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Chatter vs HCL Connections comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Chatter
Ranking in Enterprise Social Software
14th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HCL Connections
Ranking in Enterprise Social Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Enterprise Social Software category, the mindshare of Chatter is 2.5%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Connections is 2.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Social Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HCL Connections2.8%
Chatter2.5%
Other94.7%
Enterprise Social Software
 

Featured Reviews

it_user669357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Salesforce Senior Cloud Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Contextualized collaboration on records allows you to have historical conversations that are accessible by other users.
Chatter is a great way to connect your users, especially if your team is working in multiple time zones or locations. If you're struggling with why to use collaboration tools at all, I'd suggest you watch this video. One the best examples that I've seen is a property team who were managing the entire process from leasing properties with branding to shop merges via Salesforce. All of their notifications were email-based and they were getting 100s per day. By moving these alerts to automated posts into particular groups, the users could not only access multiple updates by using digests instead of per alert, but also choose to control who (group members) and how often they get those alerts.
Hasnain Zahid - PeerSpot reviewer
Talent acquisition & development specialist at Software Productivity Strategists, Inc. (SPS)
A stable tool useful to manage marketing-related activities
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. Sometimes, the portal hangs because I find that if I am on a web page, I have to log out, and then I have to log in to the portal again. Since I see that the portal hangs at times, I have to move from one side of the portal to the next, making me feel that some things are scattered in the product. I attended a meeting with IBM recently, and they are improving a few of the things, in my opinion. The concerns that I have related to the product are being improved since I think many other users have reported issues similar to the ones I faced.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I love the streaming feed of information from the people that I'm following that encourages collaboration at a business level."
"It is now possible to share information instantly with all the company without sending emails, but also looking for a topic using the search function."
"It helped us to strengthen our digital community all over the world with a dedicated group to share project information and best practices."
"It offers more than what you are looking for, for example, file sharing and "mentions"."
"The conversation function to engage different groups is the most valuable feature."
"Salesforce being the number one cloud-based CRM product, I think one can recommend it in the first go."
"Salesforce Chatter allows for contextualized collaboration on records that allows you to have historical conversations, which are easily accessible by other users."
"It is the single source of truth that can be shared anywhere."
"Fully integrated solution, love the social element of Profiles, Files and Activities all securely accessed on Mobile !"
"The search and incidental discovery of content are really key, as is the ability to share and, when necessary, un-share."
"For example, you can really collaborate in multiple channels, using Connections, so whether it's cognitive collaboration, or file or content collaboration, it makes it much easier."
"The ability to upload files into the cloud, the sharing options, and, even better, the commenting options and the @ mentions on the file just eases the workflow dramatically compared to using email and sending attachments back and forth."
"Connections has assisted our business area with our Knowledge Management initiative, providing us with a tool that the staff can use to quickly find the information needed to process their day-to-day tasks and assist our customers, and it has also been valuable as a collaboration tool within our area that encourages our reps to participate within the community to ask questions and share their expertise."
"We used lots of products like wordpress to blog, docuwiki as wiki, bugtracker, todo apps and so on, but Connections delivers all of it integrated in one solution."
"Sharing knowledge on IBM Connections will give you access to tap into all the knowledge that is accessible in your organization across the world."
 

Cons

"Live consumption of the communication needs to be improved so that it can offer more features similar to Twitter/Slack, such as a live rolling news feed, notification bells (to avoid email alerts), ability to share multiple files or actions in one post, etc."
"Chatter invites should be possible from the UI on opportunity records."
"We would not select them again."
"I wish an organization could create a company-wide Chatter that automatically follows everyone else in the company so that widespread access was guaranteed."
"The storage of documents was quite limited when we used the tool."
"I would rate the technical support a 7/10 because Salesforce has its own way of looking at technical issues and sometimes takes its own time to implement or release changes as per their convenience."
"Movies with high resolution after uploaded in the community had bad quality, were unreadable, or we couldn’t upload files in AVI or WMV."
"The different Features (Blog, Wiki, Forum, ...) do not behave equally e.g. how they handle files or links."
"Generally, I believe IBM are addressing all of these issues but progress seems very slow."
"The wiki is the weakest part of Connections, compared to standalone wiki solutions."
"The platform is too dispersive and rigid. It should improve in usability and user interface customization by the user (personalized menu, communities to keep close at hand, always available files, and so on)."
"Their testing, when they release new packs, is not where it should be. Their technical support suffers because of it."
"Deployment can be a little complex, but a lot of this relates to the network, corporate LDAP, and security requirements."
"We've had a few issues, but overall the stability has been pretty good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Construction Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with HCL Connections?
The support is an area where the product can improve. My company faces some support-related issues because whenever we create or generate a ticket, it takes two days for the product's support team ...
What is your primary use case for HCL Connections?
I use HCL Connections for marketing purposes. The IBM product in our company already provides us with direct links to the marketing and HR sides.
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM Connections, Lotus Connections
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coca Cola Enterprise, Blue Shield of California, Stanley Black & Decker, Wells Fargo Bank, Phillips, Toyota Motors, American Red Cross, Time Warner Cable, Virgin America,Canon, and Bayer Pharmaceuticals.
Yamato Financial Co. Ltd., University of Zurich, Gwinnett County Public Schools, Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., Telus, Rabobank, Christian Brothers Services, Grupo Financiero Banorte, The Loft Group, Dow Water & Process Solutions, JGC Corporation, College of Medicine, Swansea University, solvito GmbH, Loft Group, Hamm-Reno Group GmbH, Geno SA
Find out what your peers are saying about Chatter vs. HCL Connections and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.