Icons8
Icons8 LLC · Image · Other
Icons8 is a design asset platform from Icons8 LLC that bundles over 1.3 million icons, illustrations, photos, and AI editing tools under one subscription, with free downloads for anyone who links back.
About Icons8
What Is Icons8
Icons8 is a design assets platform and AI toolkit built for designers, developers, and anyone who needs visuals for a product. It started in 2012 as a free icon set of 1,000 Windows 8 style symbols made to promote the founder's work, then grew into a full platform covering icons, illustrations, 3D models, stock photos, and royalty free music. The company, Icons8 LLC, says 4 million people use its assets, and unlike most graphic marketplaces it draws its library in house rather than reselling third party work.
The core problem it solves is consistency. Mixing icon sets from different sources produces mismatched weights, corners, and spacing, which shows up as sloppy UI. Icons8 addresses that by offering full styles rather than stray files, so a single project can pull every symbol from one coherent set. Teams that need editable vectors, larger resolutions, or offline access run into the paid plans, while the free tier stays open to anyone willing to credit the site.
The limits matter before you commit. The free tier trades full quality for a required link back to icons8.com, and its downloads are bitmap at reduced sizes, so print work and vector edits need a subscription. The subscription license is a worldwide, non exclusive, revocable right to use the assets, not ownership of them, and you cannot resell the files as standalone downloads.
Getting Started
- Open icons8.com and browse icons, illustrations, photos, or the AI tools, all reachable from the top navigation.
- Search by keyword or filter by style and category to narrow a large library down to what fits your project.
- For free use, download the lower resolution file and add a link back to icons8.com wherever the asset appears.
- Create an account to buy a subscription, unlock editable vectors and high resolution files, and drop the attribution requirement.
- Add the Figma or Photoshop plugin, or install the Lunacy app, to drop assets straight into your design file instead of downloading each one by hand.
Product Information
A quick look at Icons8's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.
Best for
The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.
Users
- UI and product designers
- Web and app developers
- Solo creators and small studios
Tasks
- Assembling a consistent icon set
- Removing image backgrounds
- Upscaling low resolution images
- Generating illustrations on demand
Scenarios
- Kicking off a new product design
- Prepping assets for a client handoff
- Rescuing a weak image on deadline
- Building marketing graphics
Key features
A Library of Full Icon Styles, Not Loose Files
Icons8 sells styles, not a pile of single icons. One set carries the same weights, corners, and spacing across every symbol, so dropping in a new icon does not break the rhythm of a toolbar or a sidebar. That consistency is the whole reason teams standardize on one library instead of grabbing the first free icon that fits.
Editable Vectors and Multiple Export Formats
Paid plans unlock editable SVG and other vector formats alongside PNG, PDF, and EPS. Designers can recolor a symbol, tweak a corner, or scale to any size without a blurry result. For developer handoffs, the same icon exports cleanly into code ready assets rather than a screenshot to trace.
AI Editing Tools Inside the Same Account
Background Remover, Smart Upscaler, Face Swapper, GenYOU, and the Illustration Generator sit beside the asset library. A single subscription covers both the graphics and the tools that clean them up, so you are not juggling a separate AI service for a cutout or an upscale. AI credits are shared across those tools, so heavy use on one draws from the same pool.
Design Software With the Library Built In
Lunacy is Icons8's own design app, and it ships with the library already inside, so you drag an asset onto the canvas instead of downloading it first. Pichon brings the same assets to Mac and Windows as a native app. The Figma and Photoshop plugins cover the tools many designers already live in.
Free Tier Built on Attribution
The free tier is not a trial that expires. It gives you real assets in bitmap form for as long as you keep a link back to icons8.com in the final work. Open source projects get the assets at no cost under the same terms. That structure keeps the barrier low for students and side projects while nudging commercial users toward a paid license.
Documented API for Automation
An API at developers.icons8.com serves icons, illustrations, photos, and music for teams that need assets inside a pipeline rather than a browser. It splits usage into download calls and search calls, with separate allowance counters. The trade off is that caching content pulled from the API is not allowed, so an integration has to fetch fresh each time.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Icons come as complete styles, so a whole interface stays visually consistent instead of mixing mismatched packs.
- The free tier delivers usable assets for a link back, which suits students, open source work, and small side projects.
- Paid plans add editable vectors and multiple formats, covering recoloring, printing, and developer handoffs from one source.
- Design tools and AI editing tools share one account and one credit pool, so you avoid paying for several subscriptions.
- A documented API opens the library to automated pipelines without a designer clicking through the site.
Cons
- The free tier only gives bitmap files at reduced sizes with a required link back, so print and vector work is off limits without paying.
- The subscription grants a revocable license to use the assets, not ownership, and files cannot be resold as standalone downloads.
- Icon styles and quality still need eyes on them, since a style that fits one product can look wrong in another.
- API users cannot cache fetched content, which adds requests and cost to integrations that would otherwise store assets locally.
Frequently asked questions
It supplies graphic assets, mainly icons and illustrations, for apps, websites, and presentations, plus AI tools that clean those images up. Designers use it to keep a product's visuals consistent instead of pulling from scattered sources.
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