via.placeholder.com · updated 15 October 2026
Is via.placeholder.com working?
Yes. via.placeholder.com has been back since 7 October 2026. Old links such as https://via.placeholder.com/600x400 work again without any change, and return the same kind of image as before: same size, colours, text and default grey.
/150 /300x150/ff6600/ffffff
What happened to it?
- 2010: the service starts as placehold.it: put a size in the URL, get a grey image back.
- 2017: it moves to via.placeholder.com, with the same syntax.
- 2023: the placeholder.com domain changes hands. via keeps serving images.
- Late 2024 to early 2025: via starts returning errors (from January 2025) and then stops resolving altogether. Broken images appear in templates, tutorials and test suites everywhere, and many projects switch to other services.
- September 2026: Placeholder Ltd buys placeholder.com.
- 7 October 2026: via.placeholder.com is back, rebuilt from the old documentation and archived images. It served about 125 million images in its first full week.
placehold.it itself is a separate domain that we don't own.
Do I need to change my old links?
No. The URL syntax is unchanged, so links in code, templates, tutorials and fixtures work again as they are. If you already moved to another service, that's fine too: there's no need to switch back. Full syntax: placeholder images.
Who runs it now?
Placeholder Ltd, the company that owns placeholder.com. It's free, with no sign-up, no API key, no ads, no cookies and no analytics. Access logs drop IP addresses and cookies, keep only the referring host, and are deleted after 7 days.
Is it the same service as before?
Same URLs and same look, new code. The renderer was rebuilt to the old syntax, including its quirks: X as well as x, the extension on any segment, ?text= and ?Text=, a missing ?, and HTML-escaped &. Defaults match the old images: background #cccccc, text #969696, the size as text, PNG when no extension is given. The old Powered by HTML.COM watermark is gone.
How does it compare to placehold.co, Lorem Picsum and dummyimage.com?
They're all good, free options. Pick by what you need:
| Service | What it is | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|
| via.placeholder.com | The original placehold.it syntax, plus subject photos, avatars, QR codes and barcodes and brand images on the same host | you have old via links, want guessable URLs, or want photos and avatars that stay the same per URL |
| placehold.co | Grey-box generator with its own syntax and custom fonts | you need a specific font in the image |
| Lorem Picsum | Real photos at a given size | you want a random or seeded photo of anything |
| dummyimage.com | Long-running text placeholder generator | you already use its syntax |
Do placehold.co-style URLs work here?
Mostly. These work on via.placeholder.com:
https://via.placeholder.com/600x400/pngformat as a segment, without colourshttps://via.placeholder.com/600x400/orange/whitecolour nameshttps://via.placeholder.com/[email protected]retina
![https://via.placeholder.com/[email protected]](https://via.placeholder.com/600x400@2x.png){kind=link}
A format as its own segment after colours, such as /600x400/000/fff/png, doesn't. Put the extension on the last colour instead: /600x400/000/fff.png. ?font= is ignored.
Is it safe to load images from a domain with a new owner?
It's a fair question: a lapsed domain could serve anything to your users or your CI. Here is what via.placeholder.com does:
- Images only. Every URL returns an image generated from the URL itself, or taken from a fixed library of CC0 photos. No scripts, no HTML.
- Safe SVG. SVG output is plain shapes and escaped text, served with a
Content-Security-Policythat blocks scripts. - No redirects elsewhere. Image URLs answer directly; they never send you to another site.
- Frozen output. The same URL returns the same bytes forever. Legacy URLs are checked byte for byte before every deploy, so screenshots and visual regression baselines stay stable from now on.
- No tracking. No cookies, no analytics, and access logs drop IP addresses.
If you'd rather depend on nothing external, generate placeholders locally, and use placeholder-check either way so none of them reach production.
Can I use it in production?
It's meant for mockups, prototypes, tests and demos, and very high-volume production traffic may be rate-limited. Add placeholder-check to CI and the build fails if a placeholder URL would ship.
Is there documentation for AI coding tools?
Yes. The URL grammar is in plain text at via.placeholder.com/llms.txt and tools.placeholder.com/llms.txt (everything in one file: llms-full.txt). Agents can also use the MCP server at https://mcp.placeholder.com/mcp.