Placeholder Profile Pictures for Mockups: 8 Free Sources

Pravatar is one URL and nothing else: no key, no sign-up. https://i.pravatar.cc/300 returns a random face at 300px (up to 1000). Add ?img=12 for a fixed photo, or ?u= with any string for a stable face per user:

<img src="https://i.pravatar.cc/[email protected]" alt="" width="48" height="48">

The pool is small (the page does not state a count, and repeats show up fast in a long list) and you cannot filter by gender, age or region. The site labels itself CC0 but has no terms page and no stated rate limits, so treat it as a prototype tool. More detail on our Pravatar page.

Use if: you need a face in a mockup in the next 30 seconds.

Random User Generator returns whole fake people: name, email, phone, address, login and a photo in three sizes. That makes it the best fit when your mock needs real-looking records, not only faces.

const res = await fetch('https://randomuser.me/api/?results=20&gender=female&nat=fr&seed=demo');
const { results } = await res.json();
results[0].picture.large; // portrait URL

nat takes country codes (21 in the current version), gender filters, and seed with page gives the same set every time. You can ask for up to 5,000 results per call.

The limits: the last changelog entry is from 2022, rate limits are not documented, and the photo pool is small. The license chain is weak: the site says its photos were hand-picked from the "authorized section" of UI Faces and links to an archived FAQ from 2016. Fine for a prototype, risky for anything you ship or sell.

Use if: you need full fake user records for a demo, a table or a load test.

Personified is made by the All SVG Icons team, so read this entry with that in mind.

It is an npm package of 300+ AI portrait photos of fictional people. Each face has a persona: name, country, region, age band, gender, skin tone and mood. That solves a problem the other sources ignore: a demo for a product in Brazil or Nigeria should show people who could be its users.

import { find, pick, file } from 'personified';

find({ country: 'Brazil' });              // all matching faces
find({ region: 'Europe', band: '60+' });  // older users in Europe
const face = pick(user.id);               // same face per user, every time
file(face.id, 256);                       // image path inside the package

The images ship inside the package as WebP at 128, 256 and 512px, so tests and screenshots do not depend on a third-party server. Hotlinking also works: https://assets.allsvgicons.com/avatars/256/0001.webp. IDs never change.

Code is MIT. The images are free for personal and commercial use with no credit needed, under our own license. Two rules: you cannot resell them as a face library, and you cannot present these people as real (fake reviews, fake staff pages).

The set is smaller than the big photo sites, and not every country has many faces yet.

Use if: your demo or seed data must fit a market, or you need stable faces in tests without a network call.

A curated set of real photos from Unsplash and Pexels, cropped and graded to look consistent, as a zip (JPG, PNG, WebP) and a Figma library. Free for commercial work with no attribution. The one rule: you cannot use them to build another UI kit.

There is no API and no per-user seed, so this is a design tool, not a data tool.

Use if: you work in Figma and want consistent, polished faces in your frames.

UI Faces was the original "avatars for designers" site, and it is not what it used to be. Today it sells a set of AI-made avatars (human, abstract, cartoon and alien), free per image or a few dollars for the full pack, with Figma and Adobe Express plugins. There is no API and no filters beyond the category.

If an older tutorial tells you to call the UI Faces API, that API is gone.

Use if: you want a ready-made set inside Figma and do not need code access.

A simple URL like Pravatar: https://xsgames.co/randomusers/avatar.php?g=female returns a random face, g=pixel returns pixel art. It is fast and free.

The page shows no license, no photo source and no way to get the same face twice. That is fine for a sketch you throw away, and not fine for anything public.

Use if: you need a random face for a quick sketch and nothing else.

A large library of AI faces with the best filters here: age, gender, ethnicity, emotion and more. The catch is the license. Free use is personal and non-commercial only, with a visible credit link. Commercial use needs a paid plan, and the API starts at $250 a month and does not let you cache or store the files.

Use if: you have budget and need very specific faces at scale.

Unsplash has thousands of real portraits, free for commercial use with no attribution required. You cannot sell the photos unchanged or use them to build a competing image service.

These are real people. The license page does not mention model releases, so be careful with any use that suggests the person endorses your product or is your user.

Use if: you need a hero or marketing photo, not a user list placeholder.