70 Royalty Free Music Websites:
The Complete List (2018)

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“Jamendo” is a music platform that offers users the ability to listen, download and download music for free according to the free licenses of Creative Commons and Free Art.

You can use their music for non-commercial projects as long as you credit an artist. If you need a track for commercial use you’ll need to purchase a commercial license.

In fact, the voluntary donations used by the system are the first serious attempt to pay the labor of singers and musicians at the expense of a website with public files.

CCTrax is curated creative commons source. It has a quite good search, easy-to-download function and offers over 1,000+ individual tracks. Wide music genres from ambient to house and good catalogue logic. Each release has a short description, making it easy to understand what kind of license you need.

FMA suggest quite big collection of music with wide genres. They got insanely big amount of artists and in-depth FAQ system. This is resource for audiophiles of all stripes, and all of their audio has been hand-picked by established audio curators. It has free access to music due to legal audio downloads directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America.

HearThis is a German online audio distribution platform. It is also an online community where musicians share their tracks. It has really smooth and modern design and over 400.000 users and counting. It has a separate section for those with Creative Commons license types available.

Freeplay Music was founded by Scott Schreer – co-composer and producer of the “NFL On Fox” theme – in 2001. In 2013 Freeplay Music entered into an agreement with YouTube that revolutionizes how people use music and videos on the internet. The just announced their new platform with over 50,000 tracks inside. You can find there CC licenses as well as commercial type.

SoundClick is really authority and old website, where many hip hop makers started. It has over 5 million glorious songs in their portfolio and really impressive list of artists. They have commercial licenses as well as Creative Common.

Incompetech Music is leading by Kevin MacLeod. You can narrow search by genre, feel, tempo or length. In 2015, Kevin was awarded the International Honorary Web Video Award by the European Web Video Academy for his lifetime achievement in influencing the German web video community.

Musopen is a non-profit  launched by Aaron Dunn in 2005. They provide recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions. Their mission is to set music free. In 2010, the site organized a fundraiser via Kickstarter to commission recordings of a larger repertoire, raising a total of $68,359, more than six times their initial target of $11,000.

ccMixter is a community music website that offers remixes, samples and cappella tracks licensed under Creative Commons available for download and re-use in creative works. The got over 10,000 samples from a wide range of recording artists, including high-profile artists such as Beastie Boys and David Byrne.

TeknoAXE is royalty free music platform with big choice of music styles. They cover genres from EDM to Comedy and Drama. Almost all of their music presented on youtube, so it`s easy to scale and download.

TrackTour Music is online music library that produce music for audio-visual and multimedia. It`s really easy to download song and use search function, genres include jazz, blues, R&B, piano and few more. Library offers royalty free high quality music loops by Gugge Kristofferson. It is updating almost every week.

Audionautix developed by Jason Shaw – Composer, producer and engineer. He created all of the music on the website, mostly from scratch. Also he invites guest composers who donate 5 pieces to the website and set them free to the world forever. You can also find there forum community.

iBeat is a production music library and maintained by Peter Jones & Anders Enøe. It contains free instrumental music downloads under CC licensing, but it`s not totally free. Some music is public domain, some available for commercial use under attribution, and most under a non-commercial license. There is no sign up, no hidden fees – just easy stream teasers and packaged audio.

SampleSwap was developed by Canton Becker in 2001. They offer free professional quality 320Kbps MP3s suitable for remixing, DJ’ing, film scores, radio, TV, video games, podcasting and more. Besides free music you can find there audio samples, like drums, SFX, vocals, loops and so on.

Opsound is a project of artist Sal Randolph. It is a website which aggregates links to music released under Creative Commons and Public Domain licenses. They don`t host works. Despite there is no search function, you can choose genre or tags and listen to each track.

The YouTube Audio Library offers a collection of tracks that can be used as background music. You can find step-by-step guide in the Help Center.

Continuing talking about youtube source. Audio Library is a YouTube channel dedicated to search, catalog, sort and publish free music for commercial purposes, destined to content creators and filmmakers. They has over 1000 free songs, sorted by artist, musical genre and mood.

