9 SmugMug Alternatives for Your Photography Portfolio

Are you a photographer, looking for a SmugMug alternative to create your portfolio?

You’ve come to the right place. As a photographer, building a professional online portfolio and website is an effective way to share your work. A high-quality photography portfolio is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and displays your imagery in a simple, yet captivating way.

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Why Go with a SmugMug Alternative?

SmugMug Alternatives Preview

With the vast selection of online portfolio-building websites, it can be hard to choose which one you should be using for your own site.

Although it is a great platform, there are several SmugMug alternatives to consider.

If you’re looking for SmugMug alternatives to build your portfolio, take a look at our nine recommendations.

Best SmugMug Alternatives

1. Format

Format portfolio-building website
Format SmugMug Alternatives

Format is a great portfolio-building platform to showcase your photography work.

They have a large selection of templates that are great for photographers, artists, and other creatives.

Format sample theme

They even can connect an online store to sell your photography prints or books. That’s got to be a bonus for numerous photographers looking for a SmugMug alternative. It was for us!

With Format, you can try out the platform to see if it is right for you with their 14-day trial.

After, they have plans that start at $6 per month which offers 100 images, three store products, and 15 pages.

All plans include:

  • Your own domain
  • Responsive Themes
  • Customer Support
  • Client Proofing and more.
Format Price Plans

Try Format

2. 22Slides

22Slides for your online portfolio

This platform is designed to create simple, yet powerful portfolio websites. They work with photographers, designers, models, and artists to craft their ideal personal website.

22Slides Sample Site

The templates are intuitive and allow you to adjust and control each part of your page. Plus, they can be mixed and matched to create an array of possibilities.

The features offered by 22Slides include:

  • Free custom domain name
  • Online sales
  • Password protection
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Responsive & Mobile Optimized and more

You can test out 22Slides for 30 days free, no credit card required. After, their pricing is $10/month for all-inclusive access to building your portfolio.

Try 22Slides

3. Zenfolio

Zenfolio for building a website

Zenfolio is an all-in-one e-commerce platform to showcase and sell your photography.

Zenfolio SmugMug Alternatives

With Zenfolio, you will have:

  • A beautiful site in minutes
  • Online pre-order for clients
  • Built-in shopping cart

They offer beautifully designed templates to display your images.

They offer a free 14-day trial to test out the platform. After that, their starter kit begins at $5/month and increases by level based on the number of features available.

Try Zenfolio

4. Squarespace

Squarespace is one of the most popular SmugMug alternatives. Likely because of its features and easy-to-use interface.

Squarespace website builder

It’s an all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence. They have an award-winning design with stunning templates for any type of creative.

With Squarespace, you’ll get intuitive marketing tools to reach and grow your audience. Also, they offer unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security and around-the-clock support.

Squarespace sample theme SmugMug Alternatives

Hard to beat that!

Squarespace is more than just a portfolio builder. It is an all-encompassing site that offers the best for its customers. It’s the SmugMug alternative for many professional photographers.

Squarespace Price Plans

You can start a week-long free trial to test out its competencies. Then the personal plan is $12 per month. They have additional plans for business-focused accounts and online stores.

Try Squarespace

5. PhotoShelter

PhotoShelter as a Smugug alternative

PhotoShelter is the portfolio-building platform where “Photographers get work done.”

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Here’s what you’ll be able to do:

  • Store your images
  • Create your photo website
  • Deliver your work
  • Sell or license your photos
PhotoShelter sample site

They have nine website template options that allow you to build your site within minutes.

Without coding.

PhotoShelter sample site

And, you can upload your photographs to create a secure and searchable online archive.

PhotoShelter Price Plans

You can get a free Photoshelter trial for you to preview the site. After the trial, their basic plan is $12.99 per month. Or, if you choose to be billed annually, it breaks down to $10 per month.

Try PhotoShelter

6. Wix

Wix portfolio site

Wix isn’t one of those SmugMug alternatives that’s useful for just portfolios. Numerous businesses use Wix to build full-blown websites.

It is the place where you can create your professional website.

Wix Theme

With the Wix editor, you have the freedom to design what you want. But, don’t let that overwhelm you. Their drag and drop builder makes your site fully customizable.

