lorempixel is down (and placeimg is gone) — alternatives for every URL shape

lorempixel.com/400/200/sports was the original category placeholder: a real photo, any size, thirteen themed categories, even a text overlay if you asked. It's still pasted all over Bootstrap-era templates, jQuery course exercises, and old Stack Overflow answers. And it has stopped serving images:

curl -si http://lorempixel.com/400/200 | head -1
# HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests   ← an HTML "Site Unavailable" page, for everyone

curl -si http://lorempixel.com/400/200/sports | head -1
# HTTP/1.1 429                     ← categories too
curl -si http://lorempixel.com/g/400/200 | head -1
# HTTP/1.1 429                     ← grayscale too — even the homepage answers 429

That's not a rate limit you can wait out — every path, on HTTP and HTTPS, answers the same hosting "Site Unavailable" page. Verified by direct request on September 10, 2026, and Mockbird re-checks it hourly on the lorempixel live-status page. Its sibling placeimg.com is further gone: the domain no longer resolves at all (curl: Could not resolve host — tracked here). Every <img> pointing at either renders a broken-image icon.

If you want the category photos back

Being honest first: Mockbird does not serve photos. If the point was a real picture of food/sports/cats, these work today — all verified alive September 10, 2026 with a plain GET returning a real image:

Service	URL shape	Notes
`loremflickr.com`	`loremflickr.com/400/200/sports`	The closest drop-in — same `/W/H/category` path shape, but the "category" is any Flickr tag, not a fixed list of 13. Grayscale works too: `/g/400/200/sports`.
`picsum.photos`	`picsum.photos/400/200`	Random high-quality photos (no categories). `?grayscale`, and `/seed/3/400/200` for a photo that never changes — the job lorempixel's numbered `/400/200/cats/3` URLs did.
`placehold.co` / `dummyimage.com`	`placehold.co/400x200?text=Hello`	Not photos — generated rectangles with text, like lorempixel's text overlay. Both alive.

<!-- the smallest fix for category URLs: swap the hostname -->
<img src="https://loremflickr.com/400/200/sports">

Translation table — every lorempixel/placeimg URL shape

Old URL	Working replacement
`lorempixel.com/400/200`	`picsum.photos/400/200` (random photo) · `…/m/demo/img/400/200` (deterministic SVG)
`lorempixel.com/400/200/sports`	`loremflickr.com/400/200/sports` — same path shape, tag-based
`lorempixel.com/g/400/200` (grayscale)	`picsum.photos/400/200?grayscale` · `loremflickr.com/g/400/200/sports`
`lorempixel.com/400/200/cats/3` (image #3, stable)	`picsum.photos/seed/3/400/200` — deterministic photo per seed · `…/m/demo/img/400/200?seed=3`
`lorempixel.com/400/200/sports/Dummy-Text` (text overlay)	`…/m/demo/img/400x200?text=Dummy+Text` · `placehold.co/400x200?text=Dummy+Text`
`placeimg.com/640/480/any`	`picsum.photos/640/480`
`placeimg.com/640/480/animals` (categories: animals/arch/nature/people/tech)	`loremflickr.com/640/480/animals` — richer tags than placeimg's five
`placeimg.com/640/480/nature/grayscale` (also `/sepia`)	`picsum.photos/640/480?grayscale`; no mainstream host does sepia — use CSS `filter: sepia(1)`

If what you actually needed was "an image at that size, reliably"

Most lorempixel URLs weren't really about the sports photo — they were about filling an image slot while building a UI. For that job a random photo host is the wrong tool twice: it's a third-party dependency that can die (this page is exhibit A and B), and the bytes change between requests, which makes screenshot tests flake.

Mockbird serves deterministic SVG placeholders with the same slash-path shape lorempixel used:

<img src="https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/demo/img/400/200">
<img src="https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/demo/img/400/200?text=sports&seed=sports">
<img src="https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/demo/img/128?round=1&text=PA">

Rendered live from the API as you read this: 400×200 placeholder placeholder labeled sports round initials avatar

No signup, no key, CORS *, cached a day, any size 1–2000 px, same URL → same bytes forever. ?text=, ?bg=/?fg= hex colors, ?seed= stable palette pick, ?round=1 circle avatars. Full reference in the docs.

The reason it lives under `/m/demo/`

Mockbird is a hosted mock REST API — you describe resources (or import an OpenAPI spec / db.json / CSV) and get a live fake backend at a URL. The placeholder endpoint exists so that seeded fake data ships with images that render: every seeded image and avatar field already points at the project's own /img:

curl -s -X POST https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/api/projects \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"preset":"ecommerce"}'
# → 30 fake products whose image URLs work, users with initial-avatars,
#   full CRUD, filters, OpenAPI export — one origin, one curl, no signup

Prefer clicking: create the same project in one click. If you reached this page because an old template's product grid went blank — the durable fix isn't just swapping the image host, it's letting the fake backend and its fake images live at the same base URL, where an image-host obituary can never take out your demo again.

Honest comparison

	LoremFlickr	Picsum	Mockbird /img
Real photos	✅ any tag	✅ (no categories)	— (SVG rectangles/circles)
Deterministic bytes (same URL → same image)	❌ random per cache	✅ with `/seed/…` (JPEG re-encode may vary)	✅ always
Custom text / colors / round avatars	—	—	✅
Same origin as your mock API data	—	—	✅ seeded data pre-wired
Formats	JPEG	JPEG/WebP	SVG + PNG (`.png`/`.jpg` suffix or `?format=png`)

Written by the Mockbird maker — bias disclosed. If you want the photo, use LoremFlickr for categories or Picsum for pretty randoms — both do that job well. Use Mockbird's /img when the image is standing in for real product photos or avatars in a UI you're building against mock data — deterministic bytes, no third-party host, and the rest of the fake backend lives at the same URL. Statuses above verified by direct request on September 10, 2026; lorempixel and placeimg are tracked hourly.

FAQ

Is lorempixel.com coming back? Unknown. The 429 comes with a hosting-provider "Site Unavailable" page rather than the app itself, on every path including the homepage — it looks suspended, not overloaded. The live status page re-checks every hour and will show a recovery before this page does.

What happened to placeimg.com? It announced its shutdown and went dark in 2022; today the domain doesn't even resolve to a website. Any placeimg.com/W/H/category URL in a tutorial is unfixable except by pointing elsewhere — see the translation table above.

My tests assert on image bytes/snapshots — what should I use? Exactly the case for deterministic placeholders: a Mockbird /img URL always returns identical bytes, so screenshot diffs can't flake because a different sports photo loaded. See deterministic test data.

Do I need an account? No — /m/demo/img/… works bare (shared demo project, 50,000 req/day quota). One curl creates your own anonymous project with its own /img and a 10,000/day quota.