“Types of communities” can mean two different things depending on what the interviewer cares about: types by audience (who uses the site) or types by template (which Experience Cloud builder template the site is built from). Strong candidates answer both.
By audience
| Audience type | Typical use case | Common license |
|---|---|---|
| Customer community | Self-service support, knowledge base, case management | Customer Community / Customer Community Plus |
| Partner community | Deal registration, channel enablement, partner portals | Partner Community / Partner Community Login |
| Employee community | Internal collaboration, HR / project hubs | Standard internal license — no extra community license needed |
| Public / unauthenticated | Public help center, knowledge articles indexed by search engines | No login required — uses guest-user access |
By Experience Cloud template
When you create a new site in Setup → All Sites → New, you pick a template. Each template ships with a different layout, navigation, and component set:
- Customer Service — the most popular template, optimized for cases, knowledge, search.
- Partner Central — pre-built for partner workflows: leads, deal registration, opportunities.
- Help Center — knowledge-focused; light authentication or public.
- Aloha (Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce) — legacy template that exposes standard Salesforce tabs to community users; useful for power-user partner portals.
- Build Your Own (LWR) — the modern Lightning Web Runtime template for high-performance, custom-branded sites built entirely in LWC.
- Build Your Own (Aura) — the older Aura-based “blank canvas” template.
- Microsites and Industry-specific templates — depending on the Experience Cloud SKU and industry verticals enabled.
Aura vs LWR — the template generations
There are two underlying generations of Experience Cloud sites:
| Generation | Templates | Tech | When to choose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aura (older) | Customer Service, Partner Central, Help Center, Build Your Own (Aura), Aloha | Aura framework + LWC | Existing sites, heavy use of standard components, faster path for admin-built sites |
| LWR (newer) | Build Your Own (LWR), Microsites | Lightning Web Runtime — pure LWC | New sites needing maximum performance, fine-grained customization, smaller bundle size |
LWR is the strategic direction; new builds typically start there unless they need a feature the LWR template hasn’t reached yet.
Quick interview-ready answer
“By audience, Salesforce has Customer, Partner, Employee, and Public communities. By template, the main ones are Customer Service, Partner Central, Help Center, Build Your Own (LWR or Aura), and the legacy Aloha (Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce). LWR is the modern Lightning Web Runtime stack; the rest run on Aura.”
Verified against: Salesforce Help — Experience Cloud Templates and Trailhead — Experience Cloud Basics. Last reviewed 2026-05-17.