10 Top-notch Alternative & Competitors to Shutterstock
Many times, a fitting visual effect wonderfully explains things in a buttery manner when words won’t do much to express the same. Moreover, when these digital assets are coupled with words, it creates an impactful appeal. Indeed, that is the power of using the right medium of expression in the right place. With this in mind, we are going to enlist the best of the alternative & competitors of Shutterstock.
Markedly, Shutterstock is a wonderful source of premium-quality images, videos, music & graphics. Similarly, there are many other similar websites & sources of premium digital assets which are good alternatives to Shutterstock.
Firstly, let’s understand the key points of Shutterstock. Later, we shall move to list the best of the Shutterstock alternatives, be it premium, cheaper or free.
Shutterstock overview
Shutterstock is the world’s biggest marketplace for digital media assets. Irrespective of your profession or business, you will surely find the best of the collection here. Important to realize that Shutterstock consists of over a Billion digital assets.
Another key point is that Shutterstock has over a million contributors to sell their stuff here. Also, they have customers in more than 150 countries.
Pricing
They have two pricing models. On-demand and Subscription. The on-demand plan comes with an enhanced license.
- Images – Individual subscription plan – starts from $49/month, Team plan starts from $379/month.
- Music/Audio effects – Unlimited monthly subscription- $16.6, Individual download (Standard license) – $49. PremiumBeat- Standard license- $49 & Premium license- $199.
- Videos – The subscription plan starts from $159/month for 10 clips. Separate Premium categories are – Elements & Select. Elements video starts from $79/clip. On the other hand, Select video costs $399 per clip.
Shuterstock: Key Points
- Biggest collection of over a Billion digital Media Assets. To your surprise, its collection is bigger than the next 5 competitors put together.
- Shutterstock is the most popular paid site on the internet with the maximum number of visitors.
- Most rich content covers a much larger number of possible categories & keywords than the competition.
- Arguably it has the most versatile collection of images, audio/music, and videos. Moreover, Shutterstock also provides vector graphics & editorial content.
The best part is that Shutterstock will almost never disappoint you, irrespective of the keyword you search for. Credit goes to its massive high-quality collection. Moreover, by choosing Shutterstock, you are leveraging its great collection for your project.
Limitations of Shutterstock:
- The biggest limitation of Shutterstock is its expansive and complicated pricing. However, many find its high pricing due to its huge and meaningful collection.
- Another major complexity is in its licensing structure. Such as its various types of licensing really make it tough to use the assets and many times it’s confusing.
- Its editor is lacking some features, that you may require often.
Key Observations
Premium Alternatives & Competitors
1. Adobe Stock
2. Gettyimages
3. Alamy
4. Dreamstime
5. Deposit Photos
Alternatives for ‘Widest range of assets‘
1. Envato Elements
2. Adobe Stock
3. Pond5
Affordable Alternatives
1. Envato Elements
2. Canva Pro
3. YayImages
15 Best Alternative & Competitors of Shutterstock
#1. Adobe Stock
The first & most eligible Shutterstock alternative coming to my mind is Adobe Stock. There are many reasons for this obvious choice. In fact, most of the experts would agree with me to term it the best alternative and competitor to Shutterstock.
Features & Advantages:
Adobe Sock has a great Collection of Over 200 million top-class digital media assets. This is one of the most relevant collections. Additionally, there are new and enhanced 2.4 million+ premium digital assets.
Adobe itself is the most prestigious name in visual technology solutions. No other player on earth is close to Adobe Stock, in terms of technological advancement in this segment.
Adobe has kept it plain & simple with credit pack pricing. However, only for standard assets, you have the option to opt for a subscription model.
Areas of improvement:
- A bit of expansive Pricing.
- Nothing substantial improvement is needed.
Pricing
Adobe has adopted credit pack pricing for all digital assets. Additionally, there are three Subscription plans specifically for standard assets.
