Popular Free Image Hosting Websites of 2024

With free image hosting websites, you can store pictures in one place and share them with friends, relatives, or even the entire Internet community. An album on Facebook or a post on Instagram can’t always help with this.

I looked through 50 free image hosting websites (that vary in the number of pics a user can publish and the download time) and selected the best of them. Each of the services listed here can be used for free or have trial versions.

Image hosting sites are especially popular among photographers and businesses that work with tons of images every day. Many of the platforms provide a decent amount of space for picture storage, backups, and intuitive tools to upload and enhance images. My recommendation is to select websites that use end-to-end encryption to make sure that your photos or other personal data are safe.

If you need to build a website with multimedia assets, then your task is to download the program for hosting and sharing videos. Furthermore, many photo hosting services do not only support such common file formats as JPG, PNG, and GIF but also such rarely used formats as HEIC and WEBP. So, if you are going to store images of such rare formats, check if the selected platform accepts them.

Verdict: SmugMug is an online picture hosting service for storing and displaying photos with a customizable homepage and a lot of design templates. I was impressed that this photo sharing site offers a set of simple image editing tools. It can’t replace Photoshop in terms of photo improvement but it’s suitable for standard procedures.

Besides, the tool integrates with professional labs to deliver top-rated print products to clients, which makes it especially convenient for companies seeking to streamline business processes. Such functionality of the image hosting platform is more than beneficial.

Verdict: This website to upload photos is used for storing and sharing pictures. You can organize images into albums or edit them in the application. Another advantage I appreciate is the social network, where you can join groups by genre of photography, share your photos, and leave comments for your favorite images.

Thanks to the statistical engine, I could track, who views my photos. Also, there are simple drag-and-drop tools that help me to organize the space. For me as a photographer, the most considerable downside is that the platform only allows me to download a maximum of 1000 high-resolution pics or videos for free. More storage becomes available after purchasing a subscription.

Verdict: Adobe Portfolio is one of the best free image hosting sites for Creative Cloud users. With its help, you can create an online portfolio and share your photos. The platform offers easy-to-customize templates and layouts to make your portfolio more professional and attractive. Users can tweak the design according to their needs and preferences to align with their aesthetic taste and present their works in the best possible light.

Adobe Portfolio offers unlimited hosting and a personalized URL. Also, you have the possibility to automatically resize your photos in order to optimize download and viewing time.

Verdict: Pixabay is a mix of hosting and online community that publishes high-quality images and videos without copyright.

Your photo must be checked by the editor whether it meets the quality requirements of the website before you can publish it. The main disadvantage is that newcomers can only make seven uploads per week. Although over time this limit for users who add high-quality photos may increase, such limitations on stock video sites are disappointing even for those who have just started.

Verdict: Imgur is an online service for uploading, storing, and sharing photos. The number of photos that you can upload is no more than 50 images per hour from a single IP address. File storage time is unlimited. It impressed me that you don’t need an account to upload images. You can register for free to create albums and add signatures.

Besides storing photos, this free image hosting allows searching to find funny pictures, cropping, or resizing your photos using the online editor. Imgur differs from similar services as it allows direct linking. Each image has its own URL, which you can post on social networks or within the Imgur community.

Verdict: 500px is often considered the best free website to upload pictures for professional photographers. Its main function is to showcase images, without sharing them on social networks. You can’t generate links to other sites, however, you can share your photos on the website and leave comments.

As for me, an interesting feature of this stock photography site is the possibility to earn on your photos. You can create a profile and license your photos as stock ones. You will be paid up to 60% commission for any sale.

Verdict: Google Photos is a service for storing images for free. This photo organizing software has an automatic backup feature so that you don’t need to worry about losing photos. Here you can edit and organize your photos in a way so that you can easily find them when needed.

The more I use this photo hosting website, the more technological goodies are unveiled to me. The tool identifies my habits and categorizes my images for a seamless and more efficient content organization. Mobile users can take advantage of a separate app to synchronize images with their Google profile.

Verdict: iCloud Photos is a service for uploading photos on Mac and iOS devices. You can upload photos share them with friends, and tag users in photos and locations.

The major benefit of this platform is that it uploads all photos and videos to the cloud gallery automatically. I also appreciate having constant access to my photos from my iPhone, iPad, and Mac as the tool synchronizes all my assets across various devices instantly without any manual effort. This means that I can take some incredible shots on one device and view them worry-free from another.

Verdict: ImageShack has a Pinterest-like interface and is used for uploading and sharing photos. You can organize your photos in albums and add tags to track images. You can also hide images from other participants or share them only with the selected audience.

Once all my files are downloaded, the tool provides me with the URL for each image so I can add these links to the bulletin board or a website to allow specific users to view and manipulate images.

