adobe products, Notion, and dozens of other tools make sourcing images frictionless during design work. However, the platform's popularity means many images are overused across the web, making truly unique visuals harder to find.

Key Features

3M+ free high-resolution photos

Commercial use with no attribution required

Curated editorial and themed collections

Unsplash API for programmatic access

Advanced search with filters

Figma, Sketch, and Adobe plugins

Photographer profile pages and stats

Topic and collection browsing

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Consistently higher visual quality than most free stock alternatives
• Truly free commercial use without attribution hoops
• Excellent integrations — Figma plugin alone saves hours per week
• API is well-documented and generous on the free tier

Cons

• Most popular images are vastly overused — seen on thousands of sites
• Niche or specific subject searches often return poor results
• No video content — need Pexels or Mixkit for motion assets
• Getty acquisition raised concerns about long-term licensing terms

Best For

Designers needing quick placeholder and final imagery Developers building apps with photo content Marketers creating content without photography budgets Bloggers and content creators