Choosing the right online portfolio website builder can be quite a task, given the many options available. For some, cost-effectiveness is the prime concern, while others may be searching for a platform that offers certain unique features, such as blogging capabilities, marketing tools, or scheduling functions.
In this post, we will highlight the best portfolio website builders based on cost-effectiveness, functionality, and ease of use so you can make the right choice.
Let’s dive into it!
What is a Portfolio Website Builder
A portfolio website builder is a tool that allows you to create an online portfolio that best represents your work. These tools can help you reach a wider audience and find more opportunities. Some portfolio website builders offer a free plan, while others only offer a free trial. A good portfolio website builder provides you with enough portfolio templates. These make it easier for you to set up a website as quickly as possible.
What To Consider in a Portfolio Website Builder
Before choosing and purchasing the website builder that you will use in presenting your portfolio, there are a few considerations that we should take into account.
- A portfolio website builder should be easy to navigate and set up. If you’re a beginner, this is an essential consideration as you want a website builder with a user-friendly interface to edit and update your site easily.
- A website builder that offers a free plan is an advantage, particularly for starters. While the free option is a plus for these tools, there are other features you can only get in premium plans, so it is also essential to consider the tool that offers value for your money.
- It is also an advantage for a website builder to have specific templates for portfolios. Most of these are pre-made templates specific to your niche, while others offer customization to fit your brand.
- Some visitors use mobile devices to view and navigate your site, so a mobile-optimized portfolio website builder should also be on your checklist.
- While considering an aesthetically pleasing and low-cost portfolio website builder, additional functionality like marketing tools, a scheduling page, an online store, or a contacts list can also put an online portfolio ahead of competitors.
These factors are all essential but to each their own. You just need to define your goals and objectives and choose the portfolio website builder that aligns with those.
The Best Portfolio Website Builders
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Choosing the best portfolio website builder is essential to present your brand best, but there can be similarities with these tools. These platforms distinguish themselves not only by unique features but also by pricing. In our review of leading portfolio website builders, we will thoroughly explore varied features and price rates these builders offer!
1. WordPress
WordPress is an accessible and intuitive content management system (CMS) and is excellent for building a portfolio website. With its wide variety of themes and cost-effectiveness, it is one of the leading portfolio website builders for professionals. In addition to built-in WordPress themes, other best WordPress themes are available.
You can use themes such as our very own Divi, which offers a drag-and-drop builder and pre-built templates, so you don’t have to work on your portfolio from scratch.
With over 2200+ professionally designed layouts, you can create stunning websites. Moreover, you can use the Divi Portfolio Layout Pack specifically for your portfolio. It comes with seven premade page layouts designed for any portfolio website. Additionally, it has an extensive collection of pre-designed website elements that are customizable and reusable anywhere.
Key Features of WordPress:
- Free to use
- 100+ free themes available
- Built-in blog features
- A wide range of themes and plugins
- Choose your own plugins, themes, and hosting provider
With WordPress, you can easily rearrange page elements using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Its block editor is highly customizable so that you can create a portfolio website based on your aesthetic or functional preference. Additionally, tons of WordPress plugins can extend the functionality of your website.
Best For:
WordPress is ideal for bloggers or writers seeking an accessible, user-friendly portfolio website builder. With its cost-effectiveness and various plugins available, this will give you a bang for your buck.
Pricing: WordPress is free but needs a domain name and hosting plan. SiteGround plan starts at $2.99/month for 1 website, including WordPress site builder, hosting, and a free domain name.
2. Wix
Wix is another well-known website builder for creating your own online portfolio. You can use Wix for free, which is great for beginners looking for a website builder to present their work. While it has a free option, you’ll have wixsite.com as your domain name, which may not be as professional as a custom domain name.
Wix includes AI integration, allowing for a streamlined website creation experience. Furthermore, Wix allows you to customize the appearance of your site on mobile devices, ensuring a responsive design irrespective of the platform your visitors use.
Key Features of Wix:
- Over 500 designer-made templates
- Mobile optimized website
- Design your site the way you want with drag and drop feature
- Display your images, videos, and text in a beautiful gallery layout
- Over 100 fonts to match and express your brand
- Wix logo maker
For every section and page you add to your portfolio, you can choose from a wide variety of templates, which allows more customization on your site. Plus, it is as easy as dragging and dropping your chosen templates.
Best For
Wix is best for creatives who need a portfolio website builder that can expand their site and sell works and products alongside creating a portfolio.