- The credit pack starts from $49.95 (for 5 credits) and goes up to $1200 for 150 credits. Where 1 credit can buy a standard image or template or 3D. Similarly, an HD and 4K video clip cost 8 & 20 credits respectively. Check the complete pricing details below.
- There are three standard subscription packs. 10/40/750 standard assets monthly subscription priced at $29.99/$79.99/$199.99 respectively. Important to realize, standard assets include high-resolution photos, vectors, and audio tracks.
Check Pricing details here.
Is Adobe Stock a good alternative & competitor to Shutterstock?
Since 2020, Adobe Stock has not only emerged as the leading competitor to Shutterstock, but its growth is way higher than Shutterstock.
Apart from Adobe’s own positives, what do you think, if you get additional access to Photolia, Pond5 & Stocksy?
Important to realize, that in 2014, Adobe acquired, Fotolia and later became Adobe Stock. To point out, when Fotolia was acquired, it was one of the best platforms for high-quality photos.
Similarly in the year 2017, Adobe Stock collaborated with Pond5, in order to access its rich video content. As a result, Adobe Stock became one of the best platforms for digital media assets.
Additionally, as per the June 2017 collaboration between Adobe Stock and Stocksy, Adobe Stock users can access the lifestyle photos of Stocksy in Creative Cloud (CC).
Important to realize that, it saves a lot of time in using images in Adobe CC platforms. Normally, you have to first download & then use digital assets. And, to further provide additional info on Adobe CC products.
Therefore, it is super-easy to directly import Adobe Stock assets, while working on Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator & Adobe XD.
Some other notable benefits of Adobe Stock:
- The subscription model is great value for money.
- It’s a great collaborative platform. When it comes to handling digital assets for teams, creatives, and small & medium companies, Adobe Stock is the best choice. Markedly, no other player can match Adobe’s expertise when it comes to managing unlimited users with a single console, single billing, seamless integration, team license history, and many more features. Get more details here for businesses, companies, teams & creatives.
- Similarly, for Enterprises, Adobe has added many more additional features. Admin can manage & track user profiles, licenses, and usage. Specifically designed AI-powered smart search makes it really easy and saves time.
- Great tool for UX & graphic designers.
- Rich content for almost every category or segment.
#2. Dreamstime
Though formed in the year 2004, Dreamstime has gained much popularity in the previous 5-6 years’ time. It is truly the worthy alternative & competitor to Shutterstock after Adobe Stock.
Features & Advantages:
- The whopping user base of around 30 million, access over 130 million photos here on Dreamstime.
- Great collection
Areas of improvement:
- Sometimes you may find an issue with the website.
- Ease of setup could be improved for a better experience.
Pricing
Two types of pricing:
- Credit Pack: The credit pack works for all types of digital assets. The credit pack starts from 11 credits pack at $14.99. Beyond 2000 credits, you may customize your own pack.
- Subscription plan: The subscription plan starts from $25/month for 5 images. Similarly, there are two other subscription packages for video footage and an extended license.
Is Dreamstime a good alternative & competitor to Shutterstock
- Top-class content with over 150 million collections.
- Great source of professional stock photos & illustrations.
- Excellent customer support.
- Reasonably priced digital resources.
- The World’s biggest community of users always keeps a check on the performance of the Dreamstime.
#3. Gettyimages
GettyImages is the synonym for most premium photos for over 25 years. I am sure, you would be in sync with me to consider GettyImages as the most premium alternative and competitor to Shutterstock. Its focused audience includes creative professionals, media, and corporates.
Important to realize that GettyImages, formed in the year 1995, is the oldest of the lot. Also, unlike most of the players, it’s not a microstock company, but a stock one.
Features & Advantages:
- Best source for old & historic content. For instance, here you can get premium photographs and clips of prestigious events, including eminent sports events- The Olympics, entertainment, and celebrities.
- Gettyimages make premium content available from the world’s leading media & entertainment houses.
- Images & videos come with two types of rights, standard editorial & custom.