Bump Foot is a non-profit netlabel in Japan. There are two main directions: techno/house and ambient/IDM/etc. They also accept works (only albums) for release and got quite big list of artists.

They offer a 100% royalty free license that allows you to use the music in all types of productions, for worldwide distribution, forever. There are never any licensing fees. They got main styles in their catalogue like rock, hip-hop, pop, so on. You must register an account there to download songs.

Name says it all – all music is created by Josh Woodward. He offers quite comfort structure with music catalogue, and you can easily listen and download a song. Josh offers even vocal tracks. All he is asking in return is your email and some attribute.

Jewel Beat has over 35,000 track. You can find a couple hundred background music tracks that can be used for TV, videos, school projects or YouTube videos for free. You just need to provide a link to their site. That`s simple.

Probably you guess this is Moby site 🙂 This site is a resource for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short. Authors offers us about 150 tracks, which can be used for free via a simple online application system. You can find all details on his site.

MusicForMonetize is a YouTube channel that was created by Youtubers to help other Youtube users find the best creative commons music for their videos that they can monetize (use commercially in the videos).

Purple Planet Music leading by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn. Guys compose, perform, record, produce and mix all Purple Planet material. Matt Dingle is Studio Manager. You can find plenty of music there in exchange for linking to their site.

Scott Buckley is a music composer, writing cinematic music for media projects. You can use his music for non-commercial purposes freely, as long as he’s credited as the composer. Great music and easy-to-filter search.

Peter John Ross offers all of his music on the site for free, as long as he’s credited. As a filmmaker Peter John Ross has produced, edited, and directed several award winning films. His more recent work, the feature film Horrors of War has worldwide distribution.

You probably heard about BenSound. Benjamin Tissot is a composer and musician based in France who has been writing music for more than 10 years. His music can be used for any multimedia project, as long as you link back to the website. Great FAQ will help you out.

PacDV has been producing a range of sound effects and music for filmmakers, sound designers, music producers and multimedia developers since 2001. All tracks are categorized by type (voice, ambience, etc.) and emotions.

Shane Ivers stands behind Silverman Sound Studios. You can read whole story on his ‘about me’ page. There are 12 tracks to start with at least one new track being added every week. Filter by style and mood.

Logan Nickleson is the brain behind ‘Music For Makers’. Long story short, Logan made ‘Music for Makers’ because He is a maker. And as a maker, he was frustrated with the lack of good, free stock music.

Aaron Newton, Scott Bilby, and Justin Sinkovich are original founders of Epitonic. Posting free and legal MP3s available for streaming and download, working directly with thousands of artists and labels. Site has its long path from 1999 until now and got some fateful leaps in their story. Justin Sinkovich relaunched Epitonic as manager and principal owner. Thanks to Kickstarter Relaunch Contributors source is back with its main target – helping fans to discover the best in cutting edge music.

The founders of Fanburst, based in Australia and the US, believe that it is a true place for musicians and fans. There should be no costs and no barriers to entry for the next great artist. They got artists like Bonobo, ODESZA, XYLO, Pell and others. Also you can participate in their ‘Creators Program’. And there is unlimited streaming for fans.

Founded by Brett Woitunski, Mitchell Pavao and Nathan Hudson – PureVolume is place for the discovery and promotion of new music and emerging artists. Since its launch in 2003 it goes through long story and has been widely recognized as a premier social music site. Received praise in the New York Times, L.A. Times, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and beyond.

Founded in 2005 by Alex Lunkov and Sergey Chudnovsky. 4shared provides its users with the highest-quality, free online hosting and sharing services.  It is a place where you can listen and download music for free, and discover some cool new songs and remix from amateur and pro musicians.