Pricing: Wix offers a free option, while their premium plans start at $4.50/month with custom domain but limited storage and bandwidth
3. Squarespace
Squarespace is a highly user-friendly website builder. It provides all the necessary tools to create a tailor-made portfolio that aligns with your brand. Squarespace does not only provide popular templates for portfolio websites but also a variety of unique layouts to best display your work. Moreover, Squarespace allows you to capture customer emails, build mailing lists, and market your services. Integrating marketing tools like the Squarespace Email Campaigns can extend your reach and promote your work.
In addition to using Squarespace’s email marketing campaign to promote your product or services, you can use the scheduling page feature to enable your clients to book your services or schedule consultations. You can even add different types of scheduling to cater to your client’s needs. Squarespace has an Analytics feature you can use to monitor visits, bounce rate, unique visitors, and page views percentage. These features make Squarespace one of the best portfolio website builders out there.
Key Features of Squarespace:
- User-friendly interface
- Different layout categories
- Variety of layouts in each category
- Modern design style used in templates
- Share new work using Squarespace Email Campaigns
One key feature of the Squarespace portfolio website is that you can create up to 60 sub-pages for every portfolio page you create. This will allow you to categorize and organize your work so clients can quickly scan your best projects. For example, if you’re a photographer, you can create sub-pages for each photography type you worked on before.
Best For
Squarespace is best for photographers and artists looking for a portfolio website with various stylish and aesthetically pleasing templates. While the pricing may be higher than others on our list, Squarespace can still provide value for your money.
Pricing: 14-day free trial and premium plans start at $16/month (billed annually) with free custom domain
4. Weebly
Weebly is a drag-and-drop portfolio website builder that allows more DIY or customizing your own designs for your portfolio. Building your website with Weebly offers categories you can choose from, and there’s a specific one for Portfolio. You can add a blog, product, category, and external pages to your portfolio. There are only a few themes, but you can import your theme if you don’t want to use the premade themes on the platform. Furthermore, you can add social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, Vimeo, YouTube, and more.
Key Features of Weebly:
- Fully customizable website themes and elements
- Drag and drop builder to easily customize your site
- Gallery of themes to express your personality
- Enrich your portfolio by uploading your original documents and PDFs of your work.
Newsletter forms can gather potential clients’ data and be used for future campaigns. Using newsletters can also build relationships with your customers and enhance brand recognition. If you have a regular blog, the Newsletter form feature of Weebly can offer significant benefits.
Best For:
Weebly is best for professionals searching for a portfolio website builder offering extensive customization and flexibility. This platform gives you more freedom to design and craft your website to cater to your needs.
Pricing: A free option is available with basic use, and premium plans start at $8/month
5. Adobe Portfolio
Adobe Portfolio is an intuitive and budget-friendly website builder that lets you showcase your work in a full portfolio or a single-page website. Building a portfolio with this tool doesn’t require coding knowledge. You can also customize every aspect of your portfolio with various templates, fonts, and layouts.
Adobe Portfolio offers seamless and responsive designs optimized for any device and screen size, whether on a desktop, tablet, or mobile phone. When you sign up with Adobe Portfolio, you will choose the theme that reflects your brand and personality. You can always change your theme later, but you will lose your customizations. Another good thing about Adobe Portfolio is it is entirely free if you have a Creative Cloud Subscription.
Key Features of Adobe Portfolio:
- Integrates with Behance, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Stock to import your projects
- Display your images, including Lightroom photos, in grids
- Create up to five sites under one account
- Customize your site based on your preferred theme
- Various selections of themes to match your creative work
- Membership includes unlimited hosting and bandwidth
Adobe Portfolio can also add a custom page, a landing page, sub-pages, or links to external pages. While it can present your work and previous work decently with this tool, you can’t create an online store to sell your products and services directly from the platform. If you want a platform that has updated customization features, you might want to try other tools instead.
Best For
Adobe Portfolio is best for photographers, graphic designers, or social media managers to showcase their different collections of images, designs, graphics, layouts, brochures, magazines, logos, videos, and more from previous work experiences.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $9.99/month
6. Zyro
Zyro is a user-friendly portfolio website builder with simple visual editing, which is best for beginners. Plus, it is also a cost-effective platform. After you’ve signed up with Zyro, you can use its name generator to pick your website’s URL. Zyro offers various options for editing your website styles based on colors, text, buttons, and animations. You can make your site multilingual so visitors can browse it in their own language. However, if you change your mind and plan to build your site on another platform, you can export some of your content into a .zip file.
