You want both a portfolio website and a LinkedIn profile, because they do different jobs. LinkedIn is a network and a search surface: it is where recruiters look for you and where your connections vouch for you. A portfolio website is the work itself, presented on your terms at an address you own, with depth LinkedIn cannot hold. Use LinkedIn to be found, and use your portfolio to be chosen.
The short answer
Why the question has the wrong shape
People phrase this as a decision, as if a portfolio website and a LinkedIn profile were two competing options and the smart move was to pick the better one. That framing wastes the real insight, which is that the two surfaces barely overlap. Asking whether you should have a portfolio or a LinkedIn is a little like asking whether you should have a phone number or a home address. They both help people reach you, and they do it in completely different ways.
LinkedIn is a network. Its value is that other people are already on it, that recruiters search it every day, and that your connections can publicly vouch for you in a way that carries weight. None of that has anything to do with how good the platform is at displaying your work, because displaying your work is not what it is for. It is for being found and being trusted enough to warrant a closer look.
A portfolio website is the closer look. It is where the work lives in full, presented the way you decided rather than squeezed into a template shared by half a billion other profiles. The honest answer to the versus question, then, is that you keep both and stop treating them as rivals. The interesting question is not which one to have. It is which job each one should do.
Side by side
What each surface is actually good at
The Folio column here stands for an owned portfolio website in general, not only ours. Read it as a map of which surface to reach for, not as a scoreboard.
| Capability | Folio | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns it | You do. The address, the layout, and the content are yours and outlast any platform | The platform does. You are a tenant on rules and a design you do not control |
| Discoverability | Earned through search and the links you place. Slower to build, but yours to keep | Strong out of the box. Recruiters actively search it, which is its single biggest advantage |
| Depth of work shown | Full case studies, long-form projects, embedded media, and the reasoning behind each piece | Shallow by design. Good for a summary, poor for showing how the work was actually done |
| Social proof | You have to supply it yourself through testimonials and named credits | Built in. Endorsements, recommendations, and mutual connections carry real trust |
| Design and presentation | Entirely your choice, which lets the work look the way it deserves to | One template for everyone. Your profile looks like every other profile |
| What it is best for | Being chosen. It is the page that convinces someone already interested in you | Being found. It is where the interest starts before anyone visits your site |
LinkedIn is a genuinely useful product and this is not an argument against it. The point is only that a rented profile and an owned site do different jobs, and a serious job search uses both.
Division of labour
How the two work together in a real job search
Once you stop treating them as rivals, an obvious workflow appears. Each surface hands off to the other at the point where its strength runs out.
Reach
LinkedIn starts the conversation
A recruiter searches, a connection refers you, a post gets seen. This is the top of the funnel, and LinkedIn is genuinely excellent at it. Almost nobody discovers you by stumbling onto your portfolio cold, so the network does the finding.
Trust
LinkedIn supplies the social proof
Before anyone reads your work, they want a reason to believe you are real and credible. Recommendations, a coherent history, and mutual connections do that quickly. It is the reference check that happens before the interview is even scheduled.
Depth
The portfolio makes the case
Once someone is interested, LinkedIn runs out of room. Your portfolio is where they read the full case study, watch the demo, and see the reasoning. This is the surface that turns a maybe into a yes, and it needs space LinkedIn will never give it.
Control
The portfolio holds the permanent record
Jobs end, companies fold, and platforms change their rules. Your portfolio is the version of your career that survives all of that, because you own the address. It is the link you keep on your resume, your email signature, and yes, your LinkedIn profile.
Make them work together
How to connect the two so neither one is stranded
The most common mistake is running both accounts as if the other did not exist. A few deliberate links turn two separate presences into one funnel.
Put your portfolio link where LinkedIn shows it.
Add your portfolio to the featured section and the contact panel of your LinkedIn profile, not buried in an experience entry. LinkedIn drives the visit; make the destination one obvious tap away so the interested reader does not have to search for your actual work.
Keep the two stories consistent.
Your LinkedIn headline and your portfolio should describe the same person aiming at the same thing. If the profile says one specialism and the site implies another, a reader trusts neither. Consistency is not repetition; it is making sure both surfaces point the same direction.
Use LinkedIn for updates, the portfolio for the record.
Post the new project, the talk, the launch on LinkedIn where the network will see it. Then let the finished, permanent version live on your portfolio. The feed is for momentum; the site is for the archive that still exists after the post scrolls away.
Own at least one end of the funnel.
You cannot control LinkedIn, so make sure the surface you send people to is one you do. That way, whatever the platform changes next, the destination of every visit is still your work at an address that answers to you.
The ownership question
Rented reach versus an address that is yours
Everything in the comparison comes down to one difference: you rent your LinkedIn profile and you own your portfolio. That is not a criticism of LinkedIn, which is a good product doing exactly what it was built to do. It is a statement about risk. Anything you build entirely on someone else's platform exists at their discretion, and platforms reliably change their reach, their rules, and their layout in ways that suit them and not you.
The practical conclusion is not to leave LinkedIn. It is to make sure the permanent version of your professional self lives somewhere you control, and to use the rented reach of LinkedIn to drive people toward it. When a recruiter finds you, you want the trail to end at your work on your address, not at a profile that could be redesigned out from under you next quarter.
Folio is one straightforward way to own that end of the funnel, and it is worth being plain about the free plan. The free tier puts your site at portfolio.wrxstack.com/yourname rather than a custom domain, shows a small Made with Folio badge, and keeps the full theme gallery on the paid tier. The resume export is not gated, downloading as PDF and DOCX at no cost and with no watermark. Whatever you build the site with, the shape of the advice holds: be found on LinkedIn, be chosen on a page you own.
Frequently asked questions
Should I have a portfolio website or a LinkedIn profile?
Both. They solve different problems, so treating them as a choice costs you one of them. LinkedIn is where recruiters find you and where your network vouches for you, while a portfolio website is where the full work lives on your terms. Use LinkedIn to be found and your portfolio to be chosen, and link the two together.
Is a LinkedIn profile enough on its own?
For being found, often yes; for being chosen, usually not. LinkedIn is shallow by design, so it can summarise your history but cannot hold the full case studies, demos, and reasoning that convince someone already interested in you. A portfolio website carries the depth LinkedIn was never built to show, which is why serious candidates keep both.
What can a portfolio website do that LinkedIn cannot?
It gives you depth, control, and ownership. You can present full projects with embedded media and the thinking behind them, design the page to suit your work rather than a shared template, and keep it at an address you own that outlasts any single platform. LinkedIn offers none of those, because it is optimised for network reach instead.
What does LinkedIn do better than a portfolio website?
Discoverability and social proof. Recruiters actively search LinkedIn, connections can publicly endorse you, and mutual contacts create trust before anyone reads a word of your work. A portfolio has to earn its traffic slowly through search and shared links, so LinkedIn is usually where the interest starts.
How do I connect my portfolio and my LinkedIn?
Put your portfolio link in the featured section and contact panel of your LinkedIn profile so it is one tap from any visit, keep both profiles aimed at the same specialism, and use LinkedIn for updates while your portfolio holds the permanent record. The goal is one funnel: LinkedIn drives the visit and your portfolio closes it.