GIFs have come a long way since their inception in 1987 by Steve Wilhite, evolving from simple animations into a staple of digital communication and culture. These looping images—short for Graphic Interchange Format—have become essential tools for expressing emotions, sharing reactions, and enhancing online content.
With their versatility, GIFs are now used widely across social media, email marketing, and websites to capture attention and engage audiences. Platforms like GIPHY, which serves more than 700 million users daily, showcase the immense popularity of GIFs, with over 10 billion GIFs shared every day on the platform and beyond.
In today’s digital landscape, GIFs are more than just entertaining animations—they’re powerful marketing tools that can significantly boost engagement and conversions. Whether you're aiming to add a touch of humor to your social media posts or create compelling visual content for your brand, finding the right GIF is crucial.
To help you navigate this vast and creative world, we’ve curated a list of the top nine websites where you can discover, create, and analyze GIFs to elevate your digital strategy.
What is a GIF?
A GIF, short for Graphics Interchange Format, is a digital image format that supports both static and animated images.
However, their ability to support animations through looping sequences quickly made them popular for a wide range of visual content.
Unlike videos, GIFs are lightweight and easy to share across different platforms, making them ideal for quick, engaging content. They typically loop endlessly, which allows them to effectively capture emotions, reactions, and memorable moments in just a few seconds. Today, GIFs are ubiquitous in digital communication, appearing in everything from social media posts and memes to marketing campaigns and email newsletters.
Whether you're looking to express a reaction, illustrate a concept, or add some personality to your content, GIFs provide a versatile and impactful way to communicate in the digital age.
GIFs are Versatile
The great thing about GIFs is that there's one for every moment. Sure, you wouldn’t use a kitten GIF in an important business presentation, but you could create a stunning visualization to showcase data, like this one from Gifer:
Source: gifer.com
And beyond presentations, GIFs can be used on social media and in emails. In fact, one of the more popular ways of driving clicks to sites is by using video GIFs in emails. They’re engaging and demand interaction.
Using animated GIFs can increase:
- click-through rates by 42%
- conversion rates by 103%
- revenue by 109%
Source: vyond.com
Where to Find The Best GIFs
Finding the best way to communicate a specific message can be challenging, especially if you’re trying to find a GIF that resonates with your audience, tone, and topic. Which is why we’ve curated a list of the best websites to find GIFs. Our list includes nine sites we’ve found to be filled with all the best GIFs to get your message across in style. We’ve also included a collection of interesting facts and figures about each site.
1. GIPHY
Giphy was founded in 2013 by Jack Cooke, Alex Chung and Henry Lockwood. Together, they created what we think is one of the most important GIF platforms in the world. Giphy’s collection includes reactions, entertainment, sports, food/drink, animals, action, anime, cartoons, emotions, and gaming. While these categories are accessible through the main menu, clicking on the Categories link gives you access to everything from action to news and politics GIFs.
Giphy’s also done more than most other GIF providers have to make their content accessible. By partnering with brands and various platforms, you can easily access GIFs from Giphy’s extensive database, giving you a world of options to express yourself.
Giphy facts and figures:
- Acquired by Facebook for an estimated $400 million
- Giphy has over 1+ billion users
- Serves up 10 billion GIFs each day
- Shows 11 million hours of content daily
- Users consume just over two hours of content per day
- Receives two billion API calls each month
- Offers videos and memes
- Available as iOS and Android apps
2. Reaction GIFs
Reaction GIFs was founded in 2011. While little is known about the company online, they have some serious pull. You’ll likely see main categories (Yes, No, OMG!, Dance Party, PopCorn GIFs, Lol, Love, and WTF?), but Reaction GIFs has more to offer. You’ll find GIFs for everything in categories that range from “Abandoned Thread” to “Yuck”. And if that’s not enough to help you find the perfect GIF, you can use the “I am feeling…”, “My answer is…” and search fields.
Reaction GIFs facts and figures:
- Receive over 100 million monthly website visits
- Over 30% of all visitors come from the U.S.
3. GIFbin
GIFBin first appeared online in early 2009. Since then, the site has been home to some of the most entertaining GIFs on the web.
GIFs are grouped by tag, and you can easily find almost any kind of GIF on this site. GINFBin also offers random GIFs. Similar to Google's "Feeling Lucky" feature, users looking to be entertained can click on the "Random GIF" button to be pleasantly surprised. If you’re looking for the most popular GIFs, try the “Top Rated”, “Most Viewed”, and “Commented” tabs.
GIFBin facts and figures:
- GIFBin staff create some of its GIFs
- Receive just under 50k monthly visits
- France and the U.S. make up a third of GIFBin’s most frequent visitors
4. Tumblr
Tumblr was created in 2007 by David Karp. The platform is designed to operate as a hybrid of a microblogging and social media website. It’s also home to more than microblogs and GIFs. You can use Tumblr to find quotes, photos, audio and videos. The site also comes with an “Asks” category. Through it, users can post a question for members to answer.
Tumblr facts and figures:
- Hosts over 500 million blogs
- Over 15 million posts are published each day
- Users can post text, photos, GIFs, videos, live videos, and audio
- Acquired by Automattic for $3 million dollars
- Available as iOS and Android apps
While Tumblr wasn’t designed as a dedicated GIF resource, it’s still a powerful tool. With over 500 million blogs and 15 million+ daily posts, you’re able to search for GIFs for almost any occasion.
5. Imgflip
Imgflip first appeared online in 2011. The site allows users to create images, GIFs, and charts using their propriety online content generator. They’ve also built-in a social element that allows users to share content with friends. Imgflip offers a Pro plan, too. It gives users the ability to remove the Imgflip watermark from content, disables advertisements while on the site, provides more storage, better image quality, and longer videos.
