Pexels, headquartered in Berlin, offers stock photos and video under the Creative Commons Zero license, from a global network of creators.
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Unsplash for Brands
Score 7.2 out of 10
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Unsplash is an online community hosted by the company of the same name in Montreal, featuring photos and images that are available free. Unsplash for Business is a solution that puts content in the hands of people and add context by sharing visuals with their audiences.
The success of social media campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter depends significantly on the quality of the content used. Pexels maintains the highest quality standards for all content hosted on the platform... with High Definition, excellent composition materials only. Another great thing is that they provide you with an assortment of filtered content suggestions related to the selections. This helps save time.
If someone is in a specific or super-niche industry, they may not find that Unsplash for Brands is a good option for them. I would say their site and their library of photographic images are a bit more general -- so if you need something stylized, it may not be the place for you.
High-resolution images – Pexels is full of images that are high enough in resolution to look beautiful on their own, but also high quality enough to be combined with other images without distracting pixelization
Stock videos – other free stock sites are often limited to just images, but Pexels has a wide range of videos available as well, which we use to plus up decks
Good search functions – while not as robust as some paid sites, Pexels' search functions make it pretty easy to track down what you need
Licensing – it's very straightforward to know what you can and can't do with a Pexels photo, which protects my company and our clients
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.
Pexels has a few unique features that stand out, the most important being a 1-click download from the search results. No need to navigate to another page to find a "download" button. This reduces the time required to find and download an appropriate image. The search results load fast, with lazy loading, so there's no annoying pagination at the bottom. I often travel as I work, and at times my internet connection can be slow or unstable. This kind of feature may seem minor to some users, but when on a slower connection, it makes a big difference. If a search term is too broad, it can recommend related keywords to search for - this helps to find the right image faster.
There is one obvious major advantage to Pexels (and Unsplash really) in that the images are royalty-free. We can use them without fear of being sued afterward, and we don't even have to create an account, just download the image and it's ready to go. When it comes to Pexels' photos, you can photoshop words on them, but sometimes you don't want a photo designed for photoshopping, you just want a photo that's ready to use, such as Unsplash.
