Although Shutterstock is a good choice for downloading stock photos, it can be frustrating due to its repetitive images and high prices. This article discusses the benefits and the top 6 Shutterstock alternatives, such as CapCut, Canva, Adobe Stock, Photosonic, Storyblocks, and Unsplash. We will finish off the article with a comparison table to compare all the Shutterstock alternatives on various factors, and the top use cases of Shutterstock alternatives.
Why should you use a Shutterstock alternative
- Good customer service: Many Shutterstock alternatives provide support, easier refund policies, and responsive help channels. This results in fewer delays and a smoother experience when you want help.
- Cost-effective options: The alternatives provide flexible payment options, cheaper subscriptions, and even free libraries. Thus, you can get access to high-quality photos without Shutterstock's costly credit system.
- Access to unique images: Shutterstock often features overused visuals, whereas alternatives offer fresh, diverse, and niche-specific content. In this way, your visuals stand out because of the unique content.
- Faster search and download: Some alternatives offer a cleaner interface and smart search filters, significantly reducing browsing time. Thus, you can find the right photo easily without scrolling endlessly.
- Better customization tools: Several alternatives to Shutterstock provide built-in editing features, AI enhancements, or template-based adjustments. This lets you quickly personalize photos without relying on third-party tools.
Thus, there are plenty of benefits of using Shutterstock alternatives. But what are the top alternatives available? Stick around as the following parts discuss this and much more.
6 must-try Shutterstock alternatives of 2025
CapCut
CapCut is a versatile and powerful video editing software, known for its advanced editing and AI-powered features. It is also an excellent tool for creating appealing images with AI, offering features such as AI design, which lets you generate images from simple text prompts. You can further enhance the AI-generated images with different editing tools and AI-powered features, such as inpaint, expand, remove, and upscale. So, download CapCut today and utilize its advanced editing features to produce studio-quality visuals in seconds.
- Use CapCut's "AI design" feature to transform your text prompts into attractive photos. It is powered by AI models such as Nano Banana and Seedream 4.0.
- Enhance your photos with a variety of editing tools, like filters, effects, stickers, shapes, frames, and designs to make them visually appealing.
- Elevate your photos using CapCut's AI-powered tools, like inpaint, expand, remove, and upscale, to make them more attractive.
- CapCut supports multiple export formats, such as JPG and PNG, enhancing flexibility across platforms.
- Some advanced features require an active internet connection.
Steps to use CapCut for creating images using AI
- STEP 1
- Access the AI design feature
To begin with, open CapCut and create a new project. Next, click on the "AI design" tool from the left-hand panel. Write a clear and detailed prompt in the provided dialogue box. Once satisfied, click the "Send" button to generate the photo.
- STEP 2
- Edit the photo
Once the image has been generated, click on the left-hand panel to enhance your photos with different stickers, filters, effects, frames, and designs.
You can also click the "AI tools" option to enhance the photo with various AI-powered tools, like inpaint, expand, remove, and upscale.
- STEP 3
- Export the photo
Once satisfied with the AI-generated photo, click the "Download" option at the top of the screen. Next, click "Download" to save the image, or "Copy as PNG" to copy it.
Canva
Canva is a user-friendly graphic design platform, tailored for creating and downloading polished visuals quickly, even without advanced design skills. It provides a text-to-image feature that lets users transform their text prompts into attractive visuals. It also contains an extensive template and stock photo library, making it an excellent Shutterstock alternative. Canva stands out for its real-time collaboration, which lets teams work on multiple projects simultaneously.
- Canva's text-to-image feature lets you generate attractive images from text prompts.
- Its extensive template and photo library cover everything from presentations to social media posts, without manual work.
- Real-time collaboration features enable teams to work together on different projects.
- Some advanced AI features and premium templates are locked behind a paywall.
Adobe Stock
Adobe Stock is a premium stock media platform that provides millions of high-quality images, illustrations, vectors, and videos. It also includes a text-to-image generation feature through Adobe Firefly, letting users create custom images from prompts or expand existing photos. Its seamless integration with Adobe Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, makes it ideal for designers seeking efficiency and creativity.
- Adobe Stock provides text-to-image via Adobe Firefly, enabling you to generate or modify photos directly from text prompts.
- It features an extensive, high-quality library of assets, including exclusive content not found elsewhere.
- Flexible licensing options make it easier to use for personal and commercial use without copyright concerns.
- Adobe Stock's vast library can be overwhelming, making it challenging to find niche-specific content quickly.
Photosonic
Photosonic is a popular AI-powered image generator that converts text prompts into original visuals, ranging from photorealistic scenes to abstract illustrations, making it an excellent Shutterstock alternative. It supports a variety of art styles, allowing users to instantly generate royalty-free images from social media posts, creative, or marketing projects. Its simple interface and quick processing speed make it accessible, even for non-designers.
- Photosonic offers text-to-image generation, allowing you to type a description and produce attractive visuals.