Key Features of Zyro:
- Fully customizable website templates
- With over 130 designer-made templates
- No coding is required using the drag-and-drop editor
- Provides AI-based content generation
- Built-in blogging feature
Moreover, if you want to add website content quickly, you can leverage the AI writer feature of Zyro to generate content quickly. This can also benefit professionals who want to regularly publish content or blogs on their site.
Best For
Zyro is best for writers looking for a low-cost website builder with a built-in blogging feature and an AI feature to help streamline content creation.
Pricing: Premium plans start at $2.59/month with a free domain for a year and a 30-day money-back guarantee with every plan
7. Weblium
Weblium is a beginner-friendly website-building platform with an option for making an online portfolio. Like other websites, Weblium is also a mobile responsive builder. You can also add your own code, integration snippets, CSS styles, and even write the whole blocks of your website. Additionally, Weblium integrates with Binotel, Bookon CRM, and cookieBot. You also have an option to make your website multilingual to attract audiences from other regions. Weblium integrates with Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar, and Facebook Pixel to track your website’s analytics.
Key Features of Weblium:
- User-friendly interface
- 300+ ready-to-use visually appealing templates
- Portfolio templates based on your profession
- Free domain for paid plans
- Completely control the design and setup of your site
It has a flexible page editor with over 200 ready-made blocks, premade themes, automatic mobile versions, and third-party code embedding. Weblium also has its own design department. If you don’t have time to do your website, Weblium can do the job for you.
Best For:
Weblium is best for freelancers and beginners who want a portfolio website builder with an easy-to-use admin panel and offers hundreds of premade templates with unlimited storage. This is also best if you already have an online presence and just want to keep up your appearance.
Pricing: A free plan is available, and their paid plans start at $8.25/month
8. Webflow
Webflow is a powerful website builder for creating custom blogs, online stores, and portfolios. This tool may require a steep learning curve, especially for those unfamiliar with coding, but it can be worth the time invested. Webflow can be an excellent choice for those who want to explore portfolio building from scratch and with high customizability. It also offers a robust collection of premade templates for photography, UX, UI, design, art, and video portfolios.
Key Features of Webflow:
- Visual builder that allows drag-and-drop elements
- Webflow’s design tools allow users to create custom designs without coding
- A wide variety of portfolio templates to choose from
- Start your portfolio website design with a completely blank canvas
- Built-in social and SEO tools to optimize your site for search engines
Having a visual builder that allows drag-and-drop elements makes it easy to build complex designs. With Webflow, you can build your website without writing code; you just need to drag, drop, and design. While working on your website’s design, Webflow writes clean HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript for you.
Best For
Webflow is best for web developers or designers who need custom and intricate needs. This best suits users who have building experience.
Pricing: Webflow offers a free plan for an entry-level site with limited bandwidth, storage, and visitors. Their paid plans, including a custom domain, start at $18/ month.
9. Duda
Duda is an impressive portfolio website builder that offers specific templates for creating your portfolio. All sections and elements are customizable, so you can create one that best reflects your personality. Once you choose a theme for your site, you can customize everything from colors, text, images, rows and columns, backgrounds, and site layout.
Duda also allows you to add languages so you can translate your site. Moreover, it offers membership for your site to create members-only pages for visitors who purchase a membership plan. With the Content’s Media Manager Option, you can also upload images, videos, audio, and files needed to build your portfolio.
Key Features of Duda:
- User-friendly website builder
- Variety of templates for every professional portfolio
- Built-in blogging feature
- Membership site option
- Duda hosts the portfolio website on your behalf
Adding widgets in the Duda platform is as easy as dragging and dropping elements to your website’s pages. It has a wide range of widgets from basics, media, business, social, and advanced. However, if you want more enhanced features, you might consider other options since Duda has a higher pricing plan than others.
Best For
This tool is best for design freelancers looking for a website builder that can quickly create several sites at scale. It has a wide range of web page templates, apps, and widgets that you can maximize to create an attractive portfolio.
Pricing: Duda offers a 14-day free trial, and paid plans start at $25/month for 1 site and include AWS hosting with unlimited storage
10. Fabrik
Fabrik is an easy-to-use website builder for creating a professional portfolio to showcase your work. With Fabrik, you can easily upload media, whether it’s from Vimeo or Facebook, to add to your projects. Fabrik allows more flexibility for users to decide what content and media they will use. It’s also good to use Fabrik if you already have your own media collection for your portfolio.
On the other hand, if you want a portfolio website builder that also comes with building an online store or creating a membership site, Fabrik may not be your option.
