Icons are everywhere now and have become an integral part of design. Almost inseparable from design, icons are found in web design, graphics, infographics, flyers, brochures and many more.When used appropriately they quickly and clearly communicate key information to users. This reduces the amount of time it takes to understand or interact with the product.
Icons are important agreed. But creating custom icons for every design project can be time-consuming . This is the reason why we’ve put together the top 10 resources for free icons
These resources for free icons have been carefully put together and curated in a way that makes it easy to find the exact type of icons needed for a project without searching entire internet. Most of them are free and to go a step further, offer premium memberships for access to unique icons.
With all that said, here is the list of websites for free icons:
1.Flaticon resource for free icons:
Image Credit: Flaticons.com
Flaticon is one of the best websites to get free icons on the internet. Flaticon is a part of the freepik Company, offering the best high-quality visual contents. There are over 3.9 million vector icons that can be edited and downloaded for free.
These icons are available in a variety of formats including PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD and Base 64 formats. Asides just downloading, flaticon allows you become an author on the site and earn from royalties on icons. Flaticon requires that anyone who uses their icons attribute the author. Otherwise, they could subscribe to the premium license and get access to all of the icons and use without attributions.
Finding icons on the site is very easy as the search is optimized to pick up on different tags from the vast library of icons.
Mac users can download the flaticon application and search for icons without using a web browser.
2.Iconshock
Image Credit: Iconshock.com
Iconshock is a resource for free icons offering a great user interface and experience.
The colors used on the site and the presentation of the icons are perfectly displayed and aesthetically pleasing. Iconshock has over 2 million professionally created icons library with more than 400 + icon sets in 30+ styles.
The different styles the icons come in makes Iconshock a must use when searching for variety in icons. The 400+ icon sets come in different styles including Flat, Material, Glyphs, Colorful, Isometric and many more.
Apart from the popular styles, they also specialize in custom styles, especially favorites like 3D Realistic, Windows 10, IOS, Modern and more. They have a lot of free icons available but to get the full experience, a premium account is needed.
Be sure to Check out its powerful editor for icons if you need to customize; You can change monochrome and multicolored icons on the fly, add readymade add-ons to the icons, resize icons without losing quality and many more all on the site.
3.Freepik
Image Credit: Freepik.com
Freepik is a design resource that has been around for a very long time and is trusted by designers all over the world. It is also a part of the freepik Company organization along with flaticon. And just like flaticon, it has an extensive library of icons.
Freepik like most websites for free icons requires attribution when using an icon from its library.
A stand out feature of Freepik that makes it one of the best resources for free icons is its dedicated page for each icon: When you select an icon for download, you have the option to pick from a variety of styles of the icon and you can edit the icon on the site before downloading it.
4.Iconfinder
Image Credit: Iconfinder.com
Iconfinder is a comprehensive website resource for free icons with over 5 million icons in SVG and PNG formats. The site is made up of icons from top designers around the world and curated by the team of designers at Iconfinder. The icons are grouped into packs so similar icons can be used in a project.
Iconfinder requires that the author of an icon be attributed when the icon is used. However, you could use these icons in both personal and commercial projects without having to pay. Users could also become contributors on the site and upload their icons.
There are over 315,000 free icons by Iconfinder that can be used on the site without attributions. These icons are grouped based on their use and design, creating the perfect pack. Also, rather than downloading entire icon packs, icon finder allows users to search for icons within a pack.
One of the most beneficial parts of using Iconfinder is the online icon editor. It allows users edit icons right in the browser, changing color, shapes and even adding text. Not only icons from the Iconfinder’s library can be edited, but also icons uploaded from the user’s hard drive.
5.Iconmonstr
Image Credit: Iconmonstr.com
Iconmonstr is another site that gives access to thousands of free icons and collections. It’s a continuously growing source of simple icons run by a single creator. So, you’re rest assured all the icons would be uniform.
Iconmonstr offers high-quality pixel-perfect icons from a unique and uniform exclusive source. All icons are available in fill and outline versions with different design variations of the same icon. They are available in SVG, ESP, PSD and PNG formats to be used on any app. The icons are lightweight as they have been smartly compressed and optimized for web use. They can alternatively be embedded as HTML snippets; inline or as Base64. Iconmonstr makes all the different options available.
As opposed to downloading single icons, iconmonstr offers 300+ free icons in one iconic font. This may be more useful depending on the kind of project the icons are used in. If you need an icon and can’t find it; you could simply put in a request for it to be made. Lastly, iconmonstr has a favorites tab for you to save all your personal bests in a collection for future use.