Internet radio and the social network founded by four music fans from Austria and Germany – Felix Miller, Martin Stixel, Michael Breidenbruecker and Thomas Willomitzer. Last.fm not only streams music, but has special section called Free Music Downloads. You can get folk, classical, rock or pop music in MP3 format. Despite there are no filters or search options, you can only scroll a long list of songs. However, Last.FM terms don’t say anything about tracks distribution or further use. So, no one guarantees that your account won’t be compromised if you upload your video with Last.FM free audio to YouTube or Vimeo channel.

Digital History is a resource from the University of Texas, the University of Houston and the University of Hawaii that provides access to historical music that their research has indicated is in the public domain. They got trully interesting work besides music. Team consist of: Steven Mintz, Sara McNeil, John Lienhard, Grance Lin, Michael Rapp.

Formerly created by in 1995 by Tom Fulp, but taken its name at 1999 ‘NewGrounds’ is an amazing resource for musicians, fans and everyone. Stylish design, easy navigation panel and huge library of audio, games, movies, art and more.

Founded by Per Killstofte and Jens Killstofte at 2009. They also produce the music on the site. Their purpose is to provide media creators with quality music. You can download and use their free music for both personal and commercial use as long as you provide credit.

DL Sounds launched at 2009 and offers free, paid and subscription-based audio loops, music tracks, intro’s & audio logo’s for movies, games, YouTube and other multimedia projects.

Sonicsquirrel was started in summer 2005 by group of zurich based artists as a side-project of an experimental two-week radio session. It is a platform and distribution channel for netlabels. Its aim is to promote free music and help artists and netlabels make their work easily available for a wider audience.

Soundshiva is open source audio catalogue for netlabel music, sortable by genre. You should read the creative common license and download away. SoundShiva relies on community donation to keep going in return for promoting fresh tunes by new artists on one easily accessible platform.

Jimmy Gelhaar is a founder and artist who has composed a variety of music styles throughout his career. All the music on his site is composed by him, and you can download and apply his music for your project for free but only for personal use.

Join 50.000+ people around the world using our music. Highly curated collection of exclusive royalty free music, produced by hand-picked team and contributors. Music on HookSounds is released free of copyrights under Creative Commons, you may download and use it in a wide variety of uses.

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Audiojungle founded in 2006 by Collis Ta’eed, Cyan Claire, and Jun Rung. Audiojungle is a part of Envato and represents a huge music market. It has over 650,000 music inside and you can choose any song on your taste that will fit well into your project. I really like its eco-system and user-friendly interface. Also, working inside their system, I can say – they are really good in business.

Pond5 was founded in 2006 by Marcus Engene and Tom Bennett as a way for video producers to license content to third parties. Pond5 is a global media marketplace providing artists around the world with an opportunity to license their work to an international community of media producers and brands. They also launched Public Domain project.

PremiumBeat founded by Francois Arbour, Gilles Arbour in 2005. It is now a Shutterstock company and provides exclusive, high-quality tracks and sound effects for use in new and traditional media projects, including videos, films, apps, games, and television programming.

AudioBlocks founded by Joel Holland in 2009 with a single vision: to provide premium creative content that everyone could afford. It goes quite well and idea grew into VideoBlocks, followed by the launch of GraphicStock.

One of co-founders is Craig Nimens. Audio Hero dedicated to providing high-quality audio that will fit anyone’s budget. They have more than 250,000 professional tracks of royalty free music, sound effects and production elements.

Founded in 2013 by one Tyler Williams and Eri Levin. Motion Array is a membership marketplace focused on providing the highest quality content for video producers, marketers, motion graphics and VFX artists. Has its own cool design and different features for artists.

AudioMicro founded by Ryan Born in 2008 and now is a part of AVL Digital Group. It provides the web’s best collection of royalty free music and sound effects at affordable prices. Their contributors are GRAMMY winning composers and Oscar winning sound effects artists and production houses.

The company was founded in 1995 with a modest venture capital investment and offices located in Northridge, CA. SmartSound LLC. is the maker of the SmartSound family of royalty free music technology and content products.

