it_user541170 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Portlet development technology promotes re-usability of code. Theme development is tough for UI guys.

What is most valuable?

  • Portlet development technology promotes re-usability of code (one portlet can be used in many portals).
  • Very powerful product for Intranet solutions.
  • Multi-instance capability.
  • Document management and its permission system is very powerful.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps develop intranet solutions with code re-usability; once you develop a portlet, you can use it for any number of different solutions.

Its marketplace provides many out-of-the-box functionalities.

Architecture is so good that you can fit many organizational structures into Liferay.

What needs improvement?

  • Documentation
  • Mobility
  • Theme development is tough for UI guys. A UI guy needs to learn to work with Liferay.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Liferay 6.2 for the last two years and Liferay Digital Experience Platform for the last three to four months.

Buyer's Guide
Liferay Digital Experience Platform
May 2024
Learn what your peers think about Liferay Digital Experience Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.
770,428 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

As for now, Liferay DXP was just released, so there are many issues. Things don't work as mentioned in the documentation. It will get stable in the next releases. Liferay 6.2 was quite a stable version.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven’t had any scalability issues.

How are customer service and support?

I rate technical support 8/10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I was not previously using any other solutions.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup is not very complex, but you need to follow the exact steps they suggest and it’s not that easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

No advice as of now.

What other advice do I have?

Check your requirements and license costs. If you are going with a licensed version, try to map your functionalities with Liferay. Then decide whether you need Liferay or not.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are platinum partners of Liferay.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Senior Manager - Cloud Transformation at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
I have seen multiple projects where Enterprise portals are implemented using Liferay.

I have seen multiple projects where Enterprise portals are implemented using Liferay. The main reasons to choose Liferay as a platform for enterprise portal development are - 

1. It is open source and cost effective 

2. it has OOTB supplort for many common functionality like File uplaod, MEdia, Loing, User Roles and Authentication, which reduces the development time and effectively results in less time to market the application. 

3. It supports JSR industry standards like JSR 168, 286, JSR 283 and other many industry standards which helps the application development as well as integration with any third party spftware very easy. 

4. Liferay provides very good framework for customization of the portal. it is very easy to understand and implement. 

5. The Overall liferay product is designed to be developer friendly. IT does not have any IDE per say. but anyone can use their existing IDEs to create Liferay projects. There is no need to understand the working of new IDE - which is required if we go for other Industry leading Licensed Portal products like IBM, Oracle Portal. 

6. Liferay comes in multiple flavours - community edition, entrprise edition - which can be used by any Small and Medium size organizations. 

7. There is ongoing support from Liferay community to fix and troubleshoot any issues. 

8. The Administrative UI which comes with Liferay is very intuitve and easy to use. Which reduces the Admin work dramatically. 

Hence I feel Liferay has an advantage over other Licensed portal products like IBM/Oracle/SAP portal.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user429033 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user429033Information Systems Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant

Well, Gartner seems to agree with you, since the Enterprise Portals Magic Quadrant of 2015 features Liferay in an excellent 2nd place overall, leaving all but one commercial products far behind. The two best features of Liferay, in my opinion, are the cleanness of portal concepts implementation and the excellent support for applications. It's a wining mix of content and functionality.

Buyer's Guide
Liferay Digital Experience Platform
May 2024
Learn what your peers think about Liferay Digital Experience Platform. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.
770,428 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user627057 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
I like the control panel features. The front-end technologies need improvement.

What is most valuable?

I like most of out-of-the-box features, especially the control panel features.

How has it helped my organization?

There is no need to develop from scratch. The framework is ready for development. It provides multi-tenancy and is easy to integrate with other applications.

What needs improvement?

The front-end technologies need improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Liferay for eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter many problems with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not need to make any changes to support our work for a long time.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give technical support a rating of 3.5-4/5.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We traditionally build applications from scratch. This makes basic setup, such as user management, organization, roles, and permissions easier. It is easy to extend or customize out-of-the-box features.

How was the initial setup?

It is easy to set up for any environment. Instructions are available over the internet.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I did not get a chance to work with sales.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not really evaluate other options.

What other advice do I have?

Liferay, Version 7, gives OSGI implementation. This is the future of Java technologies. Liferay enables you to stay with latest technologies with each version release.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Chief Executive Officer at a government with 51-200 employees
Vendor
The product has helped our members and communities to freely connect, share knowledge, develop initiatives and share expertise in a secure environment.

What is most valuable?

The community and collaboration features such as forums, library, wikis, event and ideas.

How has it helped my organization?

Our organisation is set up to support other organisations working in Public Sector Improvement. The product has helped our members and communities to freely connect, share knowledge, develop initiatives and share expertise in a secure environment. This has enabled organisations to save both time and money, generated and incubated ideas to drive improvement, and helped members discover knowledge to help in their job and connect with people and experts.

What needs improvement?

