Goal
Help you choose where your work lives after this class, with honest tradeoffs instead of a sales pitch.
Audience
You. A graduating designer who needs a portfolio a hiring manager can actually find and open.
Process
Build your portfolio site in Google Sites, the course default, in your Maricopa account or a personal Google account. Then read the comparison and decide whether to add anything else.
The course default
Your portfolio for this course lives in Google Sites, in your Maricopa account or a personal Google account. Moving it to a personal account is optional; see Which Google account to use. Gemini stays on your Maricopa account either way.
Who can see it. Publish the site as Restricted, so only people you add can see it. Add your instructor’s email. When you apply for a job, add the employer’s email. Restricted is the default; you may switch to Public whenever you choose. If you make the site public, you can tick “Request public search engines to not display my site” in Publish settings. Google says this is a request, not a guarantee (Publish and share your site).
Already have a Behance portfolio from another class? You may use it instead. Behance, Adobe Portfolio and ArtStation are covered below for anyone who already uses one, or who wants a second place for the same work after the course.
Set up your portfolio site in Google Sites →
Do you need to buy a domain name?
No. You can graduate with a great portfolio and never spend a dollar. Every option below has a free address.
But you have the option, and it is not hard. A domain like yourname.com costs about $12 a year and takes about twenty minutes to point at a site you already built. It looks sharper on a résumé than a platform URL, and it is yours.
The one thing to understand before you buy one: your domain is portable, your host is not. You own yourname.com forever as long as you renew it. You can point it at a free site today, and re‑point it somewhere else in five years when your needs change. The domain follows you. The platform does not. That is exactly why it is worth the $12: it is the one piece of your professional identity that no company can take away or start charging you for.
How to set up a custom domain, step by step →
The comparison
| Platform | Cost | Custom domain? | Code needed? | If you stop paying |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Behance | Free, forever | No. Always behance.net/yourname |
None | Nothing. It is free. |
| Adobe Portfolio | Free while you are a student. After that it needs a paid Creative Cloud plan. | Yes | None | Your site goes offline 14 days after your plan ends. Your work is not deleted, but the public site stops loading. |
| ArtStation | Free profile. Custom domain needs Pro (paid). | Pro only | None | Site reverts to the free profile. |
| Google Sites | Free, forever | Yes, free to connect | None | Nothing. It is free. |
| Wix | Free tier exists, but it is wixsite.com/yourname with Wix ads. Custom domain needs a paid plan. |
Paid plans only | None | Site reverts to the free ad-supported version. |
| Squarespace | No free tier at all. Paid from day one. | Yes | None | Your site goes offline. |
| WordPress | Free tier is limited. Anything real costs money. | Paid plans only | Not strictly, but it is the hardest one here. | Depends on the plan. Usually offline. |
Ranked, with the real tradeoffs
Google Sites
Free, already in your Google account, and the tool you know from class. A personal Google account keeps it after graduation, if you choose to move it there.
Pros
- Free forever, with free custom domain support. That combination is rare.
- You control who sees it: publish as Restricted, add your instructor and the employers you apply to, and switch to Public when you are ready.
- You already have a Google account, and you know the tool.
- Easiest builder on this page. You can have a site up in under an hour.
- Custom themes for your own fonts, colors, logo, and favicon.
- You can add your own coded sections with AI when the templates fall short (Recommendation 4).
- Never goes offline, because there is nothing to pay.
Cons
- A plain site looks plain. You are a designer, and a hiring manager will notice a generic site. Use your own type, color, and imagery.
- Layouts come from section templates.
- Typography is limited to the Sites font library unless you add code.
- A site on a school account can disappear when the account closes. Move it to a personal account before you leave if you want to keep it.
Behance
Optional. Use it if you already have a Behance portfolio from another class, or add it after the course as a second place for the same work.
Pros
- Employers search it to find people to hire. This is the only platform here with that.
- Completely free, forever. No plan to lapse.
- You already have an account through your Adobe school login.
- Zero technical skill. Upload images, write a description, publish.
- Built-in audience, likes, and appreciation from other designers.
Cons
- No custom domain, ever. Your address is always
behance.net/yourname. - Your work sits inside Adobe’s layout next to everyone else’s. Limited control over how it looks.
- It is a profile, not a website. It cannot be an “About me” plus “Services” plus “Contact” site.
- If you do not want your work public on a social platform, this is not for you, and that is fine.
Adobe Portfolio
Free right now because you are a student. Read the warning before you commit to it.
Pros
- Free while you are enrolled. It comes with the Creative Cloud you already have through Maricopa.
- It syncs with Behance, so projects you already published can flow straight in. Least duplicate work of anything here.
