Are you looking for royalty-free public domain and CC0-Licensed images?
Adding high-quality images to your website or blog can boost user engagement. And if you use free public domain and CC0-licensed images, then there will be no copyright issue.
In this article, we will share some of the best websites where you can find free public domain and CC0-Licensed images that you can use anywhere.
Why Use Free Public Domain or CC0-Licensed Images?
All images on the web are protected by copyright. Even if the copyright is not mentioned, you should assume they are. And using these images without permission is illegal.
While you can buy high quality, royalty-free images from stock photo websites like Shutterstock, not everyone has the budget to purchase licensed photographs and images.
That’s when images with public domain and the CC0 license come in handy.
Public domain is the term used to describe works whose licenses have expired or are explicitly released with no restriction on their usage.
CC0 is a license that allows copyright owners to release their works with no restrictions at all.
Anyone can use images under the public domain or CC0-License for any purpose. As a website owner, you can use these images in your blog posts, featured images, slider, image galleries, backgrounds, and basically, anywhere else you want.
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 very well organized and large collection of public domain photographs. You can easily browse images filed under categories or use their search feature.
All photos on Pexels are free to use with no requirements for attribution.
2. Unsplash
Unsplash is a popular source for high-quality CC0-Licensed photographs. It has an excellent search feature that you can use to find images matching specific themes like nature, office, work, and more.
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 large collection of free images. The site is updated regularly, so you will find new and less-used images there.
7. My Stock Photos
My Stock Photos has a decent collection of hundreds of free stock images for blogs. Images are neatly organized in categories and can be downloaded in high resolution.
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. SplitShire
SplitShire is a beautiful collection of photographs released under the CC0-License. You can browse the site by using tags, 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 the works of photographer Martin Vorel released under the public domain.
12. PDPics
PDPics is a collection of free public domain stock photos. And it has a large collection of thousands of public domain images you can download and use in your blog posts.
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.
15. StockSnap.io
StockSnap is a curation of beautiful free stock photos where hundreds of images are added weekly.
16. Barn Images
Barn Images is a collection of CC0-Licensed images. You can browse images in categories or tags, or you can search for keywords. All images are available in high resolution for free downloads.
Final Thoughts: 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 Shutterstock 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 your website always loads fast.
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 see our guide on the best WordPress caching plugins and best WordPress CDN services to speed up your site.
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John says
Thank you. Image usage is a concern of mine and you provided many quality sources.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our guide was helpful
Admin
Ali Demirci says
unsplash and pixabay is not CC0.
WPBeginner Support says
Thank you for letting us know about these updates to their licenses
Admin
Ihsan says
Thumbs up on your brilliant writeup. There’s also pixelparis that’s an amazing site if you’re looking for CC0 oil painting images. No photographs, just paintings.
WPBeginner Support says
Thank you for sharing that resource
Admin
Ewa Pinkonhead says
Thanks, great list. Also check out http://altphotos.com
Katie says
thank you for this list! I’m brand new to the blogging world & I’m definitely not a photographer. While I’m working on that skill to be able to have some unique photos & high quality pictures of events & projects, its nice to know I don’t have to have it all figured out just yet. I’ve used Unsplash but never heard of several of these.
Dawn says
Thanks for this, I only ever really used Pixabay which I find good but your list will be very useful for me and my website
Adrienne says
Great stuff. Wow, Who knew.
Bob Elliott says
Always great info on your site
Lori Cunningham says
Great list! I’ve used Pixabay on numerous occasions, it’s a great site. Another good site to add to the list is Photopin: http://photopin.com/
Alan Perkins says
Thank you. Great selection and very handy.
Cathy Goodwin says
Thank you! This is the best collection I’ve seen to date.
Panagiotis Tabakis says
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
John Mauldin says
I have found your site to provide exceptional information. I refer people daily to your site and will continue to be one of your staunchest supporters. Keep up the good work. Great, informative article. JM