2.2. Portlets vs. servlets—an in-depth look

In chapter 1, we touched upon some of the functional differences between servlets and portlets. In this section, we’ll take an in-depth look at the differences between the two technologies, and particularly at their container support for developing web portals and their lifecycles.

2.2.1. Portlet and servlet containers

Like servlets, portlets are web components, and their lifecycles are managed by their portlet container. The portlet container is responsible for loading, instantiating, initializing, and routing requests to the portlet instance, and finally for destroying the portlet instance.