- Therefore, such a premium content & licensing model is the reason for high-cost digital assets.
Areas of improvement/Cons:
- Not everyone can afford Gettyimages.
Pricing
- Images & video clips with standard licensing may cost you in the range of $125 to $500 per asset.
- You may save a good amount with Ultrapacks.
Is GettyImages a good alternative & competitor to Shutterstock?
- It provides the most premium collection of historic events, sports, media, entertainment, celebrities, etc.
- Gettyimages, provide the best editorial content.
- Most of the content is curated content.
- Ultrapacks make it easy to buy premium assets at a discounted price.
- There are many options to choose from for images/videos with a standard or custom license.
#4. DepositPhotos
The best thing about DepositPhotos is that it fills many gaps. It is among the top 5 providers of premium stock photos, illustrations, editorials, and videos. At the same time, it is very reasonably priced and affordable. Certainly, Depositphotos is a premium quality, yet a cheaper alternative to Shutterstock.
Features & Advantages:
- Massive collection of over 150 million photos, videos, vectors, and editorials.
- Great platform, not only for individuals & agencies but also for corporates, SMBs & Enterprises.
- Coverage of the widest range of categories.
Areas of improvement/Cons:
- There is a need to enrich a few categories including lifestyle & beauty.
Pricing
- Superbly simple pricing for photos and vectors with a Subscription & Flexible plan. The subscription plan starts with 75 images download pack for $69/month and goes up to 750 images for $199/month. On the other hand, the Flexible plan allows the download of 10 images for $9.99/month. All these plans come with the standard licensing model.
- Additionally, there is on-demand pricing. The Standard license plan starts from $49 with 10 downloads in a year. The extended license plan starts from $89 for a single image.
- There are no subscription plans for videos, but the download packs. 5 downloads for SD, HD & ultra HD come in at $69, $239, and $729 respectively.
Is Depositphotos a good alternative & competitor to Shutterstock?
- Great platform for both, premium image buyers, and sellers.
- A modern-looking website with great site experience.
- Its subscription plan is the most popular reason, individuals & corporates/companies join Depositphotos.
- Its newly launched flexible plan is quite aggressive & another big push by DepositPhotos to achieve further penetration.
- They have specifically created a separate dashboard for Enterprises, where Enterprises will get a curated collection, clever search tool, sub-account management dashboard for unlimited users, and high-resolution images with simple pricing & extended rights.
#5. Alamy
Alamy is another big name in premium images & footage providers. With over 200 million, quality authentic digital media assets, Alamy is among the top alternatives of Shutterstock.
Features & Advantages:
Just like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Dreamstime, and Gettyimages, Alamy is a platform, where probably you can always get, what you want. With innumerable relevant content, it covers almost every category.
- Over 200 million top-class collections.
- All of the content is authentic and real life, which makes it a lively platform.
- Image licensing is either Royalty-free (RF)or Rights-managed (RM).
Areas of improvement/Cons:
- It would have been better if Alamy comes up with a package or subscription model of pricing.
- Affordability is an issue.
Pricing
- Pricing is divided into two categories, Royalty-free & Rights-managed. Further, there are many options to choose from RF & RM, which suits your business.
- Royalty-free assets range from $49 to $365. And Rights-managed assets can go up to $19,999.
Why is Alamy a good alternative & competitor to Shutterstock?
- Just like Shutterstock, Alamy searches result in massive relevant content. Almost every time you search, you will have enough premium assets to choose from.
- Great platform for contributors or photographers who sell their collection here. Alamy not only buys top-class content but also guides photographers or contributors about the ideal way of doing that.
- Though Alamy is known as the platform with high pricing. Still, it has kept the pricing in a way that will always be within the reach of everyone. Pricing starts from $49.
- Among the best for traditional photos. Moreover, this is equally great for the latest trending and professional images.
- Alamy provides the maximum possible options to choose from different types of RF & RM licensing. It may save a big chunk of the amount for your business.
- Great quality of support.
