Comparison · October 2026
Brollvia vs Pexels
The free library done well: genuinely good photos and videos, a beloved free API, and no price at all — with the limits that come with free.
Pexels is the best free library, and free is a real price advantage no honest page can argue away. Choose Pexels for drafts and personal work; choose Brollvia the moment a client, a platform claim or a brand is attached.
At a glance
| Type | Free stock library — Pexels is owned by Canva. Contributors upload for exposure; there are no royalties. |
|---|---|
| Pexels pricing | Free. There is no paid tier: no Pro plan, no extended licence, no indemnification, no teams product. Monetisation is contributors' exposure and Canva's ecosystem. |
| Brollvia pricing | Free to start; Pro $15/mo or $99/yr (launch annual rate) for unlimited downloads across video, photos, music and SFX; Teams $12/seat/mo; extended licences $49 per asset; AI generation on credit packs. |
| Library | Pexels Play Store listing reports 3M+ free stock photos and videos (October 2026); web trackers quote higher mixed-media totals. |
| Best for | Prototypes, personal projects, mood films and any work where a missing licence record is an acceptable risk. |
| Feature coverage | 4 / 16 features in full 16 / 16 features in full |
Pexels, in full
Pexels is what happens when a free library is run with taste. Owned by Canva, it offers millions of photos and videos — its Play Store listing says 3M+ — shot by a large contributor community and curated well above the free-library average, under a simple licence that does not even require attribution. It is the first tab most creators open for moodboards, prototypes and personal projects, and it earns that position. Any comparison that cannot say "for a lot of work, Pexels is simply enough" is not being straight with you.
The limits are the business model's limits. There is no music and no sound effects at all — two of the four media types simply do not exist here. There is no paid tier, which means there is also no licence record, no indemnification, no extended licence, no teams product and nobody whose job is to answer when a platform or client challenges your right to use a clip. The Pexels licence is permissive and broadly trusted, but trust is not paperwork: when a brand's lawyer asks for the licence, "it was on Pexels" is a weaker answer than a verification link.
Its API deserves the praise it gets: free, well documented, and playful in ways paid APIs are not, including search by colour. Brollvia's API exists for a different job — licensing with records, through REST and MCP — and for pure exploration a developer may honestly prefer Pexels'. The platforms are complements more than rivals: draft on free, ship on licensed. These pages exist to make that boundary precise rather than to pretend free is worthless.
Feature matrix: Brollvia vs Pexels
The head-to-head slice of the shared matrix. The full nine-platform matrix lives on the compare hub.
| Feature | Brollvia | Pexels |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed video | Yes | Yes |
| Photos | Yes | Yes |
| Music | Yes | NoPexels carries no music catalogue |
| Sound effects | Yes | Nono sound-effects catalogue |
| Unlimited downloads | Yeson Pro and Teams plans | Yesfree and unlimited |
| Contributor marketplace | Yescontributors upload, earn per download, with per-asset analytics | Partialcontributors upload for exposure — there are no sales or royalties |
| REST API | YesREST API with keys + OAuth 2.1 | Yesa free, well-loved API including colour search |
| MCP server for AI agents | Yesagents can search AND license, not just generate | No |
| Script-to-B-roll | Yespaste a script, get matched shots per scene | No |
| AI generation in-platform | Yesvia connected providers, on credits, always labelled | Nono in-platform generation |
| Editor panels/plugins (Premiere) | YesUXP panel with licence records built in | Nointegrations target design tools (Canva, Figma, WordPress), not NLE panels |
| Editor panels/plugins (Resolve) | YesWorkflow Integration panel | No |
| Public licence verification | Yesanyone can check a licence code at /verify | Nono licence records to verify |
| Teams | Yes | No |
| Extended licences | Yes | Noone free licence, no extended tier |
| Curated packs | Yes | No |
● full support ◐ partial or tier-limited ○ not offered. Notes are part of the score — read them. Data as of October 2026, from the sources listed on each page.
The price of full access
Compared on the tier a working filmmaker would actually buy — full media access, not a teaser plan. Pexels: Free — $0. Brollvia Pro: $15/mo or $99/yr, unlimited. Full tier tables and traps are in the pricing analysis below; if you drive your edit from a script, see how generation and the API & MCP change the maths.
Library size, as claimed
Pexels Play Store listing reports 3M+ free stock photos and videos (October 2026); web trackers quote higher mixed-media totals. Brollvia is a new, curated contributor library and does not publish a comparable total — on claimed catalogue size, Pexels is the bigger shelf, and this chart says so plainly (log scale).
