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HCL Connections vs Jive 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

HCL Connections
Ranking in Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
5th
Ranking in Enterprise Social Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jive
Ranking in Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
7th
Ranking in Enterprise Social Software
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (29th), Web Content Management (20th), Knowledge Management Software (14th), Enterprise Intranet (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) category, the mindshare of HCL Connections is 5.7%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jive is 7.9%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HCL Connections5.7%
Jive7.9%
Other86.4%
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
GD
VP - International Business at Amtex S.A.
A flexible solution that improves our administrative efficiency
We use Jive-n for followups on details regarding purchase orders, shipping documents, and other information We are able to handle more than one hundred POs at any given time with their shipping docs and info, with only one person in charge. This solution provides great flexibility of permission…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is the single source of truth that can be shared anywhere."
"Some of the valuable features in this product are: Profiles – It is easy to find people with similar tech skills and reach out to them internally for a project