Best Places To Download Free Stock Footage

Free stock footage for your projects

If you’ve ever edited videos you probably know that stock video clips can be really really useful in lots of different situations. There is of course no shortage of sites and services that offer great stock video footage for a fee. However, it usually costs from dozens to hundreds of dollars per clip, and might just not fit your budget.

In this post I’d like to share a quick video created by our friends at TunePocket. In that video, Scott Dumas, an independent videographer and photographer will introduce you to a handful of sites where you can get free stock footage from for your videos.

Watch the video:

Best places to download free stock footage

Videvo

Videvo has 3 types of licenses:

a) a royalty free license which has unlimited use of the clip without any fee or without having to give anybody credit.
b) Videvo attribution license which allows you to use the clip for free but you have to give credit to the original author.
c) Creative Commons license where you have to attribute the original author in all of the productions as well as any distribution channels where the clip is available to download.

The site may feel a bit overwhelming at first but there are lots of tools to help you narrow down or guide your search.

There’s really good quality footage and I like the option that you can click to choose only the free footage because there are those different kinds of licenses here on this website. Especially, that you can hover over the thumbnail to see play through without actually having to click it and the site does also have more than just videos.

Pexels

So next up is Pexels. This is totally free, there’s no need to sort through the different licenses or usages like the previous site, and there’s some level of previewing the video when hovering over the thumbnail.

Overall the site is very simple to use but there are less filtering options and the quality of the footage is ok… not great not bad but it’s free and it’s simple.

They do also have stock photos if that’s something that you’re looking for.

Videezy

Next up is Videezy. With this site you do have to give credit for everything which could possibly be annoying for commercial work but it should be no problem for personal videos and YouTube. There are some options marked Pro which are not free but there are still lots of free clips to choose from as well.

They do also have more than just videos in their network but there is no preview until you go to the actual video’s page. The quality of the videos are very very nice and the site is overall easy to navigate, filter and search.

Pixabay

Pixabay is a free service which gives you free footage with no credit needed to be given even in commercial use. They do also once again have more than just videos.

There are quick previews when you mouse over the thumbnail for fast browsing and it’s easy to search with some filters available to narrow down the search.

Mazwai

Mazwai is a step in a different direction with far fewer videos than the other services.

The website itself is not really search friendly, however, it works when you’re not looking for anything in particular and the videos are very very beautiful. There’s also not much information here about the clips, such as their length or frame rates or even resolution.

Coverr

Coverr is an interesting place, since all the videos are specially formatted to be used as web page backgrounds (but of course they’re not limited to that use). As such, there’s no information about things like resolution.

There is a consistent upload pace of 7 new videos per week and there is no credit needed to be given even when used in commercial work.

It’s easy to search or browse by category but there are no filters to narrow those searches. There’s also no preview when you hover over the video but you can see it in its own pop up window without having to go over to a completely separate page.

CuteStockFootage

CuteStockFootage seems to have a lot more elements like light leaks, overlays and abstract designs than pure video. There’s not much information about resolution or frame rate and also not a whole lot about the licenses, but you should be able to use their videos for commercial and personal use.

They do seem to hope that you give credit and / or link to their website, but it’s unclear if that’s necessary or not. The site itself is reasonably easy to browse, but there’s no preview when you hover over the thumbnails.

Ignite Motion

Ignite motion is another service that gives videos especially for web site or video backgrounds. You can use the videos for both commercial or personal use.

One of their filters is to sort by price, but it seems that all of the footage is free so I’m not sure how this works. Once again ,we don’t have a hover preview here but the site is very simple. There are limited search filters but enough categories to find what you’re looking for.

Beachfront B Roll

Beachfront B-Roll is all free and has an interesting blog style with a little back story and background info about each clip.

The previews all seem to be hosted on YouTube and you have to right click to download the videos. You can only search by category but overall this is a very interesting service and it’s all free!

UPDATE 2020: Pikwizard

PikWizard site features an extensive collection of free stock images and video footage. The library has over 100K (mostly free) images and videos and updated on a weekly basis. According to the description all videos are completely copyright free and can be used in personal and commercial projects.

See More

Check out this post to see 40+ sites that offer free stock videos:

The Biggest List Of Free Stock Footage Sites For Video Editors

What is your favorite stock footage site?

Post it in the comments!

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