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I want to create an enterprise intranet , that provides authentication of employees and management profiles, messaging, calendar, document management...

I think I can use php or java CMS , for the moment after some research I decided to use Liferay or Alfresco. The problem is that I don't really know the difference between them , and what I have to choose .

Caffeinated
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Bouabane Mohamed Salah
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3 Answers3

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They're quite different products, solving different business needs.

Liferay

It's a Java Portal. It focuses on creating web sites that are able to integrate data coming from different sources and applications in the same page. Using portlets, you compose a page to enrich it with such mini applications. It's mostly used to create web sites that aggregate information and contain interactive features such as online chat, blogs and the like. It also provides document management as part of its features, with the possibility of integrating Alfresco as a backend.

Alfresco

It's an Enterprise Content Management system. It revolves around documents, their lifecycle and collaboration capabilities over such documents. With the advent of Share, Alfresco now offers a lightweight portal-like application that lets you place "dashlets" in both an User Dashboard and a Site Dashboard (sites are shared workspaces). While you can have non-document centric dashlets, blogs and wikis, they're not extremely sophisticated, and most of Alfresco features focus on document management and online collaboration.

skuro
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I have not worked with portals for quite a while, but I guess the answer is : It really depends. :)

Seriously, in your requirements context I would compare Alfresco Share with Liferay. Both compose pages in a similiar fashion with Webscripts/Portlets components and have security baked in.

I think the most important factor to consider is your skill set.

If you feel at home with Java, the Portlet spec and server side logic : Lean towards Liferay. Alfresco Share/Spring Surf should serve you better if you prefer Javascript in the browser and JSON/REST style programming.

Besides, validate how strong your document management requirements are.

Do you really need super sophisticated search, workflow, versioning, security and the like ?

Sophistication increases complexity. That is also why I would be careful before introducing them both at the same time.

Another point to have in mind may be documentation - guess this point goes to Liferay.

Andreas Steffan
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Liferay's primary strength is as a portal where you use existing "applications" to fit your need, or create your own using the Portlet spec. Alfresco is a CMS, so it focuses on content management.

Why not use both?

ebaxt
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