Founded in 2009 by David Stenmarck, Jan Zachrisson, Oscar Höglund, Peer Åström and started as a production music library. Later, Hjalmar Winbladh joined to the team. Company is really passionate about 3 things: visual content, audio content and innovations.  They offer over 25K high-quality tracks.

Neo Sounds LLC was founded in 2006 by professional music designers, engineers and recording specialists. It offers a vast selection of music clips and sound effects for filmscores, videos and multimedia projects in over 85 styles, genres and themes.

Owned and operated by Trad Ventures, LLC – Stockmusic offers quality music of the greatest composers from all over the world. They offer wide range of music and their license started at $39.95.

Getty Investments LLC founded in 1995 by Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein. In September 1997 formed to Getty Images. It is among the world’s leading creators and distributors of award-winning still imagery, video, music and multimedia products.

Great source for picking up music for your project, film or business. Useful search panel with moods, genres, instruments and artists. They also have sound effects and CD collections. Quite fair prices and good quality.

Behind ‘MusicFox’ you’ll find a competent and customer-friendly team. They are happy to advise you on the selection of music, help you with any licensing issues and assist you with technical questions.

Select Music was founded in 2016 by Carmine Giglio and Adam Forgione. They created a music library that would only represent select tracks from some of the best unknown artists in the world. SM’s mission is to help filmmakers and musicians to connect with each one.

Jack Waldenmaier is a president and executive producer of ‘Music Bakery’. You can choose through mood, style and category.

‘ContiMusic’ is a child of Tom and Christine Conti. They offer affordable royalty free music for projects.

‘Master Jingle’ is a dynamic platform that offers quality musical creations to professionals and corporate clients.

‘Music 2 Hues’ supplies royalty free music downloads worldwide. They offer over 100 music genres containing over 2500 royalty free music tracks for instant download. You can find different styles ranging from Cinematic music to Rock n Roll.

‘FRESH Music’ was founded in 1989. They want to meet the new and emerging use of royalty free music and affordable quality music for performances and broadcasts in the market.

In 2012 Konstanzer and Jasmin Thilo founded ‘Free Intro Music’ with purpose where everyone could download music for free with license. Later, it turned out into an e-shop, letting members buy a usage license. They got interesting story on their site. In 2017 is the birth of ‘Yummy Sounds’.

Co-Founded in 2006 by Roy Ashen, ‘Triple Scoop Music’ makes music licensing easy. Company built by passionate musicians, songwriters and creatives who believe that great music is the foundation for the best media projects.

‘SOUNDOTCOM’ is a provider of stock music licensing services. They believe in quality over quantity and offer the simplest and easiest way to find Royalty Free Music from the best composers in the business for your project. They offer music completely free from rights of any collecting society (100% royalty free).

‘The Music Case’ started in 2005 as a small website with the purpose to host 30 tracks. 9 years later they are hosting 95,000+ tracks from composers from all around the world serving thousands of creative people and companies from over 40 countries. Their mission is to create the best global music licensing marketplace connecting creative musicians with creative producers around the world.

Alexander Talmon is CEO and founder of ‘Proud Music Library’. Since 1999 they suggests Royalty Free Music and Production Music with a background of more than 200 affiliated composers and music producers. Filled up with a content of high-quality music for the multimedia, broadcast and computer games industry. The tracks are online available to listen and to license directly.

Founded by Anthony Kimber Mc-Tiffen. Company is a UK Royalty Free Music library producing high quality production music for all new and traditional media. They also produce in-store PRS PPL free music which can played as background music in your business.

Established in 2005 by Lee Pritchard and Adam Barber. UK company providing curated royalty-free music, sound effects, voice-overs and audio production services to clients around the world.

APM Music is the leading creative music house & production music library. For over two decades, it`s president – Adam Taylor has been helping intellectual property companies, organizations and individuals manage and extract value from their copyrights, trademarks and patents.

Music Dealers was started in 2008 by Eric Sheinkop, John Williamson and Jonathan Sheinkop. A group of musicians and entrepreneurs with one office in Chicago. In a short time, the company has grown to have offices in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta and London.