Best website builders for academics, and when to hire a designer instead

Most academics who decide to build a personal website get stuck at the same first question: which tool? Here’s an honest comparison of the main options, what each is good at, and when it makes more sense to hand the job to someone else.

What to look for in any academic website builder

Before comparing tools, check that whichever you choose can do these five things:

1. Use your own domain (yourname.com), so the site stays yours if you move institutions.
2. Work well on phones. Many journalists and organisers will see your site on a phone first.
3. Load fast. Slow sites rank lower on Google and lose visitors.
4. Be easy for you to update. A site that stops in 2021 does more harm than good.
5. Let you edit page titles and descriptions, so each page shows properly in search results.

The main options compared

Builder	Best for	Cost	Effort	Watch out for
Google Sites	A simple, free starter page	Free	Low	Basic design; limited control over search settings
Academic builders (e.g. Owlstown)	Researchers who mainly need a clean publication list	Free plan; paid upgrades	Low	Less flexible for books, speaking and media pages
Squarespace	A polished look with visual editing	Paid plan	Low to medium	Templates can look generic unless customised
Wix	Drag-and-drop freedom	Free plan; paid for own domain	Low to medium	Easy to make layouts cluttered
WordPress	Maximum flexibility and plugins	Hosting cost	Medium to high	Needs updates and security care
GitHub templates (e.g. Academic Pages)	Researchers comfortable with code	Free	High	Every change means editing code
A designer	Professors with books, talks and press, and little time	One-off fee	Lowest for you	Check you own the domain and content

Plans and features change often, so check each builder’s current pricing before you commit.

Google Sites

Free, simple and familiar if you already use Google tools. It’s fine for a single page with your bio and contact details. It’s less suited to multiple books, a speaking page or a press kit, and it offers limited control over how your pages appear in search.

Choose it if: you want something live this afternoon and will keep it simple.

Academic website builders

Tools built specifically for academics, such as Owlstown, focus on what researchers need first: a profile, publications and a clean layout, with little setup.

Choose it if: your audience is mainly other researchers and a tidy publication list is the priority.

Look elsewhere if: you have books to sell, talks to book or press to show. These need more flexible pages than most academic builders offer.

Squarespace and Wix

General website builders with visual editing and many templates. Squarespace tends to produce polished, consistent designs; Wix gives more freedom to move things around. Both handle custom domains, phones and basic search settings well.

Choose it if: you want a good-looking site and are happy to spend a few weekends on design and writing.

WordPress

The most flexible option, with themes and plugins for almost anything. It also needs the most care: regular updates, security and occasional fixes.

Choose it if: you, or someone you trust, will maintain it over time.

GitHub templates (Academic Pages and similar)

Free templates that turn simple text files into a website, popular with researchers in technical fields. They’re fast and cost nothing to host.

Choose it if: you’re comfortable with code and version control.

Look elsewhere if: you want to change layouts or add pages without touching code.

The part no builder does for you

Every tool above solves the same problem: getting pages onto the internet. None of them solves the harder one: what to write.

Turning years of papers, a book and a speaking career into a homepage a journalist understands in ten seconds is the part most academics put off. A blank template makes it feel bigger, not smaller. If you do build it yourself, start with the professor website template, which lays out every page with fill-in-the-blank text.

When to hire a designer instead

A designer usually makes more sense if:

• you have books, talks or press, not only publications;
• you’d rather approve copy than write it;
• your current site is outdated and you haven’t found time to fix it in months;
• you want it to be found on Google and in AI search without learning how.

That’s what academic website design covers: I design and write the whole site from your published work, and keep it current. For authors, see author website design.

If you’d like to compare before deciding, I’ll design two sections of your site for free, within two working days. Request your free preview.