16 Sources for Free Public Domain and CC0-Licensed Images

We’ve all been there. You’ve just finished writing a great blog post, but now you need the perfect image to make it stand out. The trouble is, finding high-quality photos that you can use for free without worrying about copyright strikes can be a real headache.

Many bloggers and small business owners don’t have a large budget for premium stock photography. That’s why our team at WPBeginner put together this list of the best places to find beautiful, professional images that are completely free to use.

These resources offer photos that are free to use for any project, whether it’s personal or commercial. This guide will help you find eye-catching visuals for your website while staying on the right side of copyright law.

Understanding Free-to-Use Image Licenses

As a rule, you should assume that any image you find online is protected by copyright unless it is specifically stated otherwise. Using a copyrighted image without permission can lead to legal trouble.

While you can buy high-quality and royalty-free images from stock photo websites like Adobe Stock or Shutterstock, not everyone has the budget to purchase licensed photographs and images.

That’s where free-to-use image websites come in handy! It’s important to know that “free” images fall into a few different categories:

• Public Domain: These are works whose copyrights have expired or were never claimed. They have no restrictions on their use.
• Creative Commons Zero (CC0): This is when a creator voluntarily gives up their copyright, placing their work into the public domain for anyone to use freely.
• Custom Licenses: Many popular sites, like Pexels and Unsplash, have their own licenses. These let you use their images for free in commercial projects, but they may have minor restrictions (like not being able to resell the photo).

It’s always a smart idea to glance at the license terms on any site before you download an image.

For a website owner, this means you can use these free images in your blog posts, featured images, sliders, image galleries, backgrounds, and basically anywhere else you want.

How We Test And Review Sources for Free Public Domain Images

When trying to find reliable websites to download public domain images, we paid special attention to the following criteria.

Ease of use: We have only included websites that are trustworthy and easy to navigate for beginners.

Image collection: For this showcase, we have prioritized sources that offer a large collection of royalty-free images to be used on different websites.

Reliability: We have only recommended the sources that we have tested ourselves in real time.

Having said that, let’s look at some of the best-curated sources for free public domain or CC0-licensed images.

1. Pexels

Pexels is a popular site with a huge, well-organized collection of free stock photos and videos. All content is released under the permissive Pexels License, which means you can use it for free for commercial projects and do not need to provide attribution.

All photos on Pexels are free to use and have no requirements for attribution.

2. Unsplash

Unsplash is a very popular source for high-resolution, artistic photographs. All images are free to use for commercial purposes under the Unsplash License. It has an excellent search feature for finding images that match themes like nature, office, and technology.

3. Negative Space

Negative Space is a beautifully curated collection of CC0-licensed images for bloggers, artists, and small businesses. It has an easy-to-use search feature, and you can also browse images by tags and colors.

4. Public Domain Pictures

Public Domain Pictures offers free high-quality images, graphics, and vectors for downloads. Images are sorted into categories for easy browsing.

5. New Old Stock

As the name suggests, New Old Stock features a beautiful collection of vintage photographs that are now in the public domain.

6. Pixabay

Pixabay offers a massive collection of not just free photos, but also illustrations, vectors, and videos. Everything is released under the Pixabay License, which allows for commercial use without attribution. The site is updated regularly, so you can always find fresh content.

7. My Stock Photos

A project by the team at ThemeIsle, My Stock Photos offers hundreds of high-resolution images released under the CC0 license. The photos are neatly organized into popular categories, making it easy to find what you need for your blog.

8. Pickup Image

Pickup Image offers a huge collection of public domain images. The site can be easily browsed through tags, or you can try the search. It also offers free clipart and graphics.

9. Openverse

Openverse is a powerful search engine for openly licensed media, and it’s part of the official WordPress project! It searches across hundreds of sources to find over 600 million images and audio clips that are in the public domain or under Creative Commons licenses. The built-in filters make it easy to find exactly what you need for your website.

9. SplitShire

SplitShire is a beautiful collection of photographs released under the CC0 license. You can browse the site by using tags and filters or view images in the mosaic view.

10. The British Library

The Flickr account of The British Library showcases over a million illustrations, drawings, and works taken from 17th, 18th, and 19th-century books. All these works are released under the CC0 license and can be used anywhere without restriction.

11. LibreShot

LibreShot features thousands of beautiful photos by photographer Martin Vorel. All images are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, making them completely free for commercial use without attribution.

12. StockCake

StockCake has a large and growing collection of high-quality photos that are free to use. An interesting feature of this site is that all its images are AI-generated and then curated by a team. They are released into the public domain (CC0), so you can use them anywhere you like.

13. Reusable Art

Reusable Art is a collection of thousands of vintage drawings, illustrations, and artworks. All works displayed on the website are under the public domain.

14. Skitterphoto

Skitterphoto is a beautifully curated collection of CC0-licensed images. The site features works of their own photographers, so you will find less-used and unique photographs to use on your website.

15. StockSnap.io

StockSnap.io curates a large selection of beautiful free stock photos from a community of photographers. Hundreds of images are added weekly, and every single one is released under the Creative Commons CC0 license. This means you can download, edit, and use them for both personal and commercial projects without attribution.

16. Barn Images

Barn Images offers a collection of ‘non-stock’ high-resolution photos that are fresh and authentic. All images are free to use for commercial projects under their own Barn Images License. You can browse by categories and tags or search for specific keywords.

Which Is the Best Stock Images Website?

While the above websites offer a great selection of free images, readers often ask us where we get our great-looking illustrations for our thumbnails / featured images.

We use Adobe Stock because it gives us a large library of premium images, vectors, and illustrations.

Whichever stock photo site you use, it’s always important to save your images optimized for the web so that your website always loads fast.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are some of the most common questions we get asked about using free public domain and CC0-licensed images.

What’s the difference between all these “free” licenses?

It can seem confusing, but here’s a simple breakdown:

• Public Domain / CC0: These have virtually no copyright restrictions. You can copy, modify, and use the images for any purpose without asking for permission.
• Custom Free Licenses (like on Pexels or Unsplash): These also let you use images for free, even for commercial projects. However, they may have a few minor restrictions, like not being able to sell the original, unaltered photo.

The golden rule is to always spend a few seconds checking the license page on the website you’re downloading from. ✅

Can I use these images for my business website?

Yes, absolutely. Images under these licenses can be used for any commercial or personal project. You can copy, modify, and distribute them without asking for permission.

Do I need to give credit to the photographer?

For all the sites listed in this article, attribution (giving credit) is not required. However, many photographers appreciate it as a kind gesture. While it’s not required, giving a shout-out to the creator or the website is always a nice thing to do.

Additional Resources for Your Website

We hope this article helped you find the best sources for free public domain and CC0-licensed images for your website. You may also want to check out our other guides for your WordPress website:

• Best WordPress Caching Plugins to Speed Up Your Website
• Ultimate WordPress SEO Guide for Beginners (Step by Step)
• Best WordPress CDN Services (Compared)
• The Ultimate Guide to Boost WordPress Speed & Performance
• Best Email Marketing Services for Small Businesses
• WooCommerce Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Tutorial [+ Resources]

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