By Eva Williams 17 days ago, Apps and Software
If you use stock content on a regular basis, you probably know about Dreamstime. It is a popular platform for managing different visual elements but it imposes some limitations on the creative process. This is the main impetus for people to look for Dreamstime alternatives. Users also claim that a huge portion of the content is outdated and inferior to what competitors offer.
Dreamstime offers images and graphics in different resolutions but you have to wait quite a long to download high-res content. Besides, even premium files have some quality issues and may contain watermarks, which are very difficult to prune using standard methods.
Verdict: Adobe Stock is one of the programs similar for Dreamstime considering a huge variety of content and its top quality. Users get access to multiple royalty-free images, videos, audio files, templates, 3D graphics, and more. The range of assets in Dreamstime is more limited.
Besides, Adobe Stock has a convenient search engine. In fact, you can locate the needed elements in several ways – by entering keywords in the search field, by applying filters, or by dragging and dropping your photo to get similar variants. Unlike Dreamstime, this service makes it possible to examine and redownload images you viewed earlier. This is a very handy feature.
Verdict: Shutterstock outstrips Dreamstime when comparing the number of stock materials. Here you can find over 300 million images, video, audio, vector graphics, and more. I like that content is categorized. There are thematic packs as well as groups entitled “Trendy”, “Events”, and “Celebrities”, as well as recommendations.
While searching for pictures, you can apply such filters as “similar images”, “same model”, or “same artist”. Another advantage of this platform is a built-in editor, where you can resize, crop, trim, rotate, and improve your photos.
Verdict: You can replace Dreamstime with Depositphotos if you are on the hunt for high-quality photos and 4K videos that don’t cost a fortune. This website also contains vector pictures aimed specifically at design needs, as well as backgrounds and similar stuff. All pictures are royalty-free, so you can use them in your commercial projects.
This Dreamstime alternative has several content categories. The most feted group is the trendies, thematic content that covers the latest events in the world. If you work on a large project, you may also take advantage of royalty-free music.
Verdict: iStock is a popular stock photo finder that stays on par with Dreamstime and even transcends it in some aspects. Users choose it for its tight integration with Adobe Creative Cloud and Dropbox, which greatly expands their creative possibilities. If you opt for a free version, you receive 10 pictures and lots of discount coupons. They allow reducing the cost of paid content.
Unlike the reference service, this platform contains only exclusive royalty-free content, which you can’t find on any other website. This is possible due to cooperation with famous photographers and artists, who take images and create other pieces specifically for iStock.
Verdict: Evaluating the variety of stock assets, Alamy is undoubtedly one of the best Dreamstime alternatives. The platform abounds with photos, illustrations, vectors, videos, live news, social and 360º pictures, and more. Most of these categories are missing in Dreamstime. Besides, all offered materials are available for download, which isn’t the case with the reference service.
To make your workflow even more convenient, the developers of Alamy created a separate section with the new materials. Such files are grouped based on the theme. What’s more, you can become a contributor and make money by selling your works on the site.
Verdict: Unsplash is a serious player among Dreamstime competitors due to a large library of up-to-date content. You can find here interesting images, graphics, and videos of personal and commercial projects. The number of categories is fantastic. There are collections called animals, people, food & drink, and more.
The service is whoppingly popular among experts because all images are submitted with metadata. Besides, after selecting a specific asset, you will see collections with similar stuff. Thus, you can diversify your project. Finding same-style or same-topic content in Dreamstime is more difficult.
Verdict: Those interested in design and related creative fields should have a closer look at Feepik. It is a lauded Dreamstime alternative with a plethora of modern pictures, illustrations, templates, mockups, backgrounds, text effects, and the like.
I like that the team adds new materials every day, so you can take advantage of the most relevant content and use it in your work. The undeniable advantage of the platform is the abundance of royalty-free images for social projects, e.g., pressing climate issues, the rights of women in Iran, celebrity scandals, etc.
Verdict: Pexels is a popular stock photography site, which can easily replace Dreamstime if you want to download free content of great quality. Besides, you can treat the platform as an inspiration source, as it contains many works of famed photographers.
If you are an active representative of the photography industry, you can also use this website to sell photos online or promote your blog. In this case, Pexels outpaces Dreamstime significantly because it has broader coverage. What’s more, there are regular competitions for artists and you can show your talent by participating in them.
Verdict: Among programs similar to Dreamstime, 123RF sticks out from the crowd with its amazing selection of vector images and photo editing tools. Thanks to the AI nature of the platform, you can handle the most complicated picture editing tasks in a very quick way. Thus, you can improve a photo, remove the background, trim images, and apply pre-installed filters in a matter of seconds.
Besides, using this stock video site, you can download videos with different resolutions up to Ultra HD. Thanks to categorization by theme, it is super-easy to find a clip or stock audio file compliant with your project.
Verdict: Pixabay resembles Dreamstime in terms of stock content groups but the media organization approach is totally different. On this website, file organization is more straightforward, so even first-time visitors will instantly locate the needed content.
Besides, in addition to standard materials, here you can find trendy GIFs. You can search by category, leverage filters, or view the work of a specific distributor. Each stock asset contains keywords that you can use to search for the desired content.