- Over 150K quality photographers contribute to Alamy.
#6. iStock
Founded as a startup in the year 2000, iStockphoto, soon gained momentum and was later acquired by Gettyimages in the year 2006. Markedly, iStockphoto has already crossed Gettyimages, its parent company in terms of the number of visitors.
Features & Advantages:
- Simple Royalty-free licensing, which allows you to use the assets multiple times.
- Access the free editor tool by iStock.
Areas of improvement:
- A subscription plan for videos is much needed, just like its plan for images.
- Extended licensing is much more costly.
Pricing
Shutterstock has adopted two pricing models, the credit pack & subscription model.
- The credit plan starts from $20, which can buy single credit. Similarly, you can buy 300 credits for $2400. As can be seen, gradually with increasing value pack, per credit pricing decreases.
- Its subscription is of great value if you need images at regular intervals. However, available only for images. There are two subscription offers, Signature & Essential subscription. The Signature subscription provides access to all of the images. On the other hand, with an Essential subscription, one can access only essential images. Subscription plan for 10 images starts from $100 & $40 for Signature & Essential respectively.
Why iStock a good alternative & competitor to Shutterstock?
- Among the leading players for high-quality digital assets with all varieties & themes covered.
- User-friendly platform.
- No need to pay extra charges for 4K videos, as these are available at the same pricing as HD videos.
- All digital assets at iStock are comparatively cheaper than Shutterstock.
#7. Envato Elements
It is a must-have for bloggers, web designers, graphic design businesses, web-entrepreneur, or businesses/enterprises. It provides top-class & almost all types of digital assets at very affordable pricing.
Envato Elements is surely made to cater to your business needs. Be it images, videos, audio, templates, cards, logos, marketing stuff, fonts, themes, plugins, Elementor templates, motion graphics & more. You will find everything here, that too with the Unlimited Download Subscription plan.
Important to realize that no other content provider on earth can match what is offered by Envato Elements. Envato Elements is surely among the top-worthy alternatives of Shutterstock.
Features & Advantages:
- Over 2.3 million digital assets with additional access to 50 million+ images.
- It covers the widest range of digital assets, which are not covered by any other site or business until now.
- Suitable for digital marketers, agencies, and businesses of all sizes.
- WordPress themes, plugins, CMS templates, and codes have made it useful for web designers & developers.
Areas of improvement:
- Nothing much except the addition of content for some categories.
- There are some keywords that don’t result in rich content.
Pricing
- Simple subscription-based pricing.
- The individual plan is for $16.5/month with annual billing. Students can get a 30% discount. There are separate plans for teams.
- A specially tailored Enterprise plan for customized needs.
Why is Envato Elements a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- Superb all-around content and digital assets from the reputed house of Envato.
- Apart from its own stuff, additionally, you will also get access to over 50 million images from Twenty20. It is so because recently, the stock images portal Twenty20 was acquired by Envato.
- A single subscription is just $16.5/month for unlimited downloads.
- It can be used not only for images/audio/video, but you may create all marketing content with it.
- Addition of thousands of new content every week.
- Access to Premium Tuts+ for courses & tutorials.
- A single commercial license for all digital assets with broad commercial rights.
- Great use for graphic designers, as it also provides fonts, brushes, layer styles, actions & presets, and more.
- Saves cost for businesses with business email templates, presentation templates, logos, and infographics.
- Discounted pricing for students, businesses, and enterprises.
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#8. StoryBlocks
Storyblocks was spot-on when it tried to resolve a BIG problem with its inception. When its founder came across the so heavily charged video footage, he was shaken & then he decided to make it by himself and started selling it on eBay. Surely, he understood, what creatives want!
With this in mind, Storyblocks came into existence by offering affordable digital media assets. Further, it became the first player to launch a subscription model for video, music & images. Therefore, it can be considered a cheaper alternative to Shutterstock.
Features & Advantages:
- Subscription-based service with over 1.5 million digital assets, including images, music, videos & graphics.
