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Amazon WorkMail vs HCL Notes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
Replacing WhatsApp with Amazon WorkMail halved costs, improved communication, and provided scalable, stable services reducing downtime concerns.
Sentiment score
5.5
HCL Notes enhances efficiency and secure communication, offering ROI that outweighs its $100 annual cost per user.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.5
Customer feedback on Amazon WorkMail support is mixed, with experiences ranging from responsive assistance to dissatisfaction over communication issues.
Sentiment score
6.8
HCL Notes support is praised for knowledgeable staff and quick response, with high user satisfaction but room for growth.
We have sent some emails and they have responded promptly, so we are satisfied.
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Once Notes is running, it performs reliably without issues.
Architect at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate HCL technical support as eight out of ten.
IT Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Amazon WorkMail is praised for scalability, accommodating large user bases and email traffic efficiently despite some cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.1
HCL Notes is scalable, integrates well with major platforms, but may face performance issues with large databases.
I do not have any concerns regarding the scalability of Amazon WorkMail, as we are sending about 40,000 to 50,000 emails per day, doing both transactional and batch with a queuing mechanism internally.
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The scalability of the product is really good.
IT Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Amazon WorkMail is highly rated for stability, handling large volumes reliably with no reported issues or downtime.
Sentiment score
7.1
HCL Notes is considered stable, with high ratings despite occasional server issues, enhanced post-IBM with improved features.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek an intuitive interface, improved pricing, advanced features, better spam filtering, scalability, and enhanced support for Amazon WorkMail.
HCL Notes needs modernization with improved interface, reliability, integration, and user-friendliness to compete with alternatives like Microsoft.
I think HCL can make its product better by being more visible on the market because most companies don't support or use HCL anymore.
IT Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
It could be modernized by the development team.
Administration & Technical Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

Amazon WorkMail receives mixed reviews on pricing, appreciated for its free tier but considered costly beyond its allocation.
HCL Notes is praised for cost-effectiveness and adaptability, despite varied perceptions on pricing due to multiple components.
I have heard that compared to other providers, it is considerably cheaper.
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon WorkMail provides scalable, secure email management with AWS integration, enhancing efficiency, user experience, and workflow expansion.
HCL Notes excels in security, integration, ease of development, backward compatibility, and offers cost-effective groupware applications with email integration.
I find the feature that checks how many emails have been successfully sent and how many of them have been opened very useful, because in our application, we know the usage of the emails.
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
We use HCL Notes for its offline capabilities, including the ability to work offline.
IT Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon WorkMail
Ranking in Email Applications
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (2nd)
HCL Notes
Ranking in Email Applications
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkMail is 7.4%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.5%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon WorkMail7.4%
HCL Notes3.5%
Other89.1%
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Ramkumar  Kolpurath - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Seamless email communication improves cost-effectiveness and security with valuable tracking features
The features of Amazon WorkMail that I have found the most valuable so far include sending emails and tracking whether the email is read or not. I find the feature that checks how many emails have been successfully sent and how many of them have been opened very useful, because in our application, we know the usage of the emails. The encryption of emails, both in transit and at rest, has benefited our security strategy as it is a layer of security that provides us better confidence for customers and also internally tracks the security aspects. The encryption meets my expectations.
AM
RPA Developer at Hexaware Technologies Limited
Challenges with efficiency and interface lead to transition while offering some useful organization features
Office 365 has advantages over HCL Notes, offering a better interface and better categorization of emails. We get different kinds of options, including mail suggestions and AI options that can help users. Meetings, calendars, everything is in one place, making it more efficient. Office 365 offers a better interface and categorization of emails, along with options such as mail suggestions and AI features. Meetings and calendars are all integrated in one place.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
7%
Government
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon WorkMail?
We use the tool for transactional emails and marketing.
What needs improvement with Amazon WorkMail?
We are satisfied with Amazon WorkMail, as it is able to send emails and provide receipts, including the read and other statuses. Since we are doing more API side integrations, there does not seem t...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon WorkMail?
From the communication aspects, working with Amazon WorkMail has been seamless and cost-effective. My customers do not make any use of Amazon WorkMail's compatibility with Microsoft Active Director...
What needs improvement with HCL Notes?
We don't use team workspace with HCL Notes; we use only Microsoft because it's incorporated with the Microsoft license. Based on my extensive experience with HCL Notes, I think HCL can make its pro...
What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?
We use HCL Notes as an email system. We currently only use it as an email application, though in the past we used it for additional applications.
What advice do you have for others considering HCL Notes?
Regarding HCL Notes supporting various business processes such as CRM, I don't use it, but if I have an issue, I contact the support and we are satisfied with that. I would rate HCL Notes 10 out of...
 

Also Known As

Amazon SES
IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Connect2Cloud, Hansgrohe, Sauk County, Blue Water Shipping, FDBR, ibml, Multivac, Aarhus University Hospital, Hendricks Regional Health, Asian Paints, Integra Legal, Sunplus Technology, S¾SS, The Moroccan Ministry of Youth and Sports, Nicrometal, Doncasters Group, Practice Plan, Barr, RACV, Neotechnik, Deutsche Notes User Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkMail vs. HCL Notes and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.