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Liferay Portal adopts an architecture that is flexible. It divides a webpage into a theme, a layout template, and portlets. The look-and-feel of Liferay Portal can be completely customized.

Definition of a portal

In our context, a portal is a web portal. A web portal refers to a website that provides a broad array of resources and services, which typically include e-mail, forum, searching, and online shopping. Yahoo! was one of the first portals.

There are also web portals for enterprise use. These portals are called enterprise portals. An enterprise portal provides content and collaboration for the employees of an enterprise. It is set up as an intranet application. Liferay Portal is often customized into an enterprise portal.

Most content at a Liferay Portal site comes from its portlets. A Liferay Portal contains portlets, as a window contains panes. A portlet is different from a pane, in that it consists of text and images.

A portlet works like a servlet. A portal URL request to the application server will invoke one or more portlets. The portlets run and produce HTML markup. Liferay Portal assembles the HTML markup into an HTML file. It returns the HTML file to the requesting browser.

Horizontal vs. vertical portals

Liferay Portal was named a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals report of Gartner in 2010 (http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/reprints/liferay/206214.html). What is a horizontal portal? A horizontal portal covers many areas. It can be used as a platform for multiple social and collaborative purposes. It can also be used by more than one company in the same industry. Liferay Portal is a horizontal portal, because it has a collaborative suite of blogs, wiki, mail, and calendar portlets. Its message board and chat portlets can be used for social activities.

A vertical portal focuses on one functional area. It is a specialized entry point to a specific market, industry, or subject area.