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Google Hangouts [EOL] vs HCL Sametime comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 27, 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

Google Hangouts [EOL]
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HCL Sametime
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Meetings (24th)
 

Featured Reviews

Mariana-Piñeres - PeerSpot reviewer
Customer Success Manager Latam at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Recording and transcription enhance global client meetings
Google Hangouts sometimes consumes significant resources. When comparing it to WhatsApp on desktop for calls, there are instances when Google Hangouts freezes or stops working, but switching to WhatsApp runs smoothly. This might be related to the resources Google Hangouts requires. The service occasionally experiences lag issues where the image gets frozen or the voice transmission becomes interrupted. When these issues occur, possibly due to internet connectivity or other factors, WhatsApp continues to function properly while Google Hangouts does not perform well.
Bogdan Chechlowski - PeerSpot reviewer
Kierownik Biura Informatyki at EIB SA
Stable product, communicate very fast and allows to see who's online in the office or work environment
It was used for communication through text messages, primarily Being able to see who was online and communicate very fast was a good feature.  The security was quite good. However, when we tried to implement it for email at a high level, we had to use another solution, FortiMail Gateway. I view…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has efficient recording features."
"The facility is always online and very easy to share the screen using the solution."
"The technical support team for Google Hangouts has been pretty responsive and could solve whatever challenges arise, within a day or two."
"The most valuable feature of Google Hangouts is there are no predefined or meeting durations. For example, Zoom meetings have a set duration, typically ranging from thirty minutes to an hour, whereas Google Meet meetings can continue indefinitely. Additionally, it is effortless to generate a meeting, whether it is a live session or for future use, and distribute your link to others, making these aspects appealing to me."
"The initial setup process is straightforward."
"My advice for anybody who is looking to start using Google Hangouts is that it is plug-and-play, and comes free with Google Suite."
"The solution scales well."
"Stable communication tool with a good history feature and very easy installation."
"I can view the status and availability of colleagues or team members, which makes it easy to approach them when they are available."
"This solution saves time and cost in communicating with team members, streamlines tasks in my organization by encouraging us to chat directly with the relevant person, and strengthens professional relationships through increased communication among peers."
"A very good communication and real-time collaboration software, it is simple, fast, reliable, keeps history and the best feature of all is its intelligence."
"The security was quite good."
"Audio and video calls provide faster communication than chat."
 

Cons

"The algorithm should be improved to automatically deal with poor connections in a better way."
"The solution can be improved by integrating other tools."
"It is not as stable. They can improve its stability."
"Can be improved by including a larger library of video filters and adding custom filters."
"I'm not completely happy with the message options in Hangouts because for now it's only possible to send pictures, which is unfortunate because I would also like to be able to send documents and other things."
"Sometimes when we have a call and need to share audio or play a video, we find it challenging to switch from sharing the complete desktop to only a particular Chrome tab, as it doesn't support audio when sharing the full desktop."
"There could be more precise instructions for beginners using the solution."
"The solution can improve by having more integration with different platforms."
"It seems that the software might in the future, support the software telephony exchange but at the current time, it is not doing that and because of that one key feature of real-time communication is missing from it."
"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."
"It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or other files."
"Sametime hangs sometimes and therefore needs to get restarted."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay an annual license to use the solution."
"I think there is a need for payment for licensing, but as students, we didn't have to pay for it when we were using it. Our professors were the ones paying for it since they needed to record the sessions."
"There is no license cost."
"We are using the free version of Google Hangouts."
"This solution is available for free with the opening of a Google account."
"There is an annual subscription to use this solution."
"We are a small team and a small organization such as ours just uses the free version of Google, so there's no cost associated with Google Hangouts at the moment."
"I don't need to buy Google Hangouts separately because it comes free with Google Workspace, and it is also available for my personal Gmail ID."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Outsourcing Company
17%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise18
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Hangouts?
Google Hangouts comes as a package, so it's difficult to say or comment on the price of this particular product.
What needs improvement with Google Hangouts?
Sometimes when we have a call and need to share audio or play a video, we find it challenging to switch from sharing the complete desktop to only a particular Chrome tab, as it doesn't support audi...
What is your primary use case for Google Hangouts?
My main use cases for Google Hangouts are for calls and coordinating with my team. I find the recording feature in Google Hangouts very useful, as it normalizes what happened in the call, even thou...
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Also Known As

No data available
Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Connect2Cloud, Superior Group, Daifuku Co. Ltd., Seaward, The City of Fort Worth, Christian Brothers Services, Berlitz, Deutsche Notes User Group, Danske Fysioterapeuter, Slumberland, La Vacanza, Rheinmetall AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Zoom Video Communications, TeamViewer, Microsoft and others in Virtual Meetings. Updated: October 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.