Icons may look small and simple, but they play a massive role in marketing, design, and branding.
Not only do they add personality to your brand, but like other visuals, they help to communicate ideas quicker than text.
Additionally, they make the website user interface more attractive.
Flaticon is one popular source of icons for professional web designers and graphic designers. This database comprises over 5.4 million vector icons and stickers.
Flaticon’s icons are available in PNG, PSD, EPS, SVG, and BASE 64 formats. This platform has both free and premium icons. You can use this platform on the web, iOS, and Android devices.
But I noticed, as a free user, you can only download a limited number of icons per day. Besides, when using Flaticon, it can be difficult to find icons in specific niches.
But, not to worry, there are other platforms with more icon variety and more flexible pricing plans than Flaticon.
Let’s look at some of the best ones.
10 Best Flaticon Alternatives
1. Iconfinder
The quality of icons on this website is superior and their number is bigger than what I have seen on most icon search engines.
We are talking about over 5,743,035 icons and illustrations. And this isn’t another collection of low-quality visual assets. The icons here are eye-grabbing and well-designed.
Iconfinder is lightning fast. How do I know that? After typing in a keyword or topic, the results page shows you the number of results and the duration it took to display the results. Flaticon doesn’t display such a level of detail on its results page.
As an example, I searched for ‘phone’ and clicked enter. Immediately, the page showed about 92,339 results in 0.074 seconds. Now, that’s super-fast, isn’t it?
But that’s not all, the results page also showed a list of other search terms related to ‘phone’ such as mobile, device, telephone, message, and more.
Finding your desired icons or illustrations on this platform is straightforward, thanks to the filters on the left-hand side of the page. You can filter the search by prices and check ‘all prices’ to see both free and premium icons.
You can tick the free option to only see free resources and or click premium to see premium ones.
The other filter is the styles that let you choose from solid, semi-solid, outline, filled outline, 3D, cartoon, badge, hand-drawn, smooth, and so on.
The third filter is that of licenses. We’ve got all licenses, for commercial use, basic license, and no link back. You can choose any of this and the icons with that license type will appear on the page.
Not to mention, you can use the categories to filter your search. The categories are numerous, from military and law enforcement to romance and Halloween.
Iconfinder has three pricing plans. The free plan allows you to access 191,616 icons and illustrations for free. The pay-as-you-go plan charges $2 per icon and $4 per illustration. The pro plan starts from $4.50 a month.
2. IconArchive
Are you looking for a platform with over 735,802 beautiful icons for your design? IconArchive is the place.
When you first visit this icon database, you might be fooled by its simple interface. Behind that simplicity lies tremendous design inspiration in the form of beautiful icons.
Finding a set of icons to choose from isn’t difficult, thanks to the numerous filters on the menu. You can browse the icons by alphabet, popular sets, newest sets, most visited sets, SVG vector sets, artists, random icons, categories, and so on.
If you choose to search the icons by categories, you can select from avatar icons, art icons, business icons, funny icons, places icons, food icons, flag icons, and more.
Whenever I search for an icon on this site, I’m spoiled for choices because the results are in the form of icon sets, and each set has a variety in terms of color and object type.
For example, when you click on the ‘nature icons’ category, you’ll see 64 icon sets. The first icon set (Noto Emoji Food Drink) has 102 icons, such as a red apple, green apple, tangerine, watermelon, broccoli, pear, banana, cherries, kiwi, and the list goes on.
When I click on the watermelon icon, for example, it displays the different formats I can download it in, such as SV, PNG, and ICO.
But there’s more: it also displays the different icon sizes like 512px, 128px, 96px, 72px, and more.
So, if looking for an icon library with more variety and finer detail, IconArchive beats Flaticon.
Additionally, I was able to see the number of icon downloads and ratings before clicking the download button.
Plus there’s an option to add it to my favorite icons. You’d be hard-pressed to find any of these features on Flaticon.
