If you need to get footage and video for your new creative projects, whether they are short videos for social media or a more professional video project, check out these free stock video sites popular in 2023 right below.
There is no doubt that producing video in-house may be costly. You need to hire a crew of artists, get or rent expensive gear, pay for accessories, etc. Getting stock video and footage from reputable sources online is a way out. If these sources are free - so much the better.
In our list below you will find 10 popular websites offering stock footage for free or almost for free.
So, here we go with top 10 websites with free stock videos and free stock footage:
Pexels
Pexels was always known as a free image website. With time Pexels diversified their free offering. Now the site has a vast collection of free videos in HD. Their collection is under the CC0 license. This means that you ca use and edit the videos for personal and commercial purposes without asking for permission or without needing to link back to this site.
Pexels comes first in our list.
You can download the videos in HD. The fps will range.
The compression will be low, though, but still good for social media.
The main inconvenience with Pexels is that they don't give you the choice to choose. You are handed what's available (1 file in HD with a relatively low compression).
Pixabay
Pixabay is now offering over 1.5 million images and stock videos, which are also all released under the CC0 license.
Pixabay is faring so much better than Pexels just because you are given some choice when it comes to video downloads. You can choose between SD all the way up to 4K.
The size of the video library is still small. Hopefully, they will be adding more free footage to enrich the experience.
Distill
Here not everything is up for grabs. Distill is happy to give you some free vids. Their footage collection is top-notch, but it will cost you some $$ to get access to it.
Meanwhile, there is some low-hanging fruit available. For exchange of your email, you will get 10 free videos sent to your inbox every 10 days.
This is a very fair trade. Go for it!
Videvo
Videvo is another recommended all-in-one for free stop for you. This site offers free stock video and footage. You can also find some free motion graphic assets, SFX and even music (the quality of their sound is so-so - well, it's free after all). With Music you will be invited to pay (just beware of that!).
Back to video, Videvo is not stingy as it provides some important tech specs about video files:
You will be able to consult the resolution, file size, format, aspect ration, frame rate and duration. It will be sufficient to decide whether it makes sense to download this video.
The clips you will download from Videvo are licensed in one of 2 ways: through their own Videvo license or through the CC3.0 license.
The first one assumes that the videos can be downloaded for free and used in any project. You are forbidden to make these clips available for download anywhere else.
As for the CC3.0 license, credit should be given to the original creator.
Stock Footage For Free
This is a relatively new video library. Its size is not as large as the other video sites we've mentioned.
You can still find some interesting video material grouped by topic. You also have access to some specs so that you can decide whether it's worth the effort to download.
Since the site adds new videos every day, you can bookmark the site and visit it regularly.
Videezy
Videezy is another website with a relatively big video collection open for personal and commercial use. Videezy does ask that you credit Videezy.com when using their footage.
If you prefer not to provide any credit, Videezy offers credits for purchase.
With Videezy all vids come in HD or even 4K. If you see the sign Pro, this may be a paid product available on the site or with their partners.
Life of Vids
This Canadian website offers a small number of free videos. The sites belongs to a creative agency, which allows using the videos without any copyright restrictions. Still, you need to be aware of a number of restrictions
Here are the restrictions for your info before you jump to that site:
All the videos available on the site can be downloaded via Vimeo.
Coverr
Sometimes, you don't need to download the video, but just need to use it for one single purpose - as a background on your website.
Coverr allows you to do that easily. Their video library is still small, but they get new videos every Monday. Well, you can too by subscribing to receive these new free videos at the beginning of each new week.
Check this site out. You can download video files in 3 formats: .mp4, .webm or .ogv.
It's already exported and ready for web backgrounds.
Splitshire
Here you can find a number of free drone aerial videos. The owner of the site wanted to provide the creative community free stock videos. At this moment, free stock images are getting to 1,000 and the free stock videos are available in dozens on this site.
The big ask from the owner of the site is not to sell the photos or videos as they are free. It makes total sense!
Clipstill
Clipstill is a small website where you can find a good number of free cinemagraphs. The owners of the site publish several free cinemagraphs each new month. You can download them without issues. If you want more, you will need to pay a small fee for each new assets.
These 10 free stock video websites can hopefully help you save some money when creating your first videos. Other sites may offer their top free stock footage sites - it's worth checking out the others' views too.