Portals were the pre-2013 way to give external users (customers, partners) login access to a Salesforce org — Customer Portal and Partner Portal. Communities (rebranded Experience Cloud in 2020) replaced them with a modern, Lightning-based, mobile-first, templated builder. Portals are largely deprecated; Communities/Experience Cloud is the only supported way to build new external sites on Salesforce.
Side-by-side
| Dimension | Portal (legacy) | Communities / Experience Cloud (current) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 2003-2013 | 2013-present |
| UI framework | Visualforce + Classic | Lightning Experience, Aura, LWR (Lightning Web Runtime) |
| Mobile experience | Poor — desktop-first | Mobile-responsive templates out of the box |
| Builder | Heavy code (Visualforce + Apex) | Visual builder (Experience Builder) with drag-and-drop |
| Templates | None — bespoke pages | Customer Service, Partner Central, Help Center, Build Your Own (Aura / LWR), Microsites |
| Branding | Manual CSS overrides | Themes, Lightning Bolt, custom CSS, theme layouts |
| Authentication | Username/password, basic SSO | SAML SSO, OAuth, social login (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn) |
| Object support | Limited subset of standard objects | Most standard and custom objects |
| Search | Basic | Global search, federated search, Einstein Search |
| Chatter / collaboration | Limited | Full Chatter, groups, feeds |
| Knowledge integration | Available | First-class — Knowledge articles, search, deflection |
| License names | Customer Portal, Partner Portal, Gold Partner, High Volume Portal | Customer Community, Customer Community Plus, Partner Community, External Apps |
| Status | Largely deprecated | Active — Salesforce’s current strategic external platform |
When the question matters today
Two scenarios where you actually need to know the difference:
- Inheriting a legacy org. Many enterprise orgs still have portal-licensed users from the pre-2013 era. You’ll see portal license names in user records, portal-era sharing constructs, and historical reports. Recognizing them helps you decide what to migrate.
- License conversion projects. A common modernization task is migrating from Customer Portal users to Customer Community Plus users — semi-automated by Salesforce tooling but requires understanding the differences in sharing model (Sharing Sets, Share Groups in Communities).
Quick interview answer
“Portals were the legacy external-user framework — Visualforce/Classic, hard to brand, weak mobile. Communities replaced them in 2013 with a Lightning-based templated builder, full mobile support, modern auth, and broader object support. Communities were rebranded Experience Cloud in 2020. For new builds, always Experience Cloud — portals are deprecated.”
Verified against: Salesforce Help — Experience Cloud and Trailhead — Experience Cloud Basics. Last reviewed 2026-05-17.