Hello creative filmmakers, you all like free stuff, so that's why today we're going to look at the best free stock video sites. I’m going to list the 5 sites that are best in my opinion and, to be clear. Before we start I want you to know that free does not always imply that it is without restrictions or obligations. On most of these sites you'll find a Creative Commons license. There are different levels or building blocks within these Creative Commons licenses. But the most common one that you'll find is the CC 0 or the CC BY. CC 0 is the most permissive license that exists. You don't have to credit the original creator and there are no restrictions on what you can do with it. The other Creative Commons license variations are a bit more limited. It could require you to credit the original creator or maybe not use this in any commercial work. So to summarize, make sure to check the license terms before you download and use the footage. I will link the official Creative Commons website so you can check out the details. And one more disclaimer before we start: the license info for each site presented in this ARTICLE can be changed in the future, so make sure to always check the most current license terms on the website itself. Let's start with the list. The first one on the list is
1. Pixabay.com
This site offers more than a million high-quality stock images and videos. They’ve got a huge -if not the biggest- collection of free HD and 4k Clips. Pixabay likes to present itself as a community of creatives who share copyright free images and videos. All submissions are checked for quality by experts and they will only be allowed if they are in agreement with the quality guidelines. Still, I have to admit that not all clips have the same high standard as you'll find on some of the sites that I mentioned before. The site itself is very intuitive. You can preview the clips in the search results and you can also preview the original clip in the browser before downloading. All the downloads have the same simple Pixabay license. This basically is Creative Commons 0, but you're not allowed to redistribute the video to another stock site or sell it elsewhere.
2. Videvo.net
This is one of my favorite free stock video sites. On this site they offer mostly free HD or 1080p footage. But they've also got some free 4k clips. They also offer paid or premium video clips, but you can easily filter the free clips in the search results if you want to. If you download the clip from Videvo, make sure to check the license. And that's because they use three different types of licenses. The first one is the so-called ‘royalty-free license’. This is basically Creative Commons 0, but you're not allowed to re-upload the clip elsewhere. The next one is the ‘Videvo attribution license’. This is the same as the previous one, only here you need to credit the author. And the last one is the standard Creative Commons BY license. This one also requires attribution. But you can distribute the clip in its original form elsewhere. So you could say that licensing at Videvo is a bit more complex. But in return for that you get a huge collection of unique free video clips.
3. Pexels.com
Pexels began as a free photo site but it now also has a large library of free HD stock videos. So if you'll search for something you'll get the photo results, but you can also switch to the videos. You can preview the clips in the search results which is very handy. A great place in my opinion. Although I didn't find any 4k footage, the quality of most 1080p clips is very good. But most important of all, all the clips are based on the Creative Commons 0 license. So, free to use and attribution is not required.
4. videezy.com
This site offers completely free and paid so-called Pro videos. These paid videos are marked with a green ‘Pro’ tag on top of the thumbnail. and all the other clips are free to download and that's what we're here for today. Videezy offers a big collection of 1080p and 4k footage. The site has an effective search feature and the filtering options are very useful. A negative point is that you can’t preview an item in the search results. So you'll have to open up the video page to see a preview. If you're not a paid user you'll have to deal with the ads before downloading. And after a few downloads they also require you to register for a free account. But after that, you can download the files and use them for educational, personal and commercial projects. But also here it's based on the attribution license. So that means you have to credit the author.
5. MAZWAI.Com
This site has got some stunning footage. The clean and simple layout of the website makes it easy to navigate and preview the footage. You can scroll through the items in full-screen mode or in 4x4 grid mode. This is the smallest free stock site that you'll find in the list. Here it's clearly quality over quantity. At this moment they offer around 200 downloads, which all contain multiple clips stitched together. Most of the downloads are high-quality 1080p footage. So far I haven't found any 4k footage yet. All the downloads are under the attribution license. So that means you have to credit the author of the product. So overall, not the biggest free stock site, but definitely worth checking out.
