Building your own website is one of the most empowering things you can do for your creative journey.

Unlike Behance or Instagram, where everyone’s work sits in the same format and the social comparison metrics are unavoidable parts of the platform UI, your own responsive site lets you control the story: you decide the layout, show off your personality and refresh it whenever you want as your skills grow. It’s your artistic playground, and you get to set the rules!

Having a personalized online space means recruiters and clients can experience your work on any device exactly how you want them to. Think of how frequently you check websites on your phone? Clients & recruiters do the exact same thing. And that’s why it’s important to make sure that our website functions well on both mobile & desktop.

I received this question:
"Do you know some quick & beginner friendly websites for building my first online portfolio (after Behance)? There are a lot of options these days and it's difficult to know where to begin, so thought to ask if you had any first hand experience on the same. Most creators recommend these websites as they have a paid collab with them."

I feel you. ☹️ We’re drowning in information and we don’t know what to trust. So here, I’ll be sharing some recommendations based on what I’ve personally used & what other creative professionals close to me have recommended.

But first, think about this: “At a very fundamental level, what does a portfolio website really need?” According to me, it is:

• A space for your introduction
• An easy way to keep adding projects

And my recommendations in this article will be based on that. So, let’s get started:

1) Wix

My own website was on Wix for the longest time, and the only reason I stopped using it was because of some major annoyances once with the payment for renewal. Looking back, I wish I had been more patient with the payment process and perhaps even asked some family members to use their card for the transaction, because now I miss having my website on Wix.

What I personally loved: Wix feels like playing with digital building blocks, almost like Photoshop or Illustrator for a website. Just drag, drop and arrange to make something uniquely yours. It definitely has a huge library of ready-to-go templates to get you from idea to published site in a breeze. But I used to make the website from scratch because, as someone who used to be a professional graphic designer, I always had more ideas than any template could account for and I wanted to express them all.

It can feel a little clunky sometimes but I didn’t mind it too much. Earlier this year, I helped a few people set up their own websites on Wix and I didn’t have any complaints.

To get started:

2) WordPress

WordPress is a trusted one for beginners in the world of website-making for a reason. There are tons of templates to choose from, and using a template means that the desktop version keeps getting automatically converted into the mobile version, as you go. (For context: on Wix, all the elements would get added to a “mobile version” but the spacing and alignment would always be off and I had to fix it every time).

What my personal experience has been: The good thing about using WordPress is that it’s simple and straightforward. You can’t really “break” the website as long as you’re using themes. Pick a clean template, just create a homepage & keep adding new projects as blogposts.

But there’s a bit of a learning curve:

At the time of writing this blogpost (July 2025) my current website is on WordPress. You might notice some alignment issues and repeated images and some random elements floating around. That’s because I find it hard to resist customisation, but I also don’t know code. If you want to tweak your design away from the template, you might need to dip your toes into code or use a visual builder.

To get started:

3) Framer

Framer is a playground for the UI/UX minded. It lets you build interactive portfolios with smooth animation, all visually, no code required. It’s also lightning fast for updates, so your portfolio can evolve as you do.

My friend’s experience: A friend recently showed this website built on Framer, along with the backend for it. It’s like Figma, but for development. And as of now, I am fully sold on the idea of using soon. It feels like a slightly upgraded version of the flexibility that Wix offered, and this platform is what I plan to try out next for my new website too (which I’m in the process of working on).

Added bonus: I have also heard good things about Framer from many other designers & developers, and it definitely seems to be the most up and coming tool. So if you’re looking to learn a tool which you can use not just for your own website but also maybe for some client projects in the future, this is the one I’d recommend! ⭐️

To get started:

4) Notion

Notion isn’t a “website builder”, but more like a notebook that you can publish online. And it’s totally acceptable these days! And it’s totally free!

My own experience with Notion: I have been using Notion regularly as my digital everything-in-one-notebook for more than a year now. But more relevantly, I have formatted project case studies on it for some clients. This wasn’t for final publishing, but just for showing them a prototype of how the layout would look. And honestly, they looked good enough to hit “publish”. So I feel it deserves to be on this list.

To get started:

There are some other well-known platforms, like Webflow & Squarespace, which I’ve never tried. So, I’ve not added them to this list.

But I do hope that you find the platform which is the right fit for you, and that you get your first online portfolio up & running super soon!

In case you need further support, feel free to DM me to book a consultation call.

Good luck!! 🌼