The portfolio is the heart and soul of every artist and you naturally want to share it with the world. However, to present your body of work in a professional way, you’ll need a good portfolio website. In this post, I’ve sorted out the best websites for artists to use for portfolios. I’ve included both premium website builders specifically geared towards artists as well as free options that allow you build a decent, customized online portfolio. Let’s get into it!
The portfolio is the heart and soul of every artist. It showcases your body of work over time, your artistic skills, technical ability, creative potential, and personality.
When you’re just starting out as an artist, social media and art sharing sites may be sufficient to get your art noticed. You can connect with like-minded people, get feedback on your work, and learn from other creatives.
Those sites are good for a start, but they will only take you thus far. Once you’ve been creating art for a while, chances are you might want a more personalized and professional option to display your portfolio online.
Because to build your artist brand, reach a wider audience, and have more control over how you present your body of work, you’ll need a dedicated space that can reflect your unique artistic style and vision.
In short: you’ll need a website to showcase your artist portfolio.
Now, what website do artists use for portfolios?
In this post, I’m giving you a rundown of the best portfolio websites for artists that make it easy to display your art collection in a cohesive and personalized way.
I’ve included both paid website builders specifically geared towards artists as well as free options that allow you build a decent, customized online portfolio.
Here are my top 3 picks for artist portfolio websites:
Pixpa is a budget-friendly option that focuses specifically on artists. The functional and appealing templates come with client galleries, image compression tools, the option to add meta data to images, and much more what artists need.
Squarespace offers one of the best website hosting for artists because it’s super-easy to use, highly scalable, and comes with lots of beautiful website templates specifically geared towards visual creatives.
Simvoly is another favorite that is easy to use and highly versatile in terms of functionality. There is a wide range of premade templates for art and photography and you can learn to set up everything with Simvoly’s Academy.
Top 3 Best Websites For Artists To Use For Portfolios
- Why To Buy
- Budget-friendly website builder
- Geared towards visual creatives
- Lots of extra features for artists
- Squarespace
- Why To Buy
- Geared towards creatives
- Beautiful artist templates
- Good ecommerce features
- Why To Buy
- Website templates specifically for art & photography
- Easy to use, even for beginners
- eCommerce functionality with all plans
Why do artists need a website for their portfolio?
Building your artist website is a step you should definitely consider—rather sooner than later in your artist career.
Especially when I tell newer artists that they need a website for their art, I often get puzzled looks: There are so many sites to upload my work. Isn’t that enough to showcase my portfolio?
Why do artists need a dedicated website for their portfolio?
I totally get you, my friend. With all those sites around where you can upload images, it’s not immediately understandable why you should use a separate website for your portfolio.
But a portfolio website has multiple advantages. Here are three reasons why artists should use a website for their portfolio:
Reason #1: Your art portfolio is a record of your creative journey
Your portfolio site is a testimony of your artistic development. A strong portfolio doesn’t just display your latest pieces—it captures your work across different stages. This lets others see how you’ve grown as an artist and how your unique style has evolved over the years.
This is even more crucial in the era of AI where everyone can generate “artwork” at the click of a mouse. It’s proof that your work comes from genuine human creativity and shows that there’s a real, evolving artist behind it.
Are you worried about your creative future with all the machine-made imagery swallowing up the market?
Reason #2: It gives you room to reveal your artistic identity
Your artistic identity is more than just finished pieces. It includes everything that goes into an artwork: your inspirations, creative process, thoughts, and—most importantly—the meaning behind your work.
To truly communicate this through your portfolio, each project should contain more than the final result. It can show your sketches, research, works that inspired you, screenshots and timelapse videos of your creative process, and written explanations that help interpret the artwork.
When people are interested in an artwork, they love to know more about it—and about the person who created it. The more they know, the more likely they are to make a purchase. Only your own portfolio website gives you the room to consistently present your artistic identity throughout all your projects.
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Reason #3: Your portfolio website sets you apart from others
This is something that many artists don’t realize: your portfolio is way more important than your art school grades, certificates, and testimonials. Actually, it’s your most valuable asset when it comes to standing out and presenting yourself as an artist.
Whether you want to land a gallery exhibition, find collectors, apply for a residency, or sell art prints or commissions, your portfolio is what matters the most. A well-made portfolio website conveys a sense of professionalism and commitment to potential clients, galleries, and collectors.
With that being said, let’s dive in the rundown of the 6 best websites for artists to use for portfolios!
6 Best Websites For Artists To Use For Portfolios
1. Pixpa
- Why To Buy
- Budget-friendly website builder
- Geared towards visual creatives
- Lots of extra features for artists
- Why To Avoid
- Not so customizable
- Pricing Plans
- Basic Plan $4 / mth.