Where Pexels wins
Written by us, about a competitor, without sanding the edges:
- Price: free beats $15 every time the project allows it
- Free API generosity: no paid API tier at all
- Library size today: millions of photos and videos
- Zero friction: no account walls worth mentioning, no checkout
Where Brollvia wins
- Music and sound effects: entire media types Pexels does not carry
- Licence records per download with public verification at /verify
- Accountability: licences you can show a client, brand or platform
- Contributors earn royalties; on free libraries they earn exposure
- Agent licensing, script-to-B-roll, editor panels, AI generation on the record
Pricing analysis
There is nothing to analyse and that is the point: Pexels costs $0, forever, for everything it has. Brollvia's Free plan is the honest counterweight — free searching and limited watermarked comps, with Pro at $15/mo unlocking the licensed originals — and it still does not beat $0 for the media Pexels carries. Where money re-enters the argument is downstream: a Content ID dispute, a client indemnity clause, a brand-safety review. One avoided dispute pays for years of Pro; zero disputes means Pexels was the right price all along. Price the risk, not the download.
Also price the missing media. A project that needs music and SFX cannot be finished on Pexels at any price — you will buy those elsewhere, per-track or by subscription, and the "free" project quietly acquires a budget anyway. Brollvia's case is one invoice for all four media types with the paperwork included. If your work is video-only and non-commercial, ignore this section and enjoy the free library; it is a good one.
| Pexels plan | Price | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | All photos and videos; attribution appreciated, not required |
For reference, Brollvia: Free to start; Pro $15/mo or $99/yr (launch annual rate) with unlimited downloads of video, photos, music and SFX; Teams $12/seat/mo; extended licences $49 per asset. Full detail on the pricing page, and curated packs are included with Pro.
In the edit: workflow
Pexels' workflow is frictionless browsing backed by a lovely API — teams even build internal tools on it. The friction arrives at delivery: no licence artefact to attach to the project, no verification for a client, and a hard stop when the timeline needs a track or a whoosh. Brollvia's loop is built for the delivery end: brief in, verified licensed assets out, in the editor or through your agent. Different moments of the same week, honestly served by different tools.
Both platforms ultimately meet you in the timeline. Brollvia's editor panels for Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve put search, licensing and download inside the app you already cut in, and the help centre covers the day-to-day. Judge the workflow sections above against your own last three projects, not against a feature list.
Choose Pexels if…
Choose Pexels when the honest answer is that the project does not justify a stock budget at all: student films, prototypes, internal decks, social experiments. The curation quality is genuinely high for free media, the licence is simple, and its free API — with unusual features like colour-based search — is a gift to developers. For a large class of real work, $0 is the correct price.
Choose Brollvia if…
Choose Brollvia when the work is commercial and accountable: you get music and SFX (Pexels has neither), per-download licence records with public verification, contributor support through real royalties, editor panels, and an agent that can license on the record. The step from free-with-no-paperwork to $15-with-paperwork is the whole comparison.
Switching from Pexels
There is nothing to cancel and nothing to migrate — Pexels asks nothing of you, which is its charm. The practical switch is a habit: start new commercial work in a licensed library so the paperwork exists from day one, and keep Pexels for the exploratory phase it is perfect for. Past Pexels downloads remain governed by the Pexels licence as published when you took them; keep a note of source URLs in the project file, as you would for any free asset.
Pexels questions, answered straight
Is Pexels really free for commercial use?
The Pexels licence allows commercial use of its photos and videos without attribution, with sensible restrictions (no selling unaltered copies as stock, no implying endorsement, care with recognisable people and trademarks). What it does not give you is a per-download licence record or indemnification — for client work, that paperwork gap is the real cost of free. Brollvia writes a verifiable licence record for every download.
Why would anyone pay for stock when Pexels exists?
Music and SFX (Pexels has neither), licence proof for clients and platforms, indemnification-grade terms, contributor royalties, and workflow machinery — editor panels, script matching, agent licensing. If none of those touch your project, honestly, do not pay. These pages score Pexels' price advantage plainly.
Can Pexels contributors earn money?
Not from Pexels itself — uploads earn exposure, profile follows and sometimes direct commissions, but no royalties. Brollvia is a contributor marketplace: uploads earn per download, with per-asset analytics. Many creators use free libraries for reach and paid platforms for income; the models coexist.
Does Pexels have an API?
Yes — a free one, and a good one, including colour-based search. It is an exploration API: it does not license on the record or return licence artefacts. Brollvia's REST API and MCP server are built for the licensing step itself, with OAuth and per-download records.
Is it safe to use Pexels in a client video?
Thousands of creators do, under a clear licence. The residual risks are process risks: no record of when you downloaded what, and no one standing behind the asset if a claim lands. For low-stakes work that is a reasonable trade; for a brand campaign, the $15 licence-with-paperwork is cheap insurance.
Data & sources
Data as of October 2026. Library sizes and prices for Pexels are that company's own published claims or reputable reviewer reports, attributed in the text — not audited figures. Prices change; verify on the provider's site before budgeting. Found an error? Tell us and we will fix the record and this page with it.
Try the library that licenses itself
Start free, upgrade when the work does. Every download writes a licence record you can verify in public.