- It provides a range of art styles, from realistic to abstract to painterly, enhancing flexibility.
- The tool offers minor AI-powered enhancements to enhance the clarity, color, and composition of photos.
- Free or trial tiers are limited, and full access requires a paid plan.
Storyblocks
Storyblocks is a well-known stock media platform offering an extensive library of royalty-free images, videos, vectors, music, and templates for creators. It provides unlimited access through flexible pricing plans, so you can download unlimited assets for social media, videos, or design projects. Storyblocks stands out for its "Snapshots" feature, which are still images pulled from 4K videos, making it perfect for matching thumbnails and maintaining video-photo consistency.
- Storyblocks offers an extensive media library of stock photos, 4K videos, vectors, audio, and motion templates.
- It lets you extract still images from video footage, making it effortless to create consistent visuals.
- The tool includes a variety of pre-designed templates for video, presentation, and social media content.
- Because many creators use the same library, some stock images or footage may feel generic or overused.
Unsplash
Unsplash is a vast free stock photo platform that provides thousands of high-quality, high-resolution images uploaded by photographers worldwide. All the photos are present under the Unsplash license, so you can freely use them for personal or commercial purposes, without paying or referencing the commercial licenses. It is free and straightforward to use, making it suitable for creators, bloggers, and small businesses looking for affordable visuals instantly.
- Unsplash is entirely free and royalty-free, so you can use images for personal and commercial projects without cost.
- It provides a high-quality photo library, giving you a polished, premium look without paid stock assets.
- The platform offers APIs and plugins for Canva, Figma, and other creative tools, streamlining your workflow.
- Because it is free, Unsplash may not have rare or highly specialized images, limiting its usefulness.
Shutterstock alternatives - A brief comparison
Compare the best Shutterstock alternatives and pick the suitable one for your creation.
What can you use free Shutterstock alternatives for
- Social media content: Shutterstock alternatives offer visually appealing images under the "Creative Commons License" for posts on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. This saves a lot of time and effort, while ensuring legal usage. You can also generate and style images for social media using CapCut's "AI design" tool.
- Blog and website graphics: Use high-quality and licensed images to make blogs and websites more professional and interactive. They work perfectly for tutorials, reviews, or informational posts. You can create unique visuals by leveraging CapCut's image-to-image generation, inpainting, and style modification features.
- Presentation and educational material: Stock images can be used in slides, lectures, and educational projects. They make the learning content easier to understand. You can create and enhance visuals using CapCut's "Background remover" and "Upscale" tools to improve image clarity.
- YouTube thumbnails and video assets: Royalty-free photos from free alternatives can be utilized for YouTube video thumbnails, overlays, and backgrounds. High-quality visuals attract more viewers, enhancing the watch rates. You can generate and customize attractive thumbnails using CapCut's text-to-image feature along with AI-powered tools, like inpaint, expand, remove, and upscale.
- Promotional email campaigns: Free Shutterstock alternatives offer high-quality, licensed images to enhance newsletters and email marketing. These visuals capture the viewers' attention and improve the engagement rates. You can animate and stylize them using CapCut's visual effects, like filters, effects, stickers, frames, and designs.
Shutterstock alternatives offer creators many benefits, including cost-effective access, faster downloads, and more robust customization tools. This article discussed the benefits and the top 6 Shutterstock alternatives, like CapCut, Canva, Adobe Stock, Photosonic, Storyblocks, and Unsplash, each offering its unique advantages and disadvantages. These tools can be used for a variety of purposes, like social media content, educational materials, and email marketing campaigns. Among the six tools mentioned here, CapCut reigns supreme for its impressive features, including AI design, editing tools, and a variety of AI-powered options such as inpaint, expand, remove, and upscale. So, get CapCut now and utilize its advanced editing features to elevate your visuals effortlessly.
FAQs
- 1
- Why is Shutterstock unsuitable for casual users?
Shutterstock isn't suited for casual users because it can be expensive, and the subscription model doesn't fit everyone. Many images are repetitive and used excessively, and browsing takes longer due to the vast library size. For a more accessible option, try free Shutterstock alternatives like CapCut, which offers an "AI design" feature that lets you create high-quality images with AI.
- 2
- How to find the cheaper alternatives to Shutterstock for high-quality images?
CapCut is an excellent choice for a cheaper Shutterstock alternative, as it offers an "AI design" tool that lets you create attractive images with AI. You can further tweak the images using additional text prompts and a variety of editing and AI-powered tools, such as filters, effects, stickers, frames, designs, background remover, inpaint, expand, remove, and upscale.
- 3
- How to find Shutterstock alternatives on Reddit?
Reddit hosts communities, which discuss free or affordable image platforms, such as r/graphic_design, r/photography, and r/DesignResources. Many users also share links to alternatives such as Canva, Unsplash, and Photosonic. These discussions contain tips, reviews, and creative ways to use tools efficiently. CapCut is also frequently recommended on Reddit for its "AI design" tool and a variety of editing and AI-powered features.