Web Portal vs Website – Which To Choose for Your Business?

If you want to understand what is the basic difference between web portal vs website, then this blog is for you.

According to Statista, in 2020, over two billion people purchased goods or services online, and the e-retail sales in the same year surpassed 4.2 trillion U .S. dollars worldwide.

But choosing between a website and a web portal appears to be one of the often asked questions.

Let’s simplify this to help you make a better decision.

Even though they both consist of a web-based interface, these are entirely used for different purposes and can be a public website or a specially designed website with login protected features.

Read on to know what websites and web portals are and how they differ from each other.

What is a Website?

A website is a collection of interlinked web pages hosted with the same domain name and published on at least one web server.

To simplify it further, it is an interlinked collection of web pages grouped in various ways. For example, Monobubed.com, Amazon.com, etc.

Now you might ask what a webpage or a web server is.

You know what is a web page and what is a web server.

Now, let’s understand the different types of a website.

So, what are the different types of a website?

There are three types of websites:

1. Static websites

   These are web pages with fixed content, whether plain texts or enriched with media like images, video, digital brochures and pamphlets. A fixed content means that regardless of the time a user reaches the website, it won’t change.

2. Dynamic websites

   The dynamic websites are updated automatically, depending on parameters like templates, content, scripts, etc. So, whenever a user visits a website, the content is renewed.

3. Interactive website

   These websites are rich with graphics and engaging content, which helps retain the users. Even users can post their comments or leave feedback.

   These websites are a great way to connect with your users, and most businesses prefer these types of websites. It is more convenient to develop a website if you choose to hire web developers that have experience in building high-end websites for any industry.

Now that you know what a website is, let’s understand what a web portal is.

What is a Web Portal?

Unlike webpages, web portals are private locations on the internet with specific URLs.

Users must enter their login credentials to access them because the content changes from one person to another.

The web portals are designed to attract a specific audience experience, controlling users’ functionality on your page, multiple source integrations to provide uniform information, and other user management and permitting features.

There are a few web portal examples where the content is unique for every customer and has a business intelligence analysis feature.

There are two types of portals that you can choose from

1. Horizontal Web Portals

   Also known as horizontal enterprise portals, they give the user a convenient gateway to access all kinds of information which a user may require while using these services. A

   Which are the examples of horizontal web portals?
   Yahoo and AOL are examples of horizontal portals.

   These offer their users gateways to the web with links to breaking news, mail, social media, etc.

2. Vertical Web Portals

   Also known as vertical enterprise portals, these are user-centric portals that offer information about a specific company, interest, or service.

   These portals can be useful to a user looking for information about a specific topic or a specific company.

   Which are the examples of vertical portals?

   Vertical portals include college portals, tender and bidding portals, and so on.

The Key Difference Between a Website and Web Portal

Imagine you’re looking for a place to eat and come across the website of a new restaurant. The website includes the restaurant’s menu, takeaway options, a gallery, contact information, and possibly information about upcoming events and special offers. You’ve just arrived at a website.

Imagine you’re a student using a browser to access your college account. You access your college web portal, which provides authorized access to your account, various services and products, and detailed information on your grades, fees, and parent details.

Both a website and web portal may have similar features and goals.

But what is the difference between portal and website?

Let’s understand the key difference between a web portal and a website in 3 areas:

Now that you have knowledge about the features and benefits of using a website and web portal, let’s understand which technology is the best for a web development project.

Detailed Comparison of Web Portal and Website

Before you delve into the detailed comparison, you should know that a top-most web development company should be able to provide custom web development services according to your requirements.

Now, let’s examine the difference between website and web portal, explaining their distinctions in detail.

Complete Overview of a Website and Its Uses

If you aim to promote your services and products to the people, a website gives you the flexibility to inform your clients about your services and products through the related web pages.

Also, this will help you engage with them in lengthy interactions to persuade them to choose your company. And you can even host online forums.

The best thing about websites is that you can create numerous web pages, and they are pretty simple to make. You can even have an entire web page on a website explaining a single product.

You can create interactive websites on which users can post their comments or leave feedback on these websites. These are a great way to connect with your users, and most businesses prefer these types of websites.

They not only help you gauge users’ attention but also help boost sales. The cost of developing these websites differs from that of static and dynamic ones.

With SEO activities, you can increase your company’s visibility, create a lot of client awareness worldwide, and increase your business.

So, developing websites is a way to go if you aim to draw traffic from a wide audience base of anonymous users.

Complete Overview of a Web Portal and Its Uses

Web portals can be the best option if your goal is to improve customer/client/employee experience and develop continuous relationships with your audience.

By using a customer portal, you can offer personalized experiences, including order tracking, account management, and support services.

A web portal may have a custom workflow, personalized content for different roles/user categories, and even entire modules designed and built for specific end-users. Think of an eHealth portal with two interfaces, different features, and content for doctors and patients.

Developing web portals consists of several modules and is integrated with 3rd party services, which makes designing them a little complex. So, if you want to develop a feature-rich web portal for your business, get in touch with a leading web portal development company.

Web portal provides scalability, reliability, and high performance, which are all important factors for providing a good user experience. Portals are user-centric and create a unified web interface, allowing end-users to pull and access data from these sources based on permissions and roles.

Web Portal vs Website – Who Wins the Battle?

It’s a tie!

A website and a web portal allow you to communicate with your target audience (customers, clients, partners, and employees), provide content, and sell products and services online.

The decision between a website and web portal difference will be influenced primarily by your objectives, existing technical infrastructure, and the resources available for developing a web-based system.

When to Use a Website?

Use a website if:

• You need the site to operate independently on an internal system.
• Where your primary focus is to deliver and manage the content to get traffic.

A website is an excellent choice when you want a site that operates independently of the internal network or system.

Creating a website would be beneficial when your focus is primarily on delivery and simple management of content and if you want to attract traffic from a large number of anonymous users, creating a website is the way to go and nowadays you can get the traffic with AI as well for your website.

When to Use a Web Portal?

Use a web portal:

• To integrate multiple systems into single visual design.
• To provide specific audience experience.
• To enhance customer company relations.
• If you need control over what your users see and access.
• To have advanced user management and user authority features.

It is also an excellent choice when integrating multiple systems into a single visual design, even if you want to provide more specific audience experiences and enhanced customer company relations.

Also, when you need advanced control over what your users see and access, a web portal would be a better option when you need advanced user management and user authority features. Going for web portals is a better choice if you aim at these.

Starting With a Website or a Web Portal

If you have a question about the web portal vs. website, then We at Monocubed will help you determine which approach will better address your business goals and develop an effective development roadmap for websites and web portals.

We are a trusted web application development company based in Canada. We focus on delivering high-class web development solutions based on your specific business needs.

We follow a systematic approach and offer meaningful web design and development services to enterprises and individuals from various industries, whether re-engineering current or new business solutions from scratch.

We have designed and engineered various B2B and B2C portals for healthcare, education, eCommerce, and technology companies.