The best part? You can access the icons from this icon search engine for free and download them without logging in.
3. Shutterstock
Shutterstock is a platform with a massive number of icons, photos, illustrations, footage, music, and more. Specifically, they have over 350 million images and add 96,000 images on a daily basis.
Finding icons from this platform is as easy as scrolling down to see their curated collection of icons from their worldwide contributors.
Shutterstock has more icon variety than Flaticon because the former has a lot more contributors, updates more icons daily, and features more categories.
Finding your desired icons from this platform isn’t complicated. You need to enter a search query in the ‘Search for images’ box at the top of the page.
After the results appear, filter them further using the options to the left of the screen. The filters include things like color, image type, orientation, age, gender, ethnicity, people, category, artists, image size, and more.
Obviously, Shutterstock has more search filters than Flaticon, which means you can narrow down the options to find the exact resource you need.
What I found most interesting about Shutterstock is that they have bundled icons under specific categories and named them right on the page.
So, while scrolling, you can see things like banking icons, thin line icons, 48×48 pixel-perfect editable stroke, thin line mini icons, flat web icons, modern line icons, social media icons, business and finance, and COVID-19 prevention icons, just to name but a few.
More importantly, you can download and upload icons to this platform.
Shutterstock offers both subscription and on-demand packs. Subscription starts at $29 per month for 10 images and is annually billed. The subscription plan has a free one-month trial.
If you don’t want commitments, you can decide to only pay when you need the images. The on-demand pack starts at $49 for five images.
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4. Freepik
Freepik features a huge collection of PSDs, vectors, and photos with millions of components to choose from.
It’s worth noting that Freepik and Flaticon are two projects from one company, but the two platforms work independently. That’s why if you want to download icons from Freepik, you may be directed to download from Flaticon.
It’s isn’t difficult to locate an icon you want. But, if you can’t find the exact graphic that you want, it’s easy to find something else that’s very similar to it.
Navigating around this platform isn’t difficult at all. There’s a neat and organized category structure. Overall, the user interface is user-friendly.
Freepik’s resources are divided into four major categories: icons, vectors, stock photos, and PSD files. And each category has several sub-categories to help you narrow your search down.
Freepik allows two types of users: free and premium. As a free user, you can be non-registered or registered.
While registered free users can download up to 10 graphics a day, non-registered users can only download three graphics per day.
On the other hand, premium users can download as many as 100 resources per day.
As a free user, you can use the resources downloaded, but you’ll need to provide credit or attribution to the authors. If you don’t want to give attribution, subscribe to Freepik’s premium plan.
What excites me about Freepik is the social interaction component. In other words, if I like a particular artist’s works, I may follow them, like their works, or even leave a comment.
But remember only registered users can leave comments, which helps to cut down on comment spam.
Freepik offers a flexible subscription plan to its users. If you choose a monthly subscription, you can pay €9.99 every month. But if you choose an annual subscription, you can pay a total of €89.99 a year, which comes to €7.49 a month.
Also Read: Ripl vs Canva
5. Icons8
Icons8 provides solid design assets that designers and developers can use on their projects. The main resource on this platform is icons but you can also find illustrations, photos, and music.
Selecting an icon from this library is child’s play. You can search the name of an icon you have in mind at the top and choose from the results that appear.
You can also choose one of the categories and see the icons associated with it. Icons8 has tons of categories arranged alphabetically, from weather and calendar to money and cinema.
There are over 293,100 free icons on Icons8 and thousands more are added frequently to keep the library fresh.
Not only can you find beautiful icons on this site, but you can also access powerful apps to help with icon editing and other design tasks.
You will find interesting apps like Pichon (an icon editor), Ouch! (for finding vector source files), vector creator (a tool for editing vector images), Lunacy (for vector design), and moose (for photo editing).
Each icon from this library is designed to be pixel-perfection to ensure you get the right icons for your projects.