Wix offers the features of:

  • Beautiful blogs
  • Media galleries
  • Mobile-friendly sites
  • Online stores
  • Custom domains
  • Industry-leading SEO
  • Photography Templates

Plus, if you want someone to build your website for you – try Wix ADI. This allows you to have your site designed and coded by a professional to your personal liking.

Wix Price Plans

The trial is a great start to test out the platform. Once you would like to upgrade, premium plans begin at $11 per month to connect your domain, remove ads and more.

Try Wix

7. Weebly

"Weebly SmugMug Alternatives

Weebly allows you to build a professional website to display your portfolio and to help grow your business.

This platform is integrated with easy and simple design elements. Many users will appreciate the drag and drop builder that makes designing and setting up the site, easy.

Plus, you have the option to use custom fonts for a more customized look if you so desire.

Weebly theme

There are also parallax and reveal options, as well as an image editor.

For basic use, you can start using Weebly at zero cost to you. But, if you want to connect a domain – the pricing goes for $5/month when billed annually.

Weebly Price Plans

You can also add additional features for $12/month.

Try Weebly

8. Adobe Portfolio

Adobe portfolio for your work

For many of us, Adobe’s editing programs are a major tool in our post-processing workflows. However, not as many realize Adobe offers an interesting SmugMug alternative as well.

Now, this portfolio builder is a bit different because it is only available with Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription.

The good news is, you likely already have this option at your hands.

Adobe Portfolio SmugMug Alternatives

If you’re subscribed to Creative Cloud, then Portfolio is free and includes hosting with unlimited pages.

They allow you to create a full portfolio or a single-page website – whichever you prefer.

Their galleries are ideal for showcasing your professional work. And, you can upload the content directly or import it from Behance or Lightroom.

Adobe Portfolio sample site

Plus, they offer easy-to-customize themes to showcase your beautiful work online.

Creative Cloud Price Plans

The lowest level of Adobe Creative Cloud, The Photography Plan, begins at $9.99 per month with access to  Portfolio.

Try Adobe Portfolio

9. Viewbook

Viewbook photography portfolio site

Viewbook is a platform that allows you to create a clean photography website.

With Viewbook, they pride themselves on offering clean and uncluttered templates with a timeless design.

Viewbook SmugMug Alternatives

As you begin working with Viewbook you begin to notice just how photography-focused they are. We love how this SmugMug alternative allows you to choose from a variety of gallery options.

With visual customization, the Viewbook editor shows you live changes to your website as you make them.

Additional features include:

  • Online store capabilities
  • Organize, present and deliver your images
  • Mobile optimized websites
  • Use your own domain name
  • SEO searching and more

You can test out the site for as long as you’d like. Once you are ready to upgrade, Viewbook costs $16 per month when billed annually.

Try Viewbook

Did You Find the Perfect SmugMug Alternative?

As you can see, there are several alternatives to SmugMug for building your personal website or portfolio. Each offers different features at various price points. Explore the options we have discussed above and choose the platform that fits your photography needs.

Then drop us a link to your fancy new website in the comments below. We can’t wait to see what you’ll create!

About the Author
shannon ciricillo author

Shannon Ciricillo is photographer working with digital and film formats, she is currently based in New York City.

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7 thoughts on “9 SmugMug Alternatives for Your Photography Portfolio”

  1. Areal Photographer

    smugmug, zenfolio, & photoshelter are not just website platforms. they do way more than all the others on the list. you can’t compare them. it’s like comparing a full size supermarket and a convenience store. two totally different things with different purposes.

  2. Richard in Albany NY

    Thanks. I like photography and was looking to change hosts at SmugMug is just doubling their price. I like the site but don’t take the time to use it properly. This list helps.

  3. Dylan S Le Maire

    I already have a lot of blogs and would prefer that but eBlogger won’t give me the grid format for images I need. Stupid but…

    Does anyone know of a SIMPLE template compatible with eBlogger that will give me that ability to display images in a grid like almost every other website on the planet

  4. Dylan S Le Maire

    Unfortunately ALL of these alternatives seem to be pricier than Smugmug. I paid $8.99 a month BY THE MONTH. That was it. I found their policies too restrictive, but the price was definitely better.

  5. Great write-up. Anything is better than smugmug based on some of their policies. I recently left them with 9 months remaining and they refused to refund that portion of my plan.
    I left for better services and options – went with WIX and got more services than Smugmug pretended to offer!