6.Icons8
Image Credit: Icons8.com
Icons8 is a site that is aimed at allowing designers express their ideas by giving them the right tools. It is basically an all-round designer goody site. They have almost every visual element you would need while designing. But for this blog, let’s focus on their icon library.
One of the things that stand out when using icons8 is the number of icon styles available for download. With over 36 icon styles, users get to pick exactly what style they want and have an entire library of similar icons to go with it. All the icons can be edited right on the site before being downloaded and they are all pixel perfect. The icons can be downloaded in PNG, SVG, or PDF formats and the site also allows for the icons to be embedded.
Icons8 also provides other free software to help your designs go faster. Some of them are Lunacy – an alternative to Sketch for windows users, photo enhancer, background remover, vector illustrations and many more.
7.Iconstore
Image Credit: Iconstore.com
Iconstore is a collection of unique and original icon packs from well-known designers and design agencies. It is a little different from the other resources for free icons listed here because it does not offer single icons, rather icon packs. As a result, the site has over 230+ uniquely designed icon packs grouped into three distinct categories, Colored, Glyph, and Outline.
You could be more specific and use the search button, that gives you a range of results depending on the keyword you put. You could also search for icons based on categories such as Business, Food, Sports, Gaming, Social Media and many other categories. For every pack you pick, there are related packs for you to choose from.
Almost all the icons available on Iconstore are free to download. There have some exclusive ones also but a premium account is needed to access them.
All icons are available for both personal and commercial purposes without attributions!
8.Free Icons
Image Credit: Freeicons.io
Freeicons, just like some of the other websites resources for free icons curates the best icon pack and makes them available in the simplest of ways.
Icon packs on Freeicons are made up of up to 100 icons and are grouped based on how recently they have been added to the site or how popular they are with users on the site.
All the icons on Freeicons are free and available for download in PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD and Base 64 formats. Of course, the site requires attribution to the author when the icon is used but it most likely is a link in the footer or somewhere on your page. You could also become a contributor on the sign by signing-up and submitting your icons on the site and earn from royalties on your icons.
All icons on Freeicons are categorized into 13 different styles including 3D, Cartoon, Flat, Glyphs, Flat and many more. The icons are also available for download in up to 9 different sizes, ranging from 16 x 16 to 512 x 512. Every icon has its own dedicated page and a bunch of related icons to go along with what you have selected.
9. Font Awesome
Image Credit:Fontawesome.com
Font Awesome is a font and icons toolkit based on CSS and Lass that’s open-source and GPL friendly. It is almost impossible to talk about websites with free icons and not talk about Font Awesome. They have been around for up to 8 years now and continue to be used by millions of designers and developers all around the world.
Font Awesome currently has more than 1,500+ free icons and 7,800+ pro icons available for download. It is one of the top ongoing open-source projects on GitHub. Having such a large amount of icon resources doesn’t stop Font Awesome from allowing users add their own personal icons and logos to the toolkit. Icons on Font Awesome are all professionally designed, pixel perfect and are available in a variety of styles
They have just introduced duotone icons which automatically styles your icons in two different colors of your choosing.
10.Streamline:
Image Credit: Streamlinehq.com
We may have saved the best for last with Streamline Icons but then again, all the resources for free icons mentioned in this post are great places to find free icons ..It’s a thing of preference.
Since 2010 Streamline Icons has delivered exceptional icons in pleasing formats and their 3.0 release recently has more than 30,000+ icons available.
Having that much icons available, Streamline developed an app that makes it very easy to get the right icons you need in second from IOS apps to websites and even in print designs. From the app, you can browse and modify the entire collection of Streamline and download straight to any design software you use.
The icons are available in three distinct weights, light, regular and bold; you would notice than rather than just increasing the stroke, each weight is a completely new icon.
Because they understand how frustrating it can be to use icons across different applications, they worked with all the top design software companies to optimize their icons to work seamlessly with the different apps. They also have plugins available for some software like Figma, Sketch, NPM packages and they are fully compatible with IconJar.
Some other icon resources to check out:
Boost your design with these free resources for icons
Image Credit: harpal-singh-unsplash
From this list, there are about 7 million icons to download and customize, but it is not about the quantity but the quality of these sites that matter. A lot of these sites are free and, in the rest, only maybe an attribution link that’s needed.
Remember that icons are supposed to help communicate vital information to users.
Make sure the icons used across the design are uniform and serve a purpose. You can combine these amazing icons with amazing illustrations and boost the visual appeal of your deign. Check out the best free resources for illustrations
Be sure to let us know any other freebie site you use for your designs, or if you feel we missed out some; recommend them to us in the comments.