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Roman Verner
Roman Verner

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Web Developers, do you recommend building your own portfolio, or paying for an existing service?

I know that building your own custom-coded website is a great opportunity to showcase your skills, but it's also something you need to maintain moving forward. Is it worth the hassle of maintaining a custom-coded website as opposed to going with a 3rd party provider (such as SquareSpace or Wordpress)?

I'm considering moving to a 3rd party provider as I find maintaining my own website to be more of a distraction from other, more important, work. Before I make the switch I thought I'd see what you wise folks had to say. Thanks!

Top comments (9)

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siddharthshyniben profile image
Siddharth

I would make my own portfolio because my portfolio should be on my portfolio

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siddharthshyniben profile image
Siddharth

Ok, for the real answer, I would ask what kind of maintenance? If it's (the maintenance is) simple, I would build my own because maintaining is like a well earned break.

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romverner profile image
Roman Verner

Mostly libraries/packages updating and server hosts updating their security protocols. I use Heroku which changed their automatic certificate management a few months back and my site became inaccessible to Android devices -- something I had to go and address.

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siddharthshyniben profile image
Siddharth

Hard stuff. I don't really work with hosted websites, so I didn't know about these stuff. If it's too complex/tedious and other options are good enough and solve enough problems, you could use them

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siddharthshyniben profile image
Siddharth

PS: where is your portfolio?

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danstockham profile image
Dan Stockham

Does a master carpenter hire someone to make their signature table?

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romverner profile image
Roman Verner

Haha, good point. I guess I'm looking at it from a slightly different perspective:
Does a master carpenter always have to build their own house?

But point taken!

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romanright profile image
Roman Right

Only if you want to, I think. Like a side project.
I don't think it matters from the recruiting point of view if you already have experience, which you can demonstrate.

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romverner profile image
Roman Verner

True! Btw, nice name and hello from a fellow neighboring country (Czech)!