Design Resources

Unsplash

A library of high-resolution photos available under a permissive license. The quality is consistently higher than most stock photo sites, and the search is good enough to find something usable for most projects without much effort.

Overview

Unsplash is a photography platform offering over 3 million high-resolution images contributed by photographers worldwide. The Unsplash License permits free commercial use without attribution, though attribution is appreciated. A curation process keeps quality higher than fully open platforms.

The platform serves billions of image downloads monthly. For web developers and designers, it is the first stop for placeholder images and project photography. The API makes it easy to integrate dynamic photo content into applications.

Key Features

  • 3 million+ high-resolution photos
  • Permissive license for commercial use
  • API for programmatic access
  • Collections for organizing saved images
  • Unsplash for Figma plugin
  • Search by color, orientation, and topic

Use Cases

For web developers and designers, Unsplash is the first stop for placeholder images and project photography. The API makes it easy to integrate dynamic photo content into applications, and the Figma plugin allows designers to search and insert photos directly into their design files.

For content creators and marketers, Unsplash provides professional-quality imagery for blog posts, social media, and presentations without the cost of a stock photo subscription. The main limitation is that popular images appear on many websites, which can make content feel generic.

Pricing

Completely free for all users. Unsplash+ is a paid tier at 12 dollars per month that provides access to exclusive, higher-quality images with broader licensing terms.