The 7 Best Portfolio Websites Builders in 2024
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A portfolio is a vital tool in anyone’s career. Whether you’re a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or marketer, you can let your portfolio do all of the talking and showcase your skills to potential clients or employers.
The best way to create a portfolio is to use a website builder. Not only is it easily accessible by anyone, but you can also design it from the ground up, taking your visitors on a journey of who you are and what you can do.
Overall, the best portfolio-building platform is Wix, but the website builder you choose will differ depending on which industry you work in. We’ve researched and collected the seven best portfolio website builders and organized them according to whether you need a portfolio for showcasing your creative, business, or technical skills.
Our Top 7 Portfolio Website Builders:
- Wix – The best all-around portfolio builder
- Squarespace – For art and design portfolios
- GoDaddy – For marketing portfolios showcasing work projects
- Hostinger – For student portfolios on a budget
- Web.com – For copywriting portfolios
- Pixpa – For professional photography portfolios
- Webflow – For advanced web developer portfolios
Short on time? Find the best platform for your art with our 3-minute quiz.
1. Wix: Best All-Around Portfolio Builder
- Best value portfolio plan: Light plan, $17 per month (billed annually)
- Read our full Wix review
Wix
Our top choice for portfolios
- 800+ templates on offer
- Very intuitive to use
- Generous free plan
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $17 - $159 / month
Pros
- High level of customization
- Templates for a wide range of industries
- Drag-and-drop editor
Cons
- Expensive premium plans
- Storage caps on all plans
- Can't switch templates once site is live
Based on our in-house testing, Wix is the best overall portfolio website builder. It’s the number one choice if you need a portfolio when applying for jobs, while it’s also the most versatile builder thanks to its numerous website and design features.
With over 800 professionally designed templates across multiple industries, Wix websites can be built to suit different kinds of portfolios. Also, if you want more choice over your portfolio’s design, Wix’s ADI feature uses artificial intelligence to design a personalized website for you – simply answer Wix’s short questionnaire first.
After choosing our Wix template while building a test portfolio, we went to Wix Marketplace and installed the free Wix Portfolio app. The tool enables you to display your projects on a professional portfolio page that’s tailored to your needs.
From the editor, we could set up our portfolio using one of Wix’s AI tools. It asked us to describe what kind of work we wanted to showcase and upload our project photos. Then, it tailor-made us a page based on the information we had given it.
From Wix’s Portfolio app, we could also:
- Edit a portfolio’s SEO (search engine optimization) settings to improve its visibility on search engines.
- Change a portfolio page’s text, which includes project names and descriptions.
- Add more information about each portfolio project. We could mention the project’s date, location, key contributors, and more.
- Upload and manage photos from Wix’s Media Library and change what imagery is displayed on the portfolio page. Additionally, Wix optimizes any photos that are uploaded to your website, so you can best display your work through high-quality imagery.
If you’re interested in a hybrid portfolio that also offers ecommerce, Wix will let you transition your portfolio website into an online store. This is useful if you ever decide to start your own business – think of it like an investment, rather than a single-use site.
Getting your portfolio noticed on the web won’t be an issue either. You can add live social media feeds to your website and connect platforms like Instagram or Facebook, create and share social media graphics from your dashboard, and track how well your portfolio is performing with Wix’s analytics.
Because of these unrivalled features, Wix’s website builder gives you the strongest chance of increasing your portfolio’s visibility – regardless of your industry.
Though Wix excels with its website features, the sheer number of them can be overwhelming for first time users, especially if you only need a simple portfolio. For a more straightforward experience, we recommend Squarespace instead. Though it doesn’t have as many features as Wix, our research demonstrates that it’s the easiest website builder of them all.
What’s the Best Value Wix Plan?
Wix’s pricing consists of four premium plans:
- Light – $17 per month (best value for a portfolio)
- Core – $29 per month
- Business – $36 per month
- Business Elite – $159 per month
Wix’s plans can be expensive for just a portfolio. These prices are the average monthly price for a year-long subscription paid in full. The longer the subscription you pay, the cheaper the monthly price. For an affordable alternative, try GoDaddy with its first plan starting from $9.99 per month, or Hostinger with its even cheaper plans starting from $2.99 per month (both billed annually).
