A portal is comprised of a plurality of portlets. Each portlet accesses hardware and software to gather data. Each portlet offers information to the portal page. Each portlet's information has a specific content type and markup. A subset of portlets are determined stackable if the subset of portlets have in common one or more of the same hardware, software, content type or markup. Once a subset of portlets is determined stackable, the user's preference for stacking the portlets is obtained by loading a user profile or asking the user. If the subset of portlets are stackable and the user desires the subset of portlets stacked, then the subset of portlets are stacked such that the stack of portlets present a first portlet and a control for selecting a second portlet from within the subset of portlets that is not currently presented.