- Creator Plan $7.50 / mth.
- Professional Plan $10 / mth.
- Advanced Plan $12.50 / mth.
Pixpa is one of the top choices when it comes to the best website for artists to use for portfolios. It’s an easy-to-use website building platform that offers everything visual creatives could possibly need: portfolio galleries, blogs, e-commerce functionality, client proofing, image watermarking, and much more.
Currently, Pixpa has 150+ pre-designed templates that are optimized for portfolio sites. All you need to do is pick a template and fill it with your own content. You don’t need coding skills to build a professional-looking site—the drag-and-drop editor lets you create and update your portfolio anytime, simply by picking content blocks and placing them wherever you like.
Despite its vast array of features, Pixpa remains one of the most budget-friendly portfolio builders for artists. Their cheapest plan starts at only $4 per month (billed biannually). There is a cap of 200 images you can upload, but that’s usually more than enough for most emerging artists.
The Professional plan gives you probably the best value for your money. You’ll get 25 GB of storage, unlimited image uploads, and up to 100 products to sell.
2. Squarespace
- Why To Buy
- Geared towards creatives
- Beautiful artist templates
- Good ecommerce features
- Why To Avoid
- No free plan
- Pricing Plans
- Personal Plan $16 / mth.
- Business Plan $23 / mth.
- Commerce Basic $28 / mth.
- Commerce Advanced $52 / mth.
Squarespace is a no-code website builder that is extremely popular among visual artists. Just like Pixpa, Squarespace allows you to build a portfolio gallery at a couple of clicks, including lightbox pop-ups and carousel galleries. While Squarespace supports password-protected pages, it doesn’t have true client proofing galleries and watermark features like Pixpa, though.
Currently, there are over 110 beautifully designed templates available to choose from. All templates are modern, user-friendly, and fully responsive. To find the right one for you, simply browse Squarespace’s art-related categories like art & design, photography, beauty, fashion, etc.
Squarespace’s Personal Plan is great for building a portfolio website. It costs $16 a month and also includes a custom domain name that can be your artist name.
In addition to that, you’ll get SEO tools and analytics to help you optimize your website for search engines and track your traffic. Email opt-ins and other marketing tools help you grow a newsletter list of dedicated subscribers and promote your work!
3. Simvoly
- Why To Buy
- Website templates specifically for art & photography
- Easy to use, even for beginners
- eCommerce functionality with all plans
- Why To Avoid
- Not the cheapest option
- Pricing Plans
- Personal Plan $12 / mth.
- Business Plan $29 / mth.
- Growth Plan $59 / mth.
- Free trial available
Simvoly is another popular portfolio builder for artists. Although Simvoly isn’t specifically focused on visual creatives like Pixpa and Squarespace, it has a wide range of premade templates to choose from.
There are templates for art, photography, fashion and other art niches, so you can be sure to find a great fit for your needs. All templates are beautifully designed and easily customizable. However, keep in mind that once you’ve chosen a template, you cannot change it anymore.
If you just want to use Simvoly as a website for your artist portfolio, the Personal plan for $12 a month is just fine. Included are sales funnels, email marketing, subscriber management, and SEO tools—everything you need to make your portfolio site a success!
4. WordPress
- Why To Get
- Most flexible website builder
- Largest choice of templates
- Unlimited plugins for all needs
- Why To Avoid
- Steepest learning curve
WordPress is widely known as a blogging platform, but it can do so much more than that. In fact, WordPress doubles as the most flexible website builder for artists to use for portfolios that you can find in the market. On top of that, it’s completely free!
→ How To Make An Artist Website With WordPress In 5 EASY Steps
If you’re not familiar with WordPress, it works as follows: whatever website you wish to create, the first thing you’ll need to do is pick a WordPress theme. Some of the best and most performing WordPress themes for artists to make a portfolio site include:
- OceanWP (I’m using it for this website)
- Divi
- Astra
- GeneratePress
Once you’ve chosen a template, you can start uploading your portfolio images and customize the look and feel to your liking. With WordPress, you’re not limited to one theme, as opposed to Simvoly. You can change themes anytime, with just one click, and without your content getting lost or having to be re-uploaded.
For more information and a larger selection of themes, feel free to check out these posts:
While WordPress itself and most of the plugins are free, the only thing you’ll need to pay for is web hosting and a domain name. However, that’s not nearly as expensive as a website builder.
You can get WordPress hosting for as little as $3 a month. Some of the best website hosting for artists can be found on Bluehost, A2 Hosting, and DreamHost. Bluehost, by the way, is endorsed by WordPress itself.