Wix does have a free plan, but you’ll have to contend with Wix banner ads and a Wix domain name, which can make you look unprofessional to potential employers or clients.
Our recommendation is the Light plan. You can’t sell products on this plan, but for a professional portfolio, you probably won’t need to. Plus, we have a unique 10% off at checkout offer if you use “TAKE10” at checkout.
Latest Wix News |
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In June 2024, Wix’s Open Studio released a series of updates, one of them being a new Figma integration. If you have work on Figma, you can download a plugin and import your designs directly onto your portfolio page. |
2. Squarespace: For Art and Design Portfolios
- Best value portfolio plan: Personal plan, $16 per month (billed annually)
- Read our full Squarespace Review
Squarespace
For art and design portfolios
- Award-winning designs
- Ideal for creatives
- High-quality features
Free trial available
Paid Plans: $16 - $52 / month
Pros
- Beautiful templates
- Unlimited storage on all plans
- Enhanced third-party apps
Cons
- No free plan
- Customization slightly limited
- No 24/7 live chat
If you’re in an art or design field, be it illustration or graphic design, your artistic talents should extend to your website, which should follow a clear design philosophy that mirrors your work. Clients want to be impressed by your creativity, and no website builder has more impressive creative functionality than Squarespace, having the most design-centric portfolio templates we’ve seen.
As well as having exquisitely designed templates, Squarespace is so easy to use that you won’t need to spend hours perfecting your portfolio’s look. Its drag-and-drop editor lets you place elements wherever you want, and from our own experience, it’s actually difficult to make a bad-looking website since the builder’s grid overlay keeps everything in alignment.
While the builder doesn’t have a true ADI feature like Wix and GoDaddy do, Squarespace Blueprint is a feature that can build you a personal template for your portfolio based on your answers to a few questions.
For an art or design portfolio, you’ll need plenty of image and video space to showcase your work on. Luckily, Squarespace gives its subscribers unlimited storage across all of its plans. You also get an allowance of 30 minutes when it comes to video storage – and this is available from Squarespace’s cheapest plan at $16 per month (billed annually). You can get more video allowance by upgrading to pricier plans.
Wix – our highest-rated provider for portfolios – starts you out with a storage limit of only 2GB on its $17 per month plan, so Squarespace is more ideal for content-heavy websites.
However, all this storage space for lots of content is a double-edged sword. Though Squarespace websites are aesthetically pleasing, they can be prone to slower page load times, which we found during testing. Be aware of this as you add content to your portfolio, and remember to test website speeds as you go. If this is a deal-breaker for you, we recommend portfolio website builders Wix or GoDaddy, which both boast speedier page load times.
What’s the Best Value Squarespace Plan?
Squarespace’s pricing comes in four premium plans:
- Personal – $16 per month (best value for a portfolio)
- Business – $23 per month
- Commerce Basic – $28 per month
- Commerce Advanced – $52 per month
We recommend the Personal plan for creative portfolios. You’ll get unlimited storage to share as many images as you need, plus a 30-minute allowance for video. There’s a 14-day free trial you can use so you can test its features, and once you do decide, at Website Builder Guide we’re currently running a 10% discount for our readers if you use the code “WBE10” at checkout.
3. GoDaddy: For Marketing Portfolios
- Best value portfolio plan: Premium plan, $14.99 per month (billed annually)
- Read our full GoDaddy Review
GoDaddy
For marketing portfolios
- Get online quickly
- Best value for money
- Ideal for basic portfolio
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $9.99 - $20.99 / month
Pros
- Very beginner-friendly
- Plenty of must-have features
- ADI website builder
Cons
- Templates can be slightly restrictive
- Designs can look quite similar
- No mobile editor
If you need a marketing portfolio to display recent projects and get potential clients to reach out to you, GoDaddy provides a solid solution from only $9.99 per month. On the platform, you’ll receive a responsive page to showcase your services on, and will have access to GoDaddy’s marketing suite, including social media and email.
While you set up, you can use its ADI software to build a personalized portfolio template for you. During the process, you can briefly describe your business in a few sentences and assign your website to the marketing category. This will help the software create a marketing portfolio that’s truly catered to your needs.
