Istockphoto
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if your team licenses images regularly and wants Getty-backed rights and indemnification; subscriptions reward volume.
Comparison
Istockphoto lands on Depends, and Pexels lands on Worth it.
Buy if your team licenses images regularly and wants Getty-backed rights and indemnification; subscriptions reward volume.
Use it if you need free, high-quality stock photos or videos . there is no purchase decision or paid tier at all.
| Compare | Istockphoto | Pexels |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Worth it |
| Best for | Marketing teams buying images weekly | Bloggers and marketers needing free images |
| Who it's not for | Anyone needing a handful of images . free sites cover you | Anyone reselling stock images as-is |
| Privacy | Mature Getty-owned vendor with a HackerOne response policy; only finding is a 2009 phishing incident.12 | No public vulnerabilities found for itself; severe CVEs affect its third-party WordPress plugin, and no public security page was found. |
| Support quality | Refunds granted per Reddit; 927 Trustpilot reviews | App Store reviewer says company doesn't care |
| Public sentiment | Opinion is split: some find the entry price reasonable, while others complain bitterly about annual subscription renewals.¹ | Reviewers largely praise Pexels as a dependable, easy, high-quality free stock source, with occasional complaints about curation and support. |
| Biggest gotcha | Annual subscription rates are the loudest user complaint; read renewal terms before committing³ | WordPress plugin users must patch: SSRF CVE-2024-25915 (CVSS 8.8) and RCE CVE-2024-6132 |