- All digital assets come with a Standard license.
- It also offers the solution to companies and there is a provision for API. To clarify, an API can make it easy and smoothen the process of accessing the entire content.
Areas of improvement/Cons:
- In order to compete with Shutterstock, Storyblocks need to add a significant collection of images & videos.
- Important to realize, there are many categories & keywords, which are not properly or entirely covered.
Pricing
- Simple price format with Basic & Unlimited plan option for audio and video.
- Only video, content is available with two plans. The Basic plan with 5HD video downloads is $8.25/month & Unlimited plan with $16.58/month with yearly billing. However, the monthly billing option is also available.
- Similarly, for audio-only, the Basic & Unlimited plan with the yearly billing option comes in at $8.25/month & $12.41 respectively.
- Unlike audio & video, images are available only with an All Unlimited plan (for images, audio & video). That comes into $29.08/month with yearly billing & $65/month with monthly billing options.
Why is Storyblocks a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- Reasonably priced subscription plan with both, limited and unlimited downloads. Plans are available for both individuals and businesses.
- Hassle-free & easy-to-use platform.
- No need to stall your project, just because of budget issues. Just get the content of your choice at a cheaper price, than most of the sites. Also, no need to doubt, as it is legit, not a scam.
- All of the content comes with a standard license. To point out, its standard license allows the use of the content without any restriction on production budget & distribution. Moreover, once you download the content, you can keep and use it, forever.
#9. Pond5
Have you forgotten Pond5? It is popular for its top-class premium video content! Additionally, it is among the players, that keeps the widest range of digital assets. Surely, Pond5 is not to be missed as a Shutterstock alternative for premium video content.
Features & Advantages:
- Great collection of video footage, images, music, audio effect, 3D objects, after-effect templates, vectors & illustrations, photoshop PSD, editorial, and more.
- Its ‘Media of the Moment’ category shows the trending video content. Easy for you to identify such content.
Areas of improvement/Cons:
- Pricing could have been a bit better or more affordable.
Pricing
- There are two pricing models, membership & individual product-wise.
- The membership plan comes with 10 downloads/month for a membership fee of either $199/month or $999/year.
- In addition to membership, users can also pay by buying credit packs.
Why is Pond5 a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- Pond5 is a very focused and specialized player, that keeps the widest range of assets for motion graphics.
- Important to realize, that with over 17 million videos, Pond5 is the largest marketplace of Royalty-free video content.
- It has such great video content that Adobe Stock has collaborated for providing access to Pond5 content from Adobe Stock Creative Cloud (CC).
- Pond5 also provides the adobe plugin, which helps the creatives to do their work at a faster pace.
- Important to realize that Pond5 acquired stock images company PIXMAC & strengthen its photo collection.
- Pond5 provides a price guarantee for products, which means Pond5 will match the price if the same product is available anywhere at a lower price.
- Highest quality video assets in HD, 4K & 360-degree format.
#10. 123RF
Starting in the year 2005, with its growing massive collection, 123RF has become one of the leading digital asset providers. In fact, with its massive collection and great customer support, 123RF has the potential to be considered as a Shutterstock alternative.
Features & Advantages:
- Massive collection of over 110 million digital media assets, with the addition of over 90,000 content from its community of 300K contributors.
- It primarily targets the affordable pricing segment audience.
- Great corporate admin dashboard to control, manage and collaborate.
- All of the digital content is available with simple royalty-free licensing. Moreover, editorial and extended licensing are also available at a higher price.
Areas of improvement/Cons:
- Frankly, some of the 123RF reviews on the internet & Quora seem to be unrealistic ones, as some of them didn’t come as obvious reviews. Also, they already started comparing 123RF with Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Gettyimages, Alamy, and Dreamstime and already placed it among the top 5 players, that too 3 years back. Such writing may confuse the audience.
- There are many categories & keywords, where 123RF needs to put in more effort and enrich the content.
- Ease of use could have been better.
