I'm looking into implementing one of our internal applications as a portal using portlets, as it has many functionalities and not all of them are required by all users.
I've looking at the Apache protals site and I saw that there are two projects - Jetspeed 2 and Pluto.
Although Jetspeed is described as portal and Pluto as a portlet container, it also provides a portal of its own. What is the real difference between them and their functionalities? Can you recommend which should I start "playing" with?
Jetspeed 2 uses Pluto as its portlet container, but it is geared towards being a fully functional enterprise application, including its own suite of portlets, SSO, customizable security, themes etc....
If you are looking to get started with portals/portlets, the Jetspeed 2 project is moving along rapidly, and I would suggest joining the mailing lists, as they can be incredibly helpful. Also, download and build the portal from source using the tutorial on the apache portals site and you should be up and running with a custom portal in no time.