Liferay does currently lack a good integrated analytics package, automation, and filtering.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We had no material issues during deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did, at different stages, have performance issues, but this was resolved by moving to the recommend infrastructure.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's been able to scale for our needs.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

8/10

Technical Support:

9/10

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used an IBM WebSphere product. We moved to an open source product to support the concept being promoted in the UK Government and expected scalability without scaled cost.

How was the initial setup?

A bit of both. Learning what a new platform can and can’t do can take a while especially if you are moving from an established platform that was bespoke built to a portal based platform. Showcasing the benefits of moving to the members and migrations was tough to start with but has proved to be beneficial.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it through a vendor team, PFI Knowledge Solutions Limited (PFIKS). They are the only UK platinum partner of Liferay and have a great level of expertise - 8/10, even though it is a relatively small organisation

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Check out the community (free) version first. Go with Enterprise Edition for the great Liferay support.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

A number of alternative products were evaluated, including staying with the original IBM platform. We selected Liferay due to its flexibility and scalability.

What other advice do I have?

Take your time, Liferay can do so many different things and can be very complex. So be clear on what you are building.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
IT – Consultant / Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Big benefit is in relation to cost but there are a lot of areas which could be improved.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features is Java based platform and JSR portlet for development.

How has it helped my organization?

It has provided one place for integration.

What needs improvement?

There are a lot of possibilities for improvement in several areas.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Liferay since 2007

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Yes, a wide range of issues.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes, in most of our big projects.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Yes, both horizontal and vertical.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Customer service is very high.

Technical Support:

Technical support depends on the subscription, but it is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No previous solution used.

How was the initial setup?

The platform is independent of the environment and first setup is very easy. Just click.

What about the implementation team?

We used a vendor team who I met and they have great expertise.

What was our ROI?

Big benefit is in relation to cost. There are a lot of out of box things and on the other side is has got elastic platform for further improvements.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Just the subscription, which is one year for us.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, we also looked at SharePoint and WebSphere.

What other advice do I have?

High cost.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
it_user517965 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user517965Liferay Portals Technical Lead at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User

Great....

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it_user520707 - PeerSpot reviewer
Liferay/Java Developer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
It can create multiple sites from a single installation and supports multiple-file upload to the document library.

What is most valuable?

  • Check in: lets you update a document that you have edited. Its version number will be increased and the previous version document will be saved for reference.
  • Check out: lets you check out a document for editing. This prevents anyone else from accessing the file while someone is working on the checked out document.
  • Document library (repository): Liferay provides a document management system (CMS). It not only keeps the document but also manages the document with proper versioning and permissions for accessing the document.
  • Multiple-file upload: allows uploading multiple file at one time to the document library.
  • Workflow: allows using Keleo for workflow, which manages a module’s flow within specific roles of the hierarchy.
  • Document conversion tool (file format conversion): allows document conversion for common extensions such as Word to PDF and vice versa, with OpenOffice.
  • Multiple sites in one Liferay portal: One can create multiple sites with a single Liferay installation.
  • User-role management: Liferay manages its own users and roles with its control panel that consists of a rich UI that is very user friendly.
  • LDAP Support: Helps with single sign on in Liferay.

How has it helped my organization?

It reduces development time as well as requires less maintenance.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see it require fewer configurations from the properties file, and provide more GUI options to configure changes.

I’d also like to maybe see virus scanning for file uploads.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not encountered any stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have never taken technical support from the vendor.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not previously use a different solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial step is way too easy.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing this product, I also evaluated BackBase.

What other advice do I have?

Use this product wisely.

The Liferay team has made this product to the mark. As of now, the technology is up-to-date and fulfills all essential requirements.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Full Stack Software Developer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
It has a built-in WCMS and provides the ability to develop complex portlet-based web applications. The documentation could be better.

What is most valuable?

It has a built-in WCMS (web content management system) and provides the ability to develop complex portlet-based web applications. That's valuable because it is Java/Java EE-based and open source.

What needs improvement?

The documentation could be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Liferay for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

How was the initial setup?

Setup was easy and straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

Hire developers with a high level of expertise with Liferay Portal.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user643896 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Integrates with other ecosystems. More quality improvement is required.

What is most valuable?

  • Scalable
  • Easily integrates with other ecosystems
  • Fast
  • User-friendly
  • Speedy development

What needs improvement?

As it is open source, it has lots of features and it is constantly updating. Therefore, bugs also keep coming. More quality improvement is required.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this product for the last seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I did not encounter any stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support was good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously deployed WebLogic, but we moved to Liferay because it offered a range of out-of-box features. It was also faster than WebLogic.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing is less expensive and structured in comparison to other paid portals.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

As mentioned earlier, we used WebLogic.

What other advice do I have?

It’s fast, easy, scalable, and stable with a competitive price. Go for it.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Platinum Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Liferay Digital Experience Platform Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: May 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Liferay Digital Experience Platform Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.