Pricing
- There are two types of pricing offered by 123RF, on-demand (credit packs) & subscription-based.
- Credit packs start from $39 and in return, you will get 40 credits.
- The subscription plan starts with 10 downloads/month for $29/month or $290/year. Similarly, the best value plan with 750 downloads/month comes in at $199/month or $1990/year. Important to realize that a subscription is available only for images.
Why is 123RF a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- 123RF is an amazingly cool & impactful website.
- Over 100 million quality content is a big pool of quality content, moreover, they are adding huge content on a daily basis.
- Its customer support is good and makes it convenient for users.
- Adobe Photoshop add-on & GoogleAdd-on are quite handy & made it easy for creators.
- 123RF is ready to take a big leap with its plans for corporates. Its superbly designed dashboard is quite helpful to manage the users and workflow.
#11. Freepik
You know, what is the most amazing thing about Freepik! Freepik is the world’s most popular website for images & graphics, period… It is much more popular than even Shutterstock & Adobe Stock.
For images & graphics, surely Freepik is a worthy alternative to Shutterstock.
Features & Advantages:
- Best free website for images, vectors, illustrations, icons, and PSD.
- Freepik online editor to edit templates.
Areas of improvement/Cons:
- There is a daily download limit of a maximum of 10 downloads/day in a free account.
- In the Premium account, there is a cap of 100 downloads/day.
Pricing
- Free access & downloads of assets are allowed.
- In order to access exclusive content and to increase your daily download limit from 10 to 100, there is a Premium Account fee of €2.5/month, with yearly billing.
Why is Freepik a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- Unbelievable free & ultra-low-cost collection of over 7.3 million graphics and images.
- Premium access account in just €2.5/month with yearly billing of €29.99.
- Priority customer support with a premium account.
- Unlimited downloads with premium subscriptions.
- Great collection of icons, vectors, and illustrations.
- Rich content on contemporary or trending keywords or topics.
#12. JumpStory
Jumpstory is another great alternative to Shutterstock, due to its high-performing collection. To point out that its most appealing feature is its better & meaningful search results.
Features & Advantages:
- Over 25 million high-quality collections of images, video, and graphic content.
- Effective search tool to deliver the most relevant content.
- There can be unlimited users per account.
Areas of improvement:
- Sometimes you may feel that the quality of resources could have been better. However, considering that Jumpstory is a relatively new player, they might add the required content for a few categories soon.
- Unlike other sites, you can’t see its stock, without opting for a plan or trial. So, you can’t make a comparison with other sites without subscribing. That’s a bit unfair.
- On some photographer forums, it is said that some images are the same as other sites like Pexels.
Pricing
- Plane & simple pricing of $25/month with unlimited downloads.
Why is Jumpstory a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- Along with high-quality content, you will also get a photo editor & a smart tool to remove image backgrounds with ease.
- Unlimited use of assets with one license.
- One of the most economical packages.
- AI-powered search for appropriate search results.
- In case you are busy and could not find out the best of images, videos
- If you are a blogger or a small business, then Jumpstory is a great solution for you.
#13. PicJumbo
I was really in awe, why am I considering the PicJumbo here in this list. How can a player enter this club with less than even a million pieces of content?
Picjumbo is a comparatively new player, but the most exciting one. To point out, only stock photos are available here. But, the way it has presented itself as a solution, with Free & paid top-quality images, is quite impressive. This is the most affordable Shutterstock alternative, specifically for images. Its amazing collection is just like the feeling of fresh air.
There is an interesting story about – how it came into existence, that surely you’ll like. This is about one photography & coding enthusiast, whose photographs were rejected by many websites. He was trying the things, when he was just 14 years old, and ended up opening his own website, just to sell his own photo stuff.
That’s how PicJumbo came into existence. As can be seen now, today it is loved by thousands of bloggers and websites.
Features & Advantages:
- Free access to all quality, high-resolution images.
- Exclusive access to premium content & 140+ curated collections for members.
