Portal vs CMS Focus
Liferay's core strength is portal and intranet capabilities. It excels at building employee portals, partner portals, and customer self-service solutions with sophisticated user management and role-based access. Acquia, built on Drupal, is primarily a content management platform that can be extended for portal use cases but lacks Liferay's depth in this area.
Cloud and Infrastructure
Acquia offers a more mature cloud platform with built-in CDN, caching, security monitoring, and auto-scaling. Liferay Cloud is newer but provides solid infrastructure for Java-based deployments. Acquia's DevDesktop and Cloud IDE tools provide better developer experience for site building.
Ecosystem and Community
Drupal's ecosystem is significantly larger than Liferay's, with thousands of contributed modules, themes, and distributions. Liferay's marketplace is smaller but offers quality extensions for portals and enterprise integration. If community size and module availability matter, Acquia has the advantage.
Recommendation
Choose Liferay if you need a dedicated portal or intranet platform with strong security and compliance features. Choose Acquia if you want a cloud-managed CMS with Drupal's extensive ecosystem, DAM capabilities, and lower entry pricing.