We run DesignPorn, so we are one of the options below. Where another tool does a job better, we say so.
What agencies actually use Awwwards for
Most studios touch Awwwards in three ways, and each has a different price and a different replacement.
- Inspiration. Browsing Sites of the Day and Honorable Mentions to see what the best web teams ship. Browsing is open to everyone.
- Awards. Submitting your own work for a jury score. On the Awwwards submit page, a Standard Submission costs $65 per website, or $165 bundled with a year of a User Pro plan.
- Exposure. Paying for a Pro profile in the Professional Directory. The Awwwards Pro page lists Basic at $15 a month, Professional at $26 a month (agencies and studios, with free submission on annual payment and visibility in up to 3 categories) and International at $555 a month (home page placement and visibility across countries).
Prices were read on awwwards.com/pro and awwwards.com/submit in October 2026. Annual billing is cheaper; check their pages before you buy.
If you only want one of those three jobs done well, paying for the bundle makes little sense. That is why people search for Awwwards alternatives.
Awwwards alternatives compared
| Tool |
Best for |
Search by style in plain words |
Find similar from a screenshot |
Palette, fonts, spacing |
Client boards |
Price to start |
| Awwwards |
Award-level, experimental web craft and a paid agency directory |
Tags and filters |
No |
Colors and fonts on some entries |
Collections |
Free to browse, Pro from $15 a month |
| DesignPorn |
Finding the right web, SaaS or brand reference for a client brief |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes, on every design |
Yes, private client links |
See pricing |
| Land-book |
Scrolling landing pages and page sections by filter |
No |
No |
Color and typography filters |
Boards, per person |
$6 a month billed yearly |
| Recent (formerly Godly) |
A broad feed of web, interface and brand work |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Free to browse |
| CSS Design Awards |
Juried awards for web design and development |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Paid submissions |
| The FWA |
Long-running awards for digital and interactive work |
No |
No |
No |
No |
See their site |
| Clutch and DesignRush |
Being found by buyers who are hiring an agency |
Not a design library |
No |
No |
No |
Free listing, paid placement |
Land-book prices were checked on land-book.com/pro in October 2026. The award sites change their entry fees by season, so confirm on each site.
What is the best alternative to Awwwards for website inspiration?
For website inspiration on real client work, the best Awwwards alternative is a library you can search by style. On DesignPorn you type "editorial agency homepage with large serif type" or upload the client's current site, and you get ranked references with the palette, fonts and spacing of each. Awwwards is better for seeing the most experimental motion and WebGL work.
That last point matters. Awwwards winners skew toward showpieces: scroll-driven 3D, custom cursors, heavy transitions. They are great for a creative director's mood, and often wrong for a B2B client who needs a fast, clear site that sells. When the brief says "credible, calm, converts", you want references from shipped commercial sites, which is what our website design inspiration library is curated around.
Which Awwwards alternative is best for agencies?
For agencies, the best Awwwards alternative is the one that fits the client workflow: search, share, get sign-off. DesignPorn Team covers five seats with shared boards, private links a client opens without an account, alerts on competitor redesigns and a monthly trend report. Awwwards Pro plans are built around your profile and exposure, which is a sales channel, not a research tool.
A typical pitch week with a searchable library looks like this:
- Monday. Paste the client's own words from the discovery call into search ("warm, premium, not corporate") and save twenty candidates to a board.
- Tuesday. Drop screenshots of the three competitors the client named into find similar designs to see who already owns which look.
- Wednesday. Cut the board to ten, note the palette and type pairing of each, and send the private link.
- Thursday. The client comments, you lock a direction, design starts with a brief everyone agreed on.
If you are taking on a new client for that pitch, it is worth a quick company background check before you commit a week of unpaid work. Then the references do the selling. See design inspiration for teams for how boards and seats work.
Are there Awwwards alternatives for awards and recognition?
Yes. CSS Design Awards and The FWA are the two juried programs most studios enter alongside or instead of Awwwards, and the Webby Awards cover the wider web, including categories for agencies and brands. CSS Design Awards and the Webbys charge per entry; check The FWA for its current terms. None of them is a research tool; they are a way to earn a badge and a press line for your own site and case studies.
Our honest take for a small studio: one strong award on a flagship project helps recruiting and credibility, but buyers of a $40,000 website redesign rarely choose an agency because of a Site of the Day. They choose on relevant case studies and a clear process. Put the budget where your next client looks.
Are there sites like Awwwards for getting clients?
Yes. Clutch and DesignRush are agency directories that buyers browse when they are shortlisting vendors, with reviews and filters by service, budget and location. Dribbble and Behance work for freelancers and small studios whose clients browse portfolios. The Awwwards Professional Directory sits in the same space, priced from $15 to $555 a month on its Pro page.
The difference is intent. A design-community directory is visited mostly by other designers. A B2B directory is visited by marketing managers with a budget. For an agency that sells websites, the second audience is the one that pays.
Is Awwwards worth it for an agency?
Awwwards is worth it for an agency whose clients hire for creative and technical craft: luxury, culture, entertainment, experiential launches. A Site of the Day there signals exactly what those buyers want. For agencies selling SaaS sites, B2B redesigns and conversion work, the award fee and Pro plan usually return less than a library that speeds up every brief and a directory where buyers shortlist.
Many studios end up with a split setup: browse Awwwards for free to keep an eye on the craft edge, enter awards once or twice a year for a flagship project, and pay for the tool they open every day on client work.
Where Awwwards still wins
Being fair to it:
- The craft ceiling. No other gallery shows as much bleeding-edge interaction design, and the developer award recognizes engineering that galleries ignore.
- Jury signal. A score from working designers means more to creative buyers than a curator's pick.
- Learning. Awwwards runs courses and an Academy alongside the gallery, with The Creative Pass listed at $12 a month.
If those are why you use it, keep it. If you mostly open Awwwards to find a reference for Tuesday's brief, a searchable library will save the hours you spend scrolling.
How to switch your reference workflow in a week
- Export or screenshot the Awwwards collections you actually reuse. Most teams find it is fewer than thirty sites.
- Run each screenshot through find similar to rebuild those collections as boards, now with palette and type data attached.
- Save searches for the styles you pitch most ("dark fintech", "warm DTC", "minimal SaaS") and switch on alerts, so new matches arrive by email.
- Share one board with a current client by private link and see how fast feedback comes back.
If a web gallery is still part of your routine, our comparisons of the Land-book alternative and the Godly alternative cover the other popular sources, and the full roundup of the best design inspiration sites puts every option side by side.
Try it on your next brief
Type the look your client asked for in the search box at the top of this page, or drop a screenshot of a site they like. Your first search and your first upload work without an account. When the references hold up, compare plans and move the team over.