Key Features of Fabrik:
- Add media directly from Vimeo, YouTube, Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, and more
- Flexible layouts for projects. This works within your website’s themes
- Customize your site without coding
- Change theme anytime without affecting media and content
With Fabrik, you can group individual projects into portfolios and sub-portfolios. You can even upload videos directly from Vimeo or YouTube and create projects. This allows flexibility in how you want to organize your images or videos in your portfolio.
Best For:
Fabrik is best for creatives needing a portfolio website builder where they can easily add media, blog, and share their work without coding. With Fabrik, users can easily switch themes without affecting projects.
Pricing: Fabrik comes with a 14-day free trial, and premium plans start at $11/month with limited projects and storage
11. Jimdo
Jimdo is a drag-and-drop portfolio website builder with many options to edit and customize your site. This website builder is great if you have little knowledge about coding and a limited budget. While it is cost-effective compared to other portfolio website builders, Jimdo doesn’t have blogging-specific features and calendars for booking.
With the Jimdo Statistics dashboard, you can check your website’s metrics like visitor and engagement rate, best-performing pages, and traffic sources. This will also help you create strategies to grow your business over time.
Key Features of Jimdo:
- Automatic SEO tools and tips to help you show up on Google and track traffic
- Connect to your social media accounts to pull photos from your existing accounts.
- No coding portfolio website builder
- Optimized for all mobile devices
You can quickly add blocks and edit the background color you prefer. Each block you add, whether an image or text, comes with premade templates but can still be customized based on your preference to match your brand.
Best For
Jimdo is best for beginners and professionals looking for a free, sleek, and basic website to showcase their work. Without coding, you can build a portfolio website with a pleasing design that matches your personality.
Pricing: A free plan is available, and premium plans start at $9/month for your personal website
Comparing The Best Portfolio Website Builder
Presenting your profession through a portfolio can build trust from clients. Whether in web development or creative, creating a portfolio showcasing your best work is beneficial. That’s why we’ve compared the price and features of each to help streamline your decision.
Portfolio Website Builders Price Comparison
Choosing the best portfolio website builder that is within your budget is essential. To help you decide, we’ve compared the prices of our top picks for portfolio website builders to choose gives value for your money.
| Plugin | Price | Free Option | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | Free | ✔️ | Visit | |
| Wix | $4.50/month | ✔️ | Visit | |
| Squarespace | $16/month | ❌ | Visit | |
| 4 | Weebly | $8/month | ✔️ | Visit |
| 5 | Adobe Portfolio | $9.99/month | ❌ | Visit |
| 6 | Zyro | $2.99/month | ✔️ (3 months free) | Visit |
| 7 | Weblium | $8.25/month | ✔️ | Visit |
| 8 | Webflow | $18/month | ✔️ | Visit |
| 9 | Duda | $25/month | ❌(14-day free trial) | Visit |
| 10 | Fabrik | $11/month | ❌(14-day free trial) | Visit |
| 11 | Jimdo | $9/month | ✔️ | Visit |
Portfolio Website Builders Feature Comparison
While the price of a website builder is essential, so are its features. Check our top three favorite portfolio website builders in the table below. We’ve compared their key features to choose the right one for presenting your work and services.
| Features | WordPress | Wix | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Plan Available | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ (14-day free trial) |
| Built-in Social Media Integration | ❌ (Add through a plugin) | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Mobile Optimized | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| No-Code Website Builder | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Drag-and-drop Editor | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Built-in Blogging Tools | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Built-in Membership Site | ❌ (Add through a plugin) | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Built-in Scheduling | ❌ (Add through a plugin) | ✔️(available in Business Plan) | ✔️ |
| Free Domain Name | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Free Hosting | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Built-in Portfolio Themes | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Third Party Theme | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Customizable Built-in Templates | ✔️(1000+) | ✔️ (500+) | ✔️ (160+) |
| Price for All Features | Free | $4.50/month | $16/month(billed annually) (2 contributors) |
| Get WordPress | Get Wix | Get Squarespace |
What is The Best Portfolio Website Builder
WordPress is best for professionals such as web designers searching for a portfolio website builder with a constantly expanding selection of themes and plugins. This can also be ideal for those searching for an all-in-one solution website, encompassing a site builder, domain name, and web hosting.
Wix is an excellent option for beginners and professionals looking for a free website to showcase their portfolio. With its cost-effectiveness and a wide range of templates and features, you can get the bang for your buck.
Featured image by Aafsarhossain / Shutterstock
The post 11 Best Portfolio Website Builders in 2023 (Compared) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.