However, these customized designs and premade templates aren’t on the level of Wix’s or Squarespace’s, because they lack the same professionally-made aesthetic quality. There are also fewer features offered, including no SEO on the Basic plan. That being said, if you are short on time, GoDaddy may be the builder for you. GoDaddy’s editor is so streamlined that you can have a functional portfolio ready in under an hour.
In the editor, you can then start adding additional elements to your website to showcase your projects and experience. This might include:
- Social media links – This allows you to showcase your work across other platforms, especially useful if your main focus is social media marketing.
- Files upload – You can let clients download files relating to your business, such as CVs, media packs, or service lists.
- Logo gallery – To showcase the brands you’ve worked with.
- Different content blocks – Depending on how you want to showcase your marketing projects, you can experiment with GoDaddy’s various blocks and see which one best represents your work.
- Online bookings – You can add one appointments section to your website, allowing potential clients to book one of your services.
If you do pay extra for SEO, you’ll be given some truly great marketing and SEO capabilities, like email automation and the ability to integrate Google’s Business messages. If you need an example of a marketing project for your portfolio, you can track your own website’s success as proof of your abilities. Talk about two birds with one stone!
What’s the Best Value GoDaddy Plan?
GoDaddy’s pricing comes in three premium plans, plus its free plan:
- Basic – $9.99 per month
- Premium – $14.99 per month (best value for a portfolio)
- Commerce – $20.99 per month
We recommend the Premium plan. For only a few dollars more than the Basic plan, you get additional marketing capabilities, such as email marketing tools. This is crucial for showing your prowess in marketing and getting your portfolio seen by as many eyes as possible.
4. Hostinger: For Student Portfolios on a Budget
- Best value portfolio plan: Premium Website Builder plan, $2.99 per month (billed annually)
- Read our full Hostinger Review
Hostinger
For student portfolios
- Suitable for simple sites
- Affordable plans
- Easy to use
Paid Plans: $2.99 - $109.99 / month
Pros
- Drag-and-drop editor
- 24/7 live chat
- Get online quickly
Cons
- Limited room to grow
- Very basic templates
- Difficult to create a unique portfolio
If you’re a student and need a simple portfolio on a budget, Hostinger could be the builder for you. From only $2.99 per month, you can have a perfectly functional portfolio website – and if you sign up now for a 48-month plan, you can get the first three months free. Its handy suite of AI tools is also a huge time-saver if you’re balancing multiple projects at once alongside your studies.
Hostinger’s cheap starting price makes it perfect for student portfolios, since it’s a super affordable way to create an ad-free website that looks professional and can be displayed to professors, universities, or prospective employers.
It’s certainly not the most powerful builder on the market, with limited features compared to Wix and Squarespace (no email marketing tools or app market, for example), meaning we don’t recommend it for a growing business’s portfolio. But if you need something simple and affordable, Hostinger is a smart choice.
Like Wix and GoDaddy, Hostinger uses AI to build you a personal template based on your answers to a questionnaire. In testing, Hostinger created our demo site in less than 30 seconds!
Hostinger’s ADI is newer than that of Wix and GoDaddy, but if you like AI website builders, Hostinger is a major forerunner. It has an AI assistant, AI meta tags, AI writer, AI logo maker, AI SEO support, a really helpful AI chatbot, and even an AI heatmap that tells you where your visitors have clicked.
What’s the Best Value Hostinger Plan?
Hostinger has two paid plans:
- Premium Website Builder – $2.99 per month (best for a portfolio)
- Business Website Builder – $3.99 per month
For a simple student portfolio, we recommend the Premium plan. It has everything you need to show off your skills, while also being easy on the wallet. You can also take advantage of 10% off using the code “WBE” at the checkout.
5. Web.com: Best for Copywriting Portfolios
- Best value portfolio plan: Website & Marketing plan, $21.99 per month (billed annually)
- Read our full Web.com review
Web.com
For Copywriting Portfolios
- Quick to set up
- User friendly dashboard
- Generous free trial
Free trial available
Paid Plans: $1.95 - $24.95 / month
Pros
- Innovative marketing calendar
- Impressive integrated blog
- Variety of engaging elements
Cons
- Slightly unintuitive at times
- Limited control when editing
- No social media scheduling on basic plan
As a writer, you’ll want your website to be eye-catching, but minimalistic enough that your writing is the focal point. Web.com is a website builder with 17 portfolio templates that strike this balance well, through simple designs and engaging elements.