Imgflip facts and figures:
- Receives 11.2 million visits per month
- Offers API and Slack integration
6. Imgur
Imgur was created by Alan Schaaf in his Ohio University dorm room back in 2009. It has dubbed itself as “the easiest way to discover and enjoy the magic of the internet”. Through GIFs and visual stories, it’s managed to draw a sizable crowd and create a passionate community of users from around the world. Like other community-based platforms, Imgur also offers paid advertising opportunities.
Imgur facts and figures:
- Reaches 300 million people per month
- Receives over one billion post views each month
- Ranked as the 15th top site in the U.S. by Alexa
- Offers Imgur Emerald, a subscription service, ad-free experience and premium perks
- Was listed as a 2018 “website that shaped the internet as we know it” by Gizmodo
7. Tenor
Tenor was founded in 2014 by David McIntosh, Erick Hachenburg and Frank Nawabi. The platform is one of the most popular on the web. It gets millions of visitors each month, and billions of searches. It also includes one of the more advanced features we’ve seen rolled into a GIF platform in the form of an analytics dashboard. Tenor Insights offers real-time analysis and visualizations. Together, these features give content creators and marketers a clearer picture of how people use GIFs.
Tenor facts and figures:
- 300 million monthly users
- 12 billion searches per month
- Available as iOS and Android apps
8. Reddit GIFs
Almost everyone has heard of Reddit. It was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, and Aaron Swartz. It’s also referred to as the front page of the internet. And when it comes to GIFs, while Reddit was never meant to be a GIF resource, in true form it became one. Reddit’s model of creating communities saw one develop around GIFs.
Reddit’s GIFs community facts and figures:
- Created in 2009
- 21 million members
- Supports gif, .gifv, .ogg, .mp4, and .webm file formats
- Available as iOS and Android apps
- Also has sister Reddit’s for many other categories
The Most Common Types of GIFs
GIFs have become an integral part of online communication, each serving a unique purpose depending on the context. Below are some of the most common types of GIFs that dominate the digital landscape.
Reaction GIFs
Reaction GIFs capture emotions like excitement, frustration, or humor, making them perfect for responses on social media or in messaging apps. These GIFs are widely used to convey feelings in a fun and relatable way, often replacing text entirely.
Meme GIFs
Meme GIFs consist of short, looping clips from movies, TV shows, or viral videos, overlaid with text to create humorous or sarcastic content. These are frequently shared across platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit, quickly becoming part of internet culture.
Instructional or How-To GIFs
Instructional or how-to GIFs break down complex processes into simple, visual steps. These are particularly useful in tutorials, helping users understand a task at a glance without needing to watch a full-length video.
Reasons to Incorporate GIFs into Your Business
Incorporating GIFs into your business strategy offers a unique opportunity to enhance your digital communication and drive engagement. These short, looping animations are not just entertaining; they are also highly effective at capturing attention and conveying messages quickly. Below are key reasons why GIFs should be a part of your marketing toolkit:
1. Capture Attention Quickly
In an era of short attention spans, GIFs are a powerful tool for capturing and retaining audience interest. Their dynamic nature instantly draws the eye, making them perfect for standing out in crowded social media feeds or enhancing the visual appeal of your emails and website.
2. Simplify Complex Ideas
GIFs can break down complex concepts into simple, visual explanations. Whether you're demonstrating a product feature, explaining a process, or delivering a tutorial, GIFs make information easier to understand and more engaging than text alone.
3. Boost Engagement
GIFs are known for driving higher engagement rates. They are more likely to be shared, liked, and commented on than static images, which can significantly increase your content's reach and impact across various platforms.
4. Humanize Your Brand
By using GIFs that resonate with your audience’s emotions, you can add personality and relatability to your brand. Whether through humor, popular culture references, or expressive animations, GIFs help humanize your brand, making it more approachable and memorable.
Incorporating GIFs into your business strategy not only makes your content more engaging but also enhances your ability to connect with your audience on a deeper level, ultimately driving better results for your brand.
GIF Away
Finding the perfect GIF just got simpler. While our list does not include all GIF websites on the net, it covers the most popular. With access to these sites, you’ll also be able to flex your creative muscles. Through online GIF tools, you can create, edit and share your own GIFs. And if your GIF requirements are a little more sophisticated, be sure to look at sites on our list that offer analysis tools. With them, you can learn more about how people use GIFs, and create and use more that elevate your content to help you better engage your audience.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best websites to find high-quality GIFs for social media?
The best websites to find high-quality GIFs for social media include Giphy, Tenor, and Gifbin. Giphy is the most popular, offering an extensive library of GIFs that integrates seamlessly with platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Tenor, owned by Google, provides an equally vast selection with a strong focus on trending media. Gifbin offers a more niche collection, often featuring user-generated content that's perfect for adding a unique touch to your posts.
Where can I find free GIFs to use as website backgrounds?
Free GIFs for website backgrounds can be found on Pexels, which offers a variety of videos that can be converted into GIFs, and Giphy, where you can search for seamless loop animations.
How can I create a GIF from a video?
You can create a GIF from a video using tools like EZGIF or Imgflip. EZGIF allows you to upload your video, trim it, and convert it into a GIF with options to add text, effects, and even adjust the speed. Imgflip offers a simple, user-friendly interface for creating GIFs from videos with just a few clicks, making it ideal for quick social media content creation.
What is the best tool for resizing GIFs without losing quality?
EZGIF is the best tool for resizing GIFs without losing quality. It offers a specific resizing feature that allows you to adjust the dimensions of your GIF while maintaining its original resolution and frame rate. This makes it perfect for optimizing GIFs for different platforms, whether you need a smaller file size or specific dimensions.