So, if you go for any of those three website hosts, you cannot go wrong!
5. Behance
- Why To Get
- Free to use portfolio platform
- Project-based showcase with images, text, videos, etc.
- Access to freelance jobs
- Why To Avoid
- Limited control over branding on the free plan
Behance is an online art sharing platform and social network for creatives in one place. It’s owned by Adobe and popular among artists, designers, photographers, and illustrators from around the world.
Instead of just posting single images like on social media, Behance lets you create projects that can include images, videos, text explanations, sketches, and behind-the-scenes details. At the same time, it works like a social network: people can follow you, “appreciate” (like) your work, comment, and share.
Behance is also great for finding jobs and commissions. Recruiters and companies use the platform to scout for freelancers and hire full-time creatives. To help you get exposure, Adobe’s team manually selects projects and features them in curated galleries.
Unlike the above portfolio builders, Behance doesn’t require a subscription fee; anyone can create a free account and upload their work. If you use Photoshop, Illustrator, or other Adobe apps, you can publish directly from those apps to Behance.
In order to get access to exclusive freelance jobs and advanced analytics, you can sign up for Behance’s paid plan for $9.99 per month. If you’ve already signed up for Adobe’s Creative Cloud, you’ll get the Behance Pro membership at no extra cost.
6. Artfol
- Why To Get
- Social network specifically for artists
- No limitations on image dimensions
- You can group artwork into collections
- Why To Avoid
- Not a full portfolio website builder
Artfol is a social network specifically tailored to artists and other creatives. It’s basically a mobile app for creative expression and community building—think Instagram but for artists. However, as opposed to Insta, it comes with a chronological feed, meaning posts appears in order of posting.
Furthermore, you can upload high-resolution images in any size—your work won’t be cropped to fit certain dimensions. You can customize your profile by adding cover banners, pinning favorite works, grouping photos into collections, and listing commission info and links to your other sites.
That being said, Artfol is not designed to be a full portfolio website builder, but it can be a fun way for artists to share their work online within a community of like-minded people.
In conclusion: what is the best website for artists to use for portfolios?
Pixpa is the best choice for artists—it’s an affordable, all-in-one portfolio builder with clean, beautifully designed templates and special features for creatives, making it perfect for showcasing your portfolio in a professional manner.
Squarespace is the next best option. With image-focused and highly customizable templates, it is specifically geared towards visual creatives, even though it’s slightly more expensive than Pixpa.
Simvoly is a solid, easy-to-use website builder with a number of art-related templates that make a great website for artists to use for portfolios. Its pricing plans are comparable to Squarespace.
WordPress offers total control and solely belongs to you. Countless themes and plugins let you create any portfolio gallery you want, but you’ll need to put in more technical work, which can be a hassle for some artists.
Behance is a great free platform to showcase your portfolio to a huge creative community and get discovered by talent scouts. However, it doesn’t give you full control over branding or direct selling tools, so it works best alongside your own website.
Artfol is more of a social app for artists than a true portfolio site. However, it offers some distinct advantages, such as customizable profiles to highlight your best work and unlimited high‑resolution uploads without cropping.
Websites that I don't recommend for artists to use for portfolios
DeviantArt used to be one of the go-to places for artists to share their work and create an online portfolio gallery. Over the years, however, the platform has lost much of its original drive and since the emergence of AI generators, it has become a swamp of AI-generated images, lacking firm guidelines to limit AI content and protect real artists.
More and more creatives are leaving the platform, and in my opinion, the decline of DeviantArt is inevitable, should the owners not make some drastic changes to their policies. I actually wrote an article about how DeviantArt is killing itself, if you’re interested.
Dribbble is often mentioned when it comes to the best website for artists to use for portfolios. It can be a good choice if you’re a graphic designer, UI/UX designer, or illustrator. But if you’re a fine artist, photographer, or conceptual/mixed media artist, it’s not the best platform.
On top of that, there are some drawbacks to Dribbble that make me avoid it: the platform is mainly for posting visual snippets and does not support full-length projects with explanations, sketches, or multiple stages like on Behance. When you first create an account on Dribbble, it is only visible to logged in users and cannot be followed. Plus, you can only add a link to your website if you become a paid advertiser.
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I hope this post helped you sort out the best website for your artist portfolio. In my opinion, it’s best to use platforms like Behance, Dribbble, Artfol, etc. alongside your own portfolio website. They are great for visibility, but only your own portfolio site will give you the full range of features, including design, layout, domain name, control over branding and SEO.
What website do you use to display your artist portfolio? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you! Make sure to sign up for my email list so you don’t miss out on new blog posts and other cool stuff. ♥
