GNPortal vs. WebShell

Item

GNPortal

WebShell

Server OS

Windows Server 2003, 2008. See more about hardware config in Minimal configuration (2 servers), Standard configuration (4 servers), Enhanced configuration in a cluster with SAN (4 servers)

Windows Server 2003, 2008

Client OS

Any

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Database

Microsoft SQL or Oracle, Unicode

Microsoft SQL, Unicode

Protection by dongles

No, but by server licenses

Yes

Full-text engine

no full text search available

Microsoft SQL, Turbo SQL*

Programming languages

C#, C++, XAML, WPF

C++

Configuring UI

Administrative Browser

GN3MMC

Custom dialogs

XAML (ObjectUI, SearchUI)

none

Text format in database

XML

GN3 internal

Typographical language

GNML, 100% the same as in GN3

GNML

Works over internet - uses Web services architecture

Yes

Yes

Requires Citrix for remote access

No

No

Includes mobile access

Yes

No

Integrated with GNWeb

Yes

No

Text conversion language

XSL for all

ITB, WTB, XSL

Permissions to each tab

Yes

No

Multi-instance

Yes

Yes

sign-in information (user name and password) passed from Windows

Yes, if integrated authentication

Yes

Object names (articles, images, multimedia) are unique

By default, only on the folder level - this can cause necessity to rename articles/images when sending, or disable replacement of images when a image is re-put in hot-folder (Back4). It is however, question of schema, and it can be forced by selecting a name instead a folderRef to be a primary key, thus to work as in GN3. It is recommended to set the primary key BEFORE creating items, as any later change would require to provide name uniqueness manually, by renaming eventual duplicates.

Yes, on the system level