Verdict: Unsplash's is a photo hosting website that boasts an intuitive UI and democratic licensing terms, so this is an ideal solution for those who need a highly functional tool for finding and sharing pics without having trouble with copyright restrictions.

Although this service has limitations and does not allow uploading and using as many media assets as you’d like, this is one of the most optimal variants for novice photographers.

Other goodies offered by this Unsplash are the collection of high-quality and free pics where creatives can find everything they need for making original projects. Besides, all the content is divided into categories and themes catering to the needs of photographers from any field. Another standout feature is the diverse collection of spans.

Verdict: Dropbox is a virtual box for storing your photos. You can use this cloud storage for photos for free to store up to 5GB of photos. Images are kept on the cloud and you can access them at any time and from any gadget. The backup is done automatically.

An intuitive photo-sharing process that only requires copying the link to a pic is another attractive aspect of Dropbox. Conveniently, the service allows the sharing of both single files and whole folders. However, I was disappointed by the fact this free image hosting platform does not offer picture editing tools but lets you collaborate with the team when creating your designs.

Verdict: Imgbox is another free service for uploading and displaying images. It has such tools as drag and drop feature, direct links, user-friendly codes, and image galleries. Also, using Imgbox, you can share your pictures on social networks and leave comments.

It’s amazing that on this online picture hosting service, you can permanently store photos. You don’t need to have an account to upload images. You will have to register to access your photos next time. Besides, the account allows you to upload shots with predefined settings faster.

Verdict: Focus on privacy is one of the brightest features of Icedrive. Those who have purchased the paid package can benefit from zero-knowledge encryption, which means that your encryption keys can't be seen by anyone, including the service provider. Another great plus is the ability to add password protection and expiration dates to your public sharing links.

Photographers can use 10GB of storage for free, which is quite generous but not sufficient. Unlimited uploads, massive storage, and fast download speeds are only available for those who purchased one of the packages.

Verdict: ImageBam is one of the free image hosting sites for an unlimited number of JPG, GIF, and PNG images. The service has one “trick” that distinguishes it from others – the possibility to download compressed ZIP files with a size of up to 250MB.

This image-uploading website mainly focuses on posting photos rather than creating a community. Registration is not necessary but registered users can use additional tools to manage and organize pictures.

Verdict: ImgBB is a minimalistic hosting website where you can upload photos to share with other users. You can upload an unlimited number of photos, however, there is a size limit – less than 32MB. Your photos can remain on the site without time limits.

I was glad to know that it’s not necessary to register for this service. However, all my pictures were reviewed by editors. Another great thing about this service is the absence of annoying advertising. There are only a couple of ads on the main page but you can quickly hide them.

Verdict: ImageVenue is hosting for uploading JPEG images. This service allows you to resize large photos and maintain their quality when downloading. You can upload as many images as you want. Here you can share digital photos with friends, and post images on message boards and blogs.

ImageVenue allows users to organize their images using the «ADULT content» and «FAMILY safe» filters for safe viewing and uploading.

Photos remain on ImageVenue servers forever. However, if you lose access and don’t use the server for over 1 year, then the photos will disappear without the possibility to restore them. A lot of bloggers, forum users, and eBay sellers choose ImageVenue to upload photos to share them with the public.

Verdict: Gifyu is a service for hosting files from your computer or using a URL. It supports GIF, PNG, JPG, and BMP files with a size of no more than 50MB.

Using Gifyu, you can upload images and after that you will get direct links, view links, HTML codes, and BBCodes. All images are published in a shared gallery or a private album that is available only through a special link.

Verdict: PostImage is another sample of free photo sharing sites for photographers, which you can use without registration. It allows you to create a gallery or individual photos with a unique link to share with other users. You can resize your photos while uploading them. By default, pictures are stored on the website with no time limits but you can also set the terms yourself.

PostImage is a great free image hosting for forums. There is an image upload mode on the website that will help you share photos within seconds.

Verdict: The greatest benefit of Amazon Prime Photos is that it allows its members to use as much storage as they may need. If you are a shooter or just a hobbyist whose collection is overloaded with pics, the platform is the greatest solution to backup all your files.

Amazon Prime Photos also attracts users with the ability to detect faces and group them into different albums. With this feature, organizing and finding a specific file in your archive will be an easy task. Besides, all the images uploaded to the service have basic metadata like the name of the camera, shutter speed, aperture, shooting date and time, and file size and resolution. So, if you want to keep track of settings and details for each pic, this option is what you need.

I have compiled a table to compare these programs I use by their main features. The most budget-friendly option is Flickr, but you won't get unlimited storage like with the paid version of SmugMug.