I was able to download icons from this platform without creating an account. I also realized that Icons8 lets you request a missing icon.
Looking for music to add to your videos? Icons8 has a massive music library covering all genres, from Jazz to Surf Rock. That’s a feature you can’t find on Flaticon.
How does Icons8 price its design assets? Well, free access requires that you link back to Icons8 and it also offers you limited formats with a lower resolution.
To access more items, you can subscribe monthly or yearly to an individual resource or the platform’s entire set of assets and apps. For example, icons alone cost $13 a month or $119 a year. All assets and apps on the platform cost $29 a month and $259 a year.
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6. Noun Project
Noun Project is a platform that continues to create a global visual language in the form of icons and symbols.
With over three million icons to sift through, this is one of the biggest icon databases on this list. Unlike Flaticon which has only icons, stickers, and interface icons, Noun Project has a huge collection of authentic photos in addition to icons.
Searching for icons isn’t that difficult; simply type in the search bar any word or topic and you’ll see the icons and photos related to your search.
To download the assets on this platform, you need to sign up for an account, which only takes a minute. Don’t want to type in an email or come up with a password? No problem as you can sign up with your Facebook account.
The icon collection on this platform covers a wide array of subjects, from zebras to astronauts. Each icon on this site has been professionally curated for diversity, inclusion, and quality. You can download the icons in SVG or PNG formats for easy editing.
Noun Project is super diverse and this starts from its community of designers who are from more than 120 countries. So, the icon collection on this platform is so diverse and extensive.
While curating its icon and photo library, Noun Project focuses on inclusion. In other words, each visual on this platform has been carefully picked to celebrate the beautiful world of diversity. Their photo collections are aimed at representing and benefiting everyone rather than a few people.
Unlike most websites that require you to spend hours rummaging through free but low-quality images to find what you want, Noun Project makes finding visual assets easy. They have focused on quality, not just quantity. So, it’s easy to search and find what you want and use it for your needs.
Noun Project prices its icons and photos separately. They have a free plan, which gives you access to all the icons in SVG and PNG formats.
But a free account has some restrictions, such as you must give attributions, you can’t edit the icon shape, color, or background, and so on. Free users will also see ads while browsing the site.
Premium plans start at $2.99 per icon, $39.99 per year for an individual subscription, and $39.99 per year for a team subscription. I find this pricing plan affordable.
7. iStock
iStock is another platform with over 7 million vector images alone. This number isn’t inclusive of the videos, photos, and illustrations available on this site.
You can search an item by typing a keyword or topic in the search bar at the top of the page and selecting vectors, illustrations, photos, or videos.
iStock provides related search terms whenever you enter a keyword in the search box. That’s a feature I can’t find on Flaticon, which is why I think iStock is a better alternative.
When searching for something on this platform, you can click on the ‘Essentials’ button to see the available results for the lowest price. You can also click on the ‘Signature’ button which displays the best quality results.
You can also refine the search using the filters on the left. That means you can select options like the best match, most popular, newest, orientation, only from iStock, age, color, size, upload date, and much more.
I like iStock because it allows me to use its visual assets for any personal, commercial, or business purposes. That means I can use the content on marketing, websites, advertising, social media, product packaging, presentations, magazines, books, and other uses.
iStock has two types of pricing plans: subscriptions and credit packs. The subscription plan starts at $29 per month while credit packs start at 18 credits or $170.
8. IcoMoon
This icon tool provides you with three major services: the IcoMoon app, vector icon packs, and hosting icons as fonts or SVGs.
Not only is the IcoMoon app free, but also it contains over 5500 free vector icons that you can browse through to find what suits your needs.
Here’s something I like about IcoMoon: it lets you create custom fonts that only consist of the icons you need.
If you’re looking for icons with pixel-perfect results, the IcoMoon app has got you covered. It takes the icons’ grid sizes into account and produces picture-perfect results along with the correct alignment. You’ll see a properly displayed font size set at the front end.
