Liferay

What it is

Liferay is a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that helps enterprises build and manage complex digital experiences including customer portals, employee intranets, partner portals, supplier portals, enterprise websites and digital commerce sites. The company aims it at marketers, IT teams and developers, and partners, and describes the IT side as "architects, engineers, and IT leaders building and maintaining enterprise infrastructure." The home page says 1,041 portals and intranets deployed and 700 applications connected (the page marks both figures with an asterisk), and also cites 596 websites launched, 24 industries served and 77 countries served.

Liferay is a low-code platform where the visual tools and pre-built connectors let business users build most things without writing code, but developers can extend functionality by writing code when needed. The home page calls Liferay DXP "a single, agentic platform and Headless CMS," so it provides both a composed experience (visual builder for interfaces) and headless capabilities (REST and GraphQL APIs to feed other front-ends and channels).

What you build and how

The platform organizes around different buyer roles and use cases. For marketing and content teams, the Page Builder lets you create landing pages, microsites and full digital experiences using drag-and-drop design without a developer. You design in the visual builder, publish without waiting for IT approval, and reach every visitor with personalized content and recommendations. The AI Hub assists with content creation, letting AI auto-tag assets, translate pages and segment visitors in real time so content lands with the right audience automatically.

For IT and development teams, the core capabilities center on integration and extensibility. Liferay connects existing enterprise systems, including ERP, CRM, legacy applications and any compliant language model, through pre-built connectors, open APIs and Liferay's own MCP so digital experiences stay in sync. The platform supports headless deployment: you expose content and services through REST and GraphQL APIs to feed existing front-ends, mobile apps and new digital channels without rewriting your entire system or doing a large-scale migration. The low-code layer lets architects, engineers and IT leaders build forms, workflows and data models visually, then extend with custom code when visual tools reach their limit.

For commerce, B2B Commerce is part of the platform, with "account-specific catalogs, negotiated pricing, and order management built in from day one." The portal types the home page names are customer portals (personalized support, fast self-service, centralized resources and tools), supplier portals (a window into back-end systems for visibility into supplier processes) and partner portals. The same list includes enterprise websites, intranets and digital commerce.

Data models and workflows are built visually. The home page says you "create forms, workflows, and data models visually," then "extend with custom code when you need to," and adds that "low-code tools cut delivery time without locking your team into a black box." The company's own explainer separates low-code, which "typically require some basic coding skills or programming knowledge for advanced customization," from no-code, which it calls "generally limited to simple, tactical apps." It lists forms, approval workflows such as a purchase order approval, content management systems, landing pages and internal tools among common low-code uses.

Deployment and security are stated briefly. The home page says it can "run on SaaS, PaaS, or self-hosted," with "built-in SSO, AI-safe role-based access control, encryption, and compliance certifications." The certifications listed beside the demo form are SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001, HIPAA and CSTAR, and the footer links to a GDPR page.

The facts and the offer

Liferay states 1,041 portals and intranets deployed, 700 applications connected and 92% faster development, with asterisks on the last two figures. It adds 596 websites launched, 24 industries served and 77 countries served. These are the company's own claims.

The site publishes no prices or plan names; it offers a "Start Free Trial" link alongside demo and sales requests. The home page shows a 4.6 rating from 233 verified users on Gartner Peer Insights, dated September 2026.

The home page stresses that the platform solves different problems depending on the buyer. Marketing teams get to launch campaigns faster by building pages without IT bottlenecks. IT teams get integration across legacy and modern systems, headless support for mobile and new channels, and low-code tools that let business users build without waiting on engineers. Partners building on or with Liferay get a financial incentive model: the company states "For every dollar of Liferay sold, solution partners earn on average five times that in services," with deal registration and co-sell support for partners.

Customer quotes on the home page each carry one result: Derek Boonstra, a business systems manager, pairs a 50% increase in online transactions with "now we get ecstatic reviews on the customer experience every week," Hab Adkins, a corporate technology manager, is shown with a 70% quote increase, and an HR manager's intranet unified 7 teams. The industry panels add per-customer metrics, such as 1.7M customers served in energy and utilities and an 8-month implementation in healthcare, and a footnote says these "reflect results from individual Liferay customer stories and may vary by organization." The company frames the value in terms of speed to market and operational efficiency: "Launch faster. Convert more. For teams that drive campaigns, content and customer experience" and "Build once. Integrate everything. For architects, engineers and IT leaders."

The integration pitch is "connect every system without custom middleware," using pre-built connectors, open APIs and the company's MCP for ERP, CRM, legacy applications and "any compliant LLM." Its content explains customer portals as a secure hub where customers manage account information, open how-to content, contact support and submit tickets. The same article lists security, permissions, content governance, personalization and mobile access as things to settle before building one, and suggests measuring adoption, repeat logins, self-service completion and ticket deflection.

The low-code explainer cites Gartner for two figures: on average 41% of employees outside IT build or customize data or technology solutions, and more than 65% of all business applications are already built using low-code. It also says 69% of professional developers prefer working with low-code enhanced platforms, and it names shadow IT and application sprawl as the main challenges of letting any user become a citizen developer.

Who it is and isn't for

Liferay is aimed at enterprises with IT teams, legacy system landscapes and security requirements. It suits organizations deploying multiple portals (customer, employee, partner, supplier) under one platform, or those who need to maintain a single source of truth across channels including web, mobile and third-party integrations, without data silos. It's also valuable for enterprises who need flexibility in deployment (SaaS, PaaS, self-hosted) and the ability to extend core functionality with custom code rather than being constrained by a vendor's visual builder.

Liferay is a heavier choice for a solo founder or a small team that needs one landing page or one form, since the platform spans portals, commerce, content and integration. A team that wants no developer involvement at all should read the company's own description of low-code as needing some basic coding skills for advanced customization. Budget comes from a sales conversation, though the free trial lets a team try the builder first.