The terms “intranet” and “extranet” are often used interchangeably, which can be confusing for those who aren’t familiar with the differences. In this article, we’ll give you a basic overview of each term, including why they’re different in the first place.
Intranet is for your employees, extranet for your partners
Intranets are typically used internally, while extranets are designed to enable external collaboration.
As we’ve said before, an intranet is a private online network that’s accessible only to employees of a single organization. It can be used for communication and collaboration between team members, as well as for sharing documents and other information with other departments within the company. An extranet is similar in that it’s accessible only by users who have been granted access permissions—but unlike an intranet, it exposes some or all of its content to external parties such as partners, customers, vendors and suppliers.
As you can see from this example image above (from our friends at SharePoint), there are many different types of intranets out there today: some are built on public cloud platforms like SharePoint Online; others rely on private clouds or hybrid models that combine both public and private resources together into one solution. Each type offers unique benefits depending on what kind of information needs protecting most urgently within your organization’s walls—and how open those walls need being towards outside sources!
Intranet tends to be viewed as more of a “bottom-up” system, whereas extranet tends to have a bit of a “top-down” feel.
Intranet tends to be viewed as more of a “bottom-up” system, whereas extranet tends to have a bit of a “top-down” feel.
You can think of intranets as the internal Wiki for your company and extranets as a way to share information with your business partners. In this way, intranets are more collaborative in nature while extranets have stronger project-orientation requirements.
Extranet is generally more focused on collaboration and project management.
Extranet is generally more focused on collaboration and project management. Extranet is used to share information with external parties like clients, vendors and partners. It can also be used for internal collaboration and communication within an organization.
Users can access this technology through a web browser or through a mobile app (for example, SharePoint). The extranet is typically only accessible by select members of the company who have been granted permission by IT staff or other authorized personnel within the company’s network infrastructure. This ensures that sensitive data remains secure even if it leaves behind corporate boundaries when employees are traveling on business trips or working remotely from home offices!
Extranets are used by organizations to share information with external parties like clients or vendors.
Extranets are used by organizations to share information with external parties like clients or vendors. Extranets are generally more focused on collaboration and project management, rather than collaboration and communication.
Intranets promote employee communication, collaboration, and productivity while extranets enable business with clients and vendors.
- Intranets are for internal use only, while extranets are for external use only.
- An intranet is used for internal communication, collaboration, and productivity. An extranet is used for external communication, collaboration, and productivity.
- Intranets promote employee communication through an intranet portal where employees can access files from one another or even share information about company events that are happening in the future (i.e., company parties). These portals also allow employees to communicate directly with their managers about what projects they’re working on and how their work is progressing throughout the day – effectively eliminating any need to email each other back-and-forth all day long just so everyone knows what’s going on at all times! This helps keep your team focused on getting things done instead of worrying about who knows what.”
Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s clear that intranets and extranets are very different beasts. Intranets are usually used by employees to communicate with each other and collaborate on projects, whereas extranets enable business with clients and vendors. In terms of scope and functionality, they’re also quite different: intranets tend to be smaller in scope than extranets, focusing primarily on encouraging employee productivity while providing little support for anything else (like project management). By contrast, an extranet is more involved with client management; it provides more tools for collaboration between parties as well as the ability for users outside the organization’s walls access its data
If you are interested in an intranet and extranet solution provider but are looking for more information, contact us for a consultation