The Different Types of Intranets

There are several different types of company intranets.

Here’s a rundown of the most popular so you can get an idea of which might be the best suited to your organization’s needs:

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Internal website

An internal company website can only be accessed by a company’s employees. It’s a static site that has to be updated through an intranet CMS, meaning it doesn’t come with the communication tools you’d expect from modern intranet software. And while an internal website technically works across all devices, that’s because it’s accessed through a web browser – not because it’s been designed to work seamlessly on a smartphone.

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Employee intranet portal

Much like an internal website for employees, an intranet portal is hosted on a company’s own servers. However, it’s a more modern and dynamic platform for employees to access an organization’s critical information, guidelines, and processes whenever needed.

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Social intranet

Social intranets are people-centric platforms that double up as a private social network for your employees. Common social intranet tools help encourage people to build connections with teammates from different departments. This can do wonders for your company culture – not to mention employee engagement.

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Front door intranet

A front-door intranet platform serves as the main entry point for employees to access all the tools, applications, and resources they need to do their work. 

This type of employee intranet is designed to be a central hub where employees start their digital workplace experience each time they log in. To keep things simple and easy to use, a front door intranet looks and works the same across all devices, whether accessed on a laptop, a tablet, or a smartphone.

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External website

More and more organizations are using an external intranet for knowledge management and cross-departmental collaboration. These modern web-based platforms come jam-packed with tools for knowledge management, communication and cooperation, and boosting employee engagement. And because they’re hosted in the cloud, they ensure every employee is always working from the most up-to-date version of a document or process – and can make real-time amends and suggestions to documents all their colleagues can see.