What is an Extranet?

Businesses often need to collaborate beyond their internal teams, whether it’s with clients, vendors, or partners. That’s where extranets come in. This glossary entry will help you understand what an extranet is, how they work, how they differ from intranets, and why they matter in today’s digital workplace.

Extranet: Meaning and Definition

An extranet is a private digital network that allows authorized external users, such as clients, partners, or vendors, to access specific parts of an organization’s internal systems or data.

Think of it as a secure extension of your intranet. While an intranet is used internally by employees, an extranet allows selected outsiders to collaborate, access documents, or complete tasks, without giving them full access to your internal environment.

In other words, when people talk about an extranet, they're referring to controlled, permission-based access that lets external parties securely share information and workflows.

What Makes an Extranet Useful?

Extranets are used to improve communication and collaboration with key stakeholders outside your organization, without compromising internal security or processes.

Some common uses include:

• Client portals for sharing project updates, files, or service requests
  
  
• Vendor dashboards to manage orders or contracts
  
  
• Partner collaboration spaces for co-marketing or support
  
  
• Franchise management portals for distributed teams
  
  

Key benefits of extranets include:

• Improved efficiency: Replace email threads and file attachments with real-time access
  
  
• Secure access control: External users see only what you want them to see
  
  
• Better customer experience: Provide transparency and self-service capabilities
  
  
• Faster collaboration: External users can complete tasks or view updates instantly
  
  

Extranet vs Intranet: What’s the Difference?

While extranets and intranets are both private networks used by organizations, they serve very different purposes and audiences. Here’s a quick comparison to highlight how they differ:

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Build Your Extranet with Noloco

Deliver secure external access to your business data, without writing a single line of code.

With Noloco, you can easily create powerful extranet-style apps, like client portals or admin dashboards, all with granular access control, custom interfaces, and real-time data views.

Using Noloco’s advanced permissions controls, you can define exactly what each external user or group can see or do. Whether you start with Noloco Tables or connect to external databases like Airtable or MySQL, you can build your extranet quickly and scale it as your needs evolve.

Explore more terms like this in our full glossary to build smarter, more connected software systems.