Pixabay, Unsplash, and Pexels Review
A little over a month ago I provided a list of websites where you can find free (or very low priced) images that are allowed to be used for personal or commercial purposes, and why it’s important to use these websites instead of just searching on Google.
Since then I decided to also provide in-depth reviews of the websites on my list, covering about 1-3 websites per post (depending on the amount of information I gather).
Pixabay, Unsplash, and Pexels
Are These Websites Easy To Use?
Pixabay, Unsplash, and Pexels are, in my experience, the easiest sites to use when looking for images to include in your blog posts. On each website, the main page offers some of the most downloaded images, while viewers can also browse the different categories or collections. If you’re looking for something specific, just type the words into the search bar--which is prominent on the main page of all three sites--and you can browse the results you are given.
One slight difference is that on Pixabay, if you are not logged into an account, each time you want to download an image you are asked to submit a Captcha proving you’re not a robot. It’s not a huge deal, but just a minor inconvenience that can be easily remedied by creating a free account.
Will I Be Able To Find What I Need?
I love the variety of media available within the pages of Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash, as well as the quality of photos and videos available. Categories, depending on the site, include animals, religion, music, industry/craft, women, nature, and many more. Pexels and Unsplash also offer what they call collections: Abandoned, Clean, Street Life Photowalk (Unsplash); Collect Memories, Breakfast Time, Botany (Pexels). Those are just a few of the collections or categories that are available for browsing.
You can also find free videos to use on Pixabay and Pexels. Just hover over Explore on Pixabay, and the three dots on Pexels, then select Videos from the dropdown menus.
So, I’m Allowed To Use What I Find, Right?
Yes! The websites offer their images or videos under the Creative Commons CC0 License. The license allows for both personal and commercial use of the content found on these pages.
From Pixabay’s Terms Of Use:
Images and Videos on Pixabay are released under Creative Commons CC0. To the extent possible under law, uploaders of Pixabay have waived their copyright and related or neighboring rights to these Images and Videos. You are free to adapt and use them for commercial purposes without attributing the original author or source. Although not required, a link back to Pixabay is appreciated.
From Unsplash’s License Info:
All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible.
From Pexel’s License Info:
It's hard to understand complex licenses that is why all photos on Pexels are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This means the pictures are completely free to be used for any legal purpose.
- The pictures are free for personal and even for commercial use.
- You can modify, copy and distribute the photos.
- All without asking for permission or setting a link to the source. So, attribution is not required.
Important Note
While Pixabay, Unsplash, and Pexels offer the use of their images under the CC0 License, I advise you still be extremely careful. There are times when an individual user of these sites will upload something that is copyrighted and pass it off as their own. While the websites strictly forbid this, sometimes something may slip through. And even with the CC0 License that the websites provide, if the image is already infringing on someone else's copyright, you cannot use it. Look out for images that have watermarks on them, or are clearly something that is licensed by someone else (i.e. Disney, Warner Bros, Marvel, etc.).
Okay, How Much Does This Cost?
All three sites are completely free to use. There are no subscription plans, nor any prices at all. Everything is free to download.
Do I Have To Give Credit?
As stated in the quotes above from each website’s terms, they do not require attribution. However, it is good practice to show respect by crediting the original photographer or artist. Proper attribution also lets people know that you are using the images legally and haven’t stolen them.
Here’s an example of a proper attribution for an image I found on Pixabay:
Unsplash and Pexels both have a neat feature that Pixabay doesn’t have in regards to attribution. When you download an image, they offer an attribution line that you can just copy and paste into your post.
How Would You Rate Each Site?
I give both Unsplash and Pexels a 10/10, based on how easy it is to browse, search, and download images. Pixabay gets a 9/10, only because of the Captcha feature and the need to login to avoid that step.
I hope this review has helped you! I plan to do more website reviews like this, so be on the lookout for that in the near future!
Excellent review, @therosepatch! For some reason I have never seen the captcha on Pixabay, but maybe I did set up an account and am auto-logged in.
Many websites have an algorithm that determines when and how aggressive CAPTCHA is used. If you have a stable IP address (depending on your ISP your IP address may change quite often) many websites will not subject you to CAPTCHA on repeat visits, or will use a less aggressive form. There are other variables that come into play as well.
Interesting! Of course I prefer to believe I’m just special. 😊 But at any rate, the only time I use Pixabay is when I’m sitting at my desktop computer at home. So maybe that explains it. I had no idea there were algorithms behind captcha usage. But actually, that does make sense. I submit a lot of URLs to Google for my work, and I can submit about 5 or 6 in a row before security measures kick in.
Great review and very useful! I am glad you mentioned the reason of increased transparency to the reader when it comes to leaving attribution for source images even when they are CC0. In many cases it is not readily apparent what the copyright status of an image is from these websites when they are reverse-image searched (as a good curator will do for images in a post that have no attribution) - these kinds of images are used on so many different websites and pages that the reverse image search will pop up tons of results but it is difficult if not impossible to tell what is the original source and what the copyright (or copyleft as it were) status of the image is.
The sad thing is all of those sites are absolutely rife with copyrighted material though. I suppose they can continue to operate by shifting liability to the individual uploader who has violated the TOS by uploading copyrighted images, but a cursory look through the listings suggests a large portion are not in fact copyright free images. Half of them have watermarks from sites like shutterstock which are absolutely NOT free image sights! And that leads me to one final point, and possibly even something worth editing into your post - a user of these websites should use commons sense still. If you find an image that has a shutterstock watermark or similar on pixabay, it is not okay to use it, regardless of the fact that you found it on a free use website. I see people using watermarked and copyrighted images all the time in blog posting here, with a link to pixabay underneath - still not cool.
Much love - Carl
That is definitely a good point regarding the fact that sometimes individuals will upload copyrighted images to sites like Pixabay and pass it off as their own. Later tonight or tomorrow I'll work on adding a note regarding that into this post. I'll also keep it as a reminder point for future review posts. Thank you!
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STOPI really like this review, I would say the same about these sites and I used Unsplash and Pixabay frequently the last few months, wish I could know which photos are stolen though. It'll be bad if I used a copyrighted photo unknowingly