Other than letting you choose from the icons uploaded by other users, this platform allows for the importation of your own vectors via the IcoMoon app. Specifically, you can import SVG fonts or SVG images.
Here’s an interesting feature you won’t find on Flaticon and most icon websites: the offline option. After loading in the browser, the IcoMoon application runs offline.
Besides, once you generate a font or import an icon, everything takes place locally, right in your browser.
It gets better: the icons on this platform are scalable meaning you can change a font icon’s display size the same way you’d change the text size on your web page.
Here’s one more reason I like IcoMoon: the font icons are resolution and vector independent. In other words, all the icons look sharp on any display regardless of the resolution. They look neat on both desktop and mobile.
IcoMoon has a free plan and two premium plans. The basic plan starts at $9 for 30 days while the unlimited plan starts at $19 for 30 days.
9. Fontello
So far, most of the sites we have listed have a massive collection of icons that you can download and use on your design projects.
Fontello offers a unique service; it lets you create icon fonts from various vector images, download them, and use them on your design projects. Further, it allows you to combine fonts from several open-source platforms, such as Font Awesome, Typicons, and Entypo in a single file.
How do you create a font using Fontello’s icons? I will explain.
First, you need to go to the Fontello homepage and select the icons you need. For example, if you’d like to use their font icons associated with social media buttons, start by choosing the Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest icons.
After selecting your desired icons, click the “customized names” tab to change the icons’ names. For instance, the Facebook icon reads icon-facebook-rect, but I could change this to icon-fb.
Once you’re happy with the selected icons and their customized names, click on the download button to export icons to your device. That’s it. You can use the icons on your projects.
Additionally, Fontello allows you to import custom images and fonts in SVG format. But remember, you’ll need to tweak the SVG files so they can convert properly. For instance, you’ll need to remove all the colors and fills from them.
Fontella is a free icon font generator, but there’s a donate button just in case you feel a little generous to support the project.
10. Font Awesome
Font Awesome is an open-source icons library that features vector icons and social logos.
The first thing that strikes my attention in this icons library is the user-friendly interface.
Once you go to the website, you can start by typing a niche at the top to see the available icons.
There are tons of categories to help you filter your search, including animals, brands, light, education, finance, food, currency, energy, hotel, health, games, and you name it.
But perhaps the easiest feature to use to narrow down your icon search is the free and paid option.
By the time of writing this article, the free icons library has about 1608 icons while the paid collection has more (7864) icons.
Not only can you download icons from Font Awesome, but you can also upload them.
Both Flaticon and Font Awesome let you upload icons in SVG format through file browsing or drag-and-drop.
But Font Awesome makes the uploading process even easier by letting you paste the icon directly from Adobe Illustrator to your kit.
Font Awesome integrates with other popular tools, such as JavaScript, Webpack, Bootstrap, React, AngularJS, Vue.js, Ember.js, CSS 3, Sketch, and more.
The icons and styling in this database are stress-tested to ensure they display and work seamlessly in any modern browser.
But that’s not all. The bundled styling lets you size the icons to match your user interface. In other words, you can align, rotate, stack, pull, or mirror them with ease.
Did I mention you can also grow, shrink, or rotate the icons on a granular scale? Layering and masking several icons together is also possible.
Font Awesome has two plans: free and pro. The latter costs $99 per year and gives you access to more styles, page views, icons, kits, and human tech support.
The Winner
All of the above platforms are excellent, but if I had to choose the best Flaticon alternative, I would go for Iconfinder.
First, it has a massive number (over 5.7 million) of icons, which gives me variety when searching for something.
Also, it has only icons and illustrations, which makes it less overwhelming when searching for icons. I don’t have to worry about videos, music, and other graphics. I can find my icons quicker.
The search results page displays how long the search took place and the number of results. I find this feature impressive.
Further, the icons on Iconfinder are of superior quality and attention-grabbing. The pricing is very affordable as well.