Because Web.com won’t allow you as much creative control over your website’s design as Wix and Squarespace, we wouldn’t recommend it for complex, design-heavy websites. Instead, Web.com’s strengths lie in creating simple multimedia sites and managing digital platforms.
As a copywriter, you need to post your work on your platforms regularly and consistently to remain visible among the competition and attract new clients. Web.com’s color-coded marketing calendar is an efficient tool to help you keep on top of this task.
You’ll be able to create X, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn posts from your dashboard, schedule them in for specific days, and keep track of these posts through your calendar, too. Web.com also has an inbuilt blog, which is a perfect place to show your creative writing. These posts can also be scheduled and added to your calendar.
Web.com’s drag-and-drop web page editor comes with plenty of engaging elements that you can use to demonstrate the different projects you’ve worked on, like images, videos, text, and widgets that integrate your social media feeds. There are even some made for written content, like a progress bar.
What’s the Best Value Web.com Plan?
Web.com has three core plans:
- Website – $15.99 per month
- Website & Marketing – $21.99 per month (best value for portfolio)
- Ecommerce – $29.99 per month
We recommend the Website & Marketing plan for a copywriting portfolio. For the slight price jump, you’ll unlock access to marketing features designed to increase your visibility. Specifically, this plan will give you access to the marketing calendar tool, which will streamline your social media and blogging processes.
6. For Professional Photography Portfolios
- Best value portfolio plan: Creator plan, $15 per month (billed annually)
Pixpa
For photography portfolios
- Great for photographers
- Very affordable plans
- Connect with socials
Free trial available
Paid Plans: $8 - $25 / month
Pros
- Mobile-friendly templates
- Specialist website builder
- Galleries for sharing and proofing
Cons
- No free plan
- Limited photos on cheapest plan
- Restrictive website editor
Unlike the other platforms on this list, Pixpa is a dedicated portfolio website builder with a special focus on photography. You have access to over 25 options when it comes to gallery layouts, as well as exclusive features such as Progressive Image Loading, which reduces the slowdown that can occur on your site if you have too many high-quality images.
Pixpa also has over 150 mobile-friendly templates to choose from across industries like Wedding Photography and Fashion, and to protect your images from potential plagiarists and thieves, you can use Pixpa’s watermark feature. However, if photos aren’t the main focus of your portfolio, then you’ll find Pixpa very featureless – its starting plan lacks features like blogging, a domain name, and custom fonts.
Additionally, for a portfolio website builder, it is disappointing that there’s even a limit on how many images you can upload (200 on the Basic plan). However, Pixpa’s prices are more affordable than Squarespace’s and Wix’s. Overall, Pixpa may be lacking some features, but for photography portfolios it’s still the best option, as no other builder is as tailored to this particular medium.
What’s the Best Value Pixpa Plan?
Pixpa has four premium plans:
- Basic – $8 per month
- Creator – $15 per month (best for a portfolio)
- Professional – $20 per month
- Advanced – $25 per month
We recommend the Creator plan for creative portfolio users – the image limit on the Basic plan holds it back from being able to show the full breadth of your creativity, while the Creator plan allows you to upload an unlimited number of images. Pixpa’s average price is also still cheaper than many on this list, and it serves as a great alternative to Squarespace.
7. Webflow: For Web Developer Portfolios
- Best value portfolio plan: Basic plan, $14 per month (billed annually)
- Read our full Webflow review
Webflow
For website development portfolios
- Advanced customization
- Strong design options
- Lots of free templates
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $14 / month
Pros
- No ads on free plan
- Good for experienced builders
- Lots of free templates
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- No drag-and-drop editor
- Not beginner-friendly
Webflow is a web development platform that, unlike Wix or Squarespace, doesn’t simplify the website building progress. Instead, it’s tailored to users in professional web development. As such, it can have a steep learning curve – but for those who want to show off their coding or web design skills, it’s perfect.
What makes Webflow perfect for technical portfolios is its advanced customization, letting you integrate skills or demos onto your website as long as you can code them.
