Portlets are pluggableuser interfacesoftware components that are managed and displayed in a web portal. A portlet responds to requests from a web client with and generates dynamic content. A portlet is managed by a portlet container.
A portlet is managed by a portlet container.[5] A portlet container runs portlets, provides them with the required runtime environment, manages their life cycles.[4] A container also provides persistent storage mechanisms for the portlet preferences.
A portlet container receives requests from the portal to execute requests on the portlets hosted by it. A portlet container sends data to the portal for aggregation, but is not responsible for aggregating the content produced by the portlets; the portal itself handles aggregation.[4] A portal and a portlet container can be built together as a single component of an application suite or as two separate components of a portal application.