- Largely covered categories are – business, people, technology, food, and more.
Areas of improvement:
- The addition of graphics could really make it a much better player.
- Lack of content in many categories.
Pricing
- Firstly, you need not pay a single penny, in order to use the images.
- Secondly, if you want to go further with more top-class & premium stock, then you may opt for the Most Affordable Subscription plan by any competitor, that too with amazing images.
- There could be two probable reasons to pay for Premium Membership. First,
Why PicJumbo a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- It is a superb collection with free access and affordable paid options.
- No scrap quality content, but the entire collection is of top quality & handpicked.
- Its Premium Membership is also a kind of support to great work by this guy & his noble initiative ‘PicJumbo Project’.
- 50+ Latest premium stuff in your mailbox every month.
- Very soon, it may really become BIG, the way people support it & also use its stuff.
- To point out, the biggest utility of PicJumbo is its hundreds of collections, which are of great use to professionals.
#14. Pixabay
Firstly, when you visit Pixabay, you won’t believe that such a quality resource is just free of charge. Pixabay will make you amazed with its rich content, that’s why we’ve considered Pixabay as one of the great alternatives to Shutterstock.
Features & Advantages:
- Major covered categories are business, technology, nature, wallpaper, flowers, food, business, office, love, computer, money, and many more.
- Over 1.7 million digital assets.
Areas of improvement:
- More content is needed to cover many categories & keywords.
Pricing
- It is completely free.
Why is Pixabay a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- It has covered all major types of digital media assets, including images, graphics, videos, and music.
- You may search the images with an advanced image search.
#15. Pexels
Though Pexels is a free resource, still it keeps a high-quality collection, created by quality photographers. It is a good free alternative to Shutterstock for images and videos.
With over 18 million visits per month, Pexels is one of the most visited websites for images & videos.
Features & Advantages:
- You can create your own collection on Pexels.
- Search images by colour.
- Great contributors-driven platform.
Areas of improvement:
- More video content is required.
Pricing
- Free access.
Why is Pexels a good alternative to Shutterstock?
- Pexels is a good source of free images, which is supported by quality contributors.
- Quality photographers upload their content here to gain easy popularity and donations. A good photograph may easily get even a million views, thousands of downloads, and also donations. That is the reason for many superb quality photographs here.
Summary & verdict
Consider this list just for your knowledge and reference, as this is not an everlasting list. All of the players tend to change their strategy, product line, and performance over a period of time. Accordingly, their competitiveness will have to change. But, there are some consistent players in this segment, whom we can rely upon. For example, Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Gettyimages, Dreamstime, iStockphoto, Storyblocks, and Envato Elements are the all-weather favorite performers here.
To sum up…
To point out, you may consider these recommendations, while searching for ideal Shutterstock alternatives with different requirements:
Key points:
- 150 million+ mega collection is available with Adobe Stock, Dreamstime, Gettyimages, Alamy, and Depositphotos.
- There are four free resources from this list – Pixabay, Pexels, PicJumbo, and Freepik.
Key Recommendations:
- If you are looking for a better Shutterstock alternative, in terms of premium quality, variety & manageability, go for Adobe Stock. For Web & Graphic Designers, SMBs, corporates & enterprises, this is an ideal solution.
- If you want better customer treatment along with a parallel collection of images & illustrations, my choice would be, Dreamstime, iStockphoto, and Jumpstory.
- Two great Shutterstock competitors for better or equivalent real-life, historical & entertainment collections are Alamy & GettyImages.
- For quality digital assets in mid-range affordable pricing, go for Storyblocks, 123RF, and Jumpstory.
- Quality images collection in the lowest possible budget, available on Canva Pro, Yayimages, Freepik & PicJumbo.
- If you need the most possible resources within an affordable range, surely you should go for Envato Elements. Additionally, you will also get access to over 50 million collections of images at Twenty20.
Thanks for reading.
Your feedback would be highly appreciated!