You can add code to your website in three key ways via the “Code embed” feature:
- HTML: To organize the structure of your website and its content
- CSS: To structure your website’s pages and tweak the design
- JavaScript: To add dynamic content to your website, like image animations or interactive pages
You can also get access to Webflow’s marketing of user-created content. From templates to animations and features, users can share their creations with each other.
Compared to the novice-friendly Squarespace, Webflow is only really suited to users who are proficient in coding or possess advanced design skills, as you do get more control over your site’s design.
Webflow has over 2,000 templates to choose from across a spectrum of industries, with most of them being free. It also has a free plan you can use, and unlike Wix, Webflow’s free plan has no ads, so you can use it and still be professional – though you’ll be limited to 1GB of storage and 1,000 visitors per month.
What’s the Best Value Plan?
Webflow has five premium plans, split between general and ecommerce plans – plus its free plan:
- Basic – $14 per month (best value for a portfolio)
- CMS – $23 per month
- Standard (ecommerce) – $29 per month
- Business – $39 per month
- Plus (ecommerce) – $74 per month
- Advanced (ecommerce) – $212 per month
Depending on the size of your website, we recommend either the free or the Basic plan. They have low storage and traffic limitations, but if you’re using your portfolio just for job-hunting, then you’ll find it suitable. If you want a home for all your projects, you may need to upgrade your plan for bigger storage.
Buying Guide: How To Choose a Portfolio Website Builder
While we’ve shown you the best portfolio website builders, we understand you may still need a bit of direction on how to pick the right one for you. Your choice will differ depending on your needs, but we’ve broken it down into three essential goals that every portfolio should accomplish:
- Showcasing – Are you able to show off your best work on your portfolio? Whether this is simply through images and video or specific integrations like with programs, your portfolio needs to be able to present your work in an engaging and professional manner – whatever the medium.
- Storytelling – Are you able to tell a convincing story through your portfolio’s presentation? Whether you want to show how your achievements grew in past roles or your creative evolution as an artist, a portfolio website builder needs to have an easy-to-use editor you can use to present yourself in the best way possible.
- Searchability – Are you able to be found online through your portfolio? The benefit of an online portfolio is that it exists for all to see, and with good SEO tools, your portfolio can be found by the right person at the right time, perhaps leading to opportunities you never saw coming.
How We Tested Portfolio Website Builder
Before we can confidently make any recommendations on the best portfolio builder, we carry out in-depth website builder testing. This is an important step – we want our articles and reviews to be data-led and based on experience with the platforms.
We analyze builders in six key areas and then give each a score out of five, which averages out to an overall score. However, because portfolios are different from online stores, so are their users’ demands. Therefore, different categories will have different weighting when it comes to their overall score to reflect the actual wants and needs of our readers.
Here are the unique weightings for our portfolio category:
- Design Functionality – 35%
- Website Features – 30%
- User Experience – 20%
- Help & Support – 5%
- Customer Score – 5%
- Value for Money – 5%
Best Portfolio Website Builders: Summary
A portfolio can be used to present your body of work professionally to employers or clients, or just as a place to hold all of your previous work. Either way, you will need a website builder that can showcase your own inherent creativity, but also build a presence and bring a certain level of professionalism.
For that reason, Wix is our best overall portfolio website builder. It allows you to make a portfolio that will impress your clients or employers, while also giving you fantastic freedom of choice in its creation.
Of course, any of the other best website builders we’ve covered could also be a good fit for your portfolio based on your needs. Here’s a quick recap:
- Squarespace: Ideal for art and design professionals, Squarespace’s stylish templates make it easy to showcase your portfolio with creative flair.
- GoDaddy: With a wealth of marketing tools and a beginner-friendly editor, GoDaddy is brilliant if you’re a marketing professional who’d like to showcase your projects with ease.
- Hostinger: The platform’s budget friendly plans, from $2.99 per month (billed annually), are suitable for students who need to rustle up a quick portfolio.
- Web.com: This website builder has brilliant integrated social media and blog post scheduling, which makes it perfect for copywriters active on multiple platforms.
- Pixpa: This platform is most suitable for photography portfolios, with optimized image uploading tools and watermarks to protect your photographs.
- Webflow: The most advanced builder on this list, Webflow is best for web development portfolios. Users will need an understanding of code and web design to get started.
Need some tips on how to make your portfolio shine? Learn how to make an online portfolio with our guide.
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