Free placeholder images
LoremFlickr is a small PHP library for placeholder images for every case, web or print, on almost any subject, in any size. It's simple and free. Just put the custom url in your code like so:
<img src="https://your-website.com/i/width-320/height-240" />Photos come from Flickr and have a Creative Commons license. The flavour of the license is shown in the top left of the image. The author is shown in the bottom left.
No more hosting
In late 2024, Flickr started enforcing fairly strict API usage limits, eventually blocking LoremFlickr entirely. The service still runs, but if you want control over your images, you will have to set up the code on your own machine. LoremFlickr will keep on serving placeholder images, but can only serve the default image, a fine photo of Tomoboli.
Version 3
This is a partial rewrite, giving you more power as to what images to look for. You can also set an hourly request limit, to stay within the Flickr API limits. Get it on GitHub, where you find usage instructions.
Version 2
This is the version that has been running on LoremFlickr for years, and will keep running for now. To roll your own version, to have control over what is shown, installation and usage instructions are now on GitHub.
Free!?
Yes, still free. Feel free to chip in for the price of a cheap beer.