Pixabay vs. Unsplash for Brands

This is perfect for any individual or organization that's working on a budget. You'll get stock photos that, while there's a more limited selection than the usual paid sites (Getty, iStock, etc.), are often just as high-quality. For smaller businesses and nonprofits where every dollar counts, I've found myself leaning on Pixabay quite a bit for stock images and, from time to time, will end up buying one of the linked commercial images when Pixabay doesn't have what I need. However, if you have a large budget for stock images, Pixabay will likely not be your best choice, as the paid services offer generous discounts for bulk credit purchases.

Incentivized

I love that I can get real-time and trending content made available on current events. When writing 5-7 articles a day, a good image to support the context of the writing really drives the message home to the reader. Unsplash offers an easy way to search for images that I can use to boot visual engagement, images that are from the field and that resonate with the audience.

Incentivized

• Separate photos, illustrations, and vectors—Many competitors have these images all lumped together with a limited ability to sort through them, while Pixabay has a robust library of all of these, making it easy to find what you're looking for.
• Free, high-quality images and easy-to-understand licensing rules—Often a new client will have bad image usage habits, freely snagging any image off of google. Pixabay is an excellent resource to give clients a huge range of photos without the fear of getting into copyright trouble.
• Sound effects—Free, good-quality sound effects are surprisingly difficult to find amongst competitors, but Pixabay has them in their lineup as well.

• Unsplash consists of a great selection and good variety stock photos.
• Unsplash offers curated collections.
• Unsplash offers great advertising options to creators.

Incentivized

• One thing that kind of sticks out is that with so much to choose from, you can feel overwhelmed.
• Some of the photos I sometimes can find separately by googling. In the music business, it seems like many photos rotate on the web so there isn't as much to pick from.
• I didn't see an option for more vertical videos for use in Instagram or TikTok.

Incentivized

• Would like to see more variety for commonly searched images
• Indications if you've used the images before on the site and when (dates, challenges)
• Information on the photographer/creator

I need to learn a little more about the product and its capabilities before I give a higher review. However, the availability of image trending is far superior to Getty or Getty Enterprise.

Incentivized

The search features are comprehensive and the previews are useful. I really like that they added an option to filter out generative AI content, which can overwhelm a site like this. Sometimes you just want the real thing, especially if you can generate AI images on your own already like I can!

Incentivized

I think the usability is awesome. The UX and simplicity is great and allows you to quicky find a suitable image. Compared to, for example Shutterstock, it's way more accessible. The added collection feature is also nice, since they are relevant for the time of year. The quick filters on the top are useful as well. And the download is always fast.

Incentivized

Pixabay has given me the free vectors I need for my whiteboard animation videos, which aren't available on the other sites, in addition to the video and audio clips. They've been around for a long time and have stayed consistent, valuable, and easy to use throughout the years. They were my first site for free downloads and remain my favorite image download site to this day.

Incentivized

I would say that Unsplash for Brands is a lower-end budget and easier option for projects. Again, if you need something very specific - whether it's in industry, pose, subject, or environment, then you'll likely want something a bit more expensive with a larger library available. That being said, we've been able to tackle a number of projects with Unsplash for Brands.

Incentivized

• We don't lose any money trying to buy images
• Our videos get more views if we put the good quality images we find in Pixaby
• The posts we make with their images always get a professional aspect, and get more engagement from a diverse social media users.

Incentivized

• Excellent for using photos for content creation, keeps things fresh yet still on brand for our program's needs
• Ease of use, directly implemented in the program to directly find an image without needing to leave the site
• Perfect since it's free!