- Real custom domain support.
- Good-looking templates, built for designers by a design company.
- No code at all.
Cons
- It is rented, not owned. It only stays online while somebody is paying for Creative Cloud.
- When your student access ends, you have 14 days, then the public site goes dark.
- To keep it, you pay Adobe every month for the rest of your career.
- Less layout control than building it yourself.
Read this before you point a domain at it. If you buy yourname.com point it at Adobe Portfolio, put it on your résumé, and then graduate and lose Creative Cloud, your portfolio goes offline exactly when you need it most. Your files are not deleted, but the site stops loading for anyone who clicks your résumé link.
You have two honest ways out. Pay for it forever (the cheapest Creative Cloud plan that includes Portfolio runs roughly $10 to $15 a month, and if you are freelancing you probably want Creative Cloud anyway, so this may cost you nothing extra). Or move it, rebuild somewhere free, and re-point your domain. That takes an afternoon, and it is only possible because you own the domain.
Build your own sections with AI, inside Google Sites
Free, and more within reach than it sounds.
Pros
- Free. Your site still lives on free Google hosting, with nothing to cancel.
- Custom domain support, free.
- Total control over the sections you code. They look exactly like you want, because you made them.
- You can describe what you want to an AI assistant and it will write the HTML and CSS with you. You do not have to already know how to code. You have to be willing to look at code.
- “I built my own portfolio site” is a real thing to say in an interview.
- The skill transfers. Understanding a little HTML makes you better at every digital job.
Cons
- The steepest learning curve here. Coded sections have no drag-and-drop editor. This is the honest cost.
- You will meet unfamiliar words: div, class, media query. None are hard, all are new.
- Updating a coded section means editing code and pasting it again.
- Embedded code sits in a box on the page, and you may have to resize it for phones.
- AI writes code that looks right and is sometimes wrong. You still have to look at the result and judge it. That is a design skill, not a coding one, and you have it.
ArtStation
The Behance of the games industry. If that is your field, this is not optional.
Pros
- This is where game studios actually recruit. Character artists, environment artists, concept artists, and animators are hired off ArtStation.
- Free profile.
- Built-in job board aimed at exactly these roles.
- The audience is other game artists, which is good for feedback and good for networking.
Cons
- Custom domain requires ArtStation Pro, which is paid.
- Very field-specific. If you are doing branding or print design, your work will look out of place.
- The bar for posted work is high. That is motivating for some people and demoralizing for others.
Squarespace and Wix
Beautiful, easy, and you will pay for them every month for as long as the site exists.
Pros
- The best-looking templates you can get without writing code.
- Truly no code. Drag, drop, done.
- Real customer support, which nothing free on this page has.
- Handles the boring parts (mobile layouts, contact forms, e‑commerce if you sell prints).
- Squarespace often has a student discount. Check before you pay full price.
Cons
- Squarespace has no free tier at all. The trial ends and you pay or the site goes away.
- Wix’s free tier puts their ads on your portfolio and gives you a
wixsite.comaddress. Not acceptable for a professional portfolio. - Stop paying and your site is gone. This is a subscription you carry for your whole career.
- Over several years, this is by far the most expensive option here.
WordPress
Runs a huge share of the web. I have always found it harder than it should be, and I am being straight with you: it has not gotten much easier.
Pros
- Enormously powerful. It can do anything, eventually.
- Huge plugin ecosystem, endless themes.
- A real professional skill. Plenty of agencies still run client sites on it.
- Self-hosted WordPress is fully yours, with no platform that can shut you off.
Cons
- The confusing part nobody explains: there are two WordPresses.
wordpress.comis a hosted service with paid plans.wordpress.orgis free software you have to host yourself. People mix these up constantly and it is the source of most WordPress frustration. - Themes, plugins, updates, hosting, and security are all your problem.
- The learning curve is real and it buys you very little that you need for a portfolio.
- A custom domain still costs money on
wordpress.com.
Recommended Choice
1. Build your portfolio in Google Sites in your Maricopa account or a personal Google account, the course default. Publish it as Restricted, add your instructor, and add each employer’s email when you apply. Switch to Public when you choose. Add your own coded sections with AI if you want it to look more designed.
2. Already have a Behance portfolio from another class? You may use it instead. After the course, Behance is a good second place for the same work, because recruiters search it.
3. Optionally, buy yourname.com for about $12 and point it at your site. You do not have to. But it is yours, and it moves with you.
4. Put your project walkthrough videos on your site.
Pricing and features Platforms change their plans constantly, so confirm current pricing before you pay for anything. If you find something on this page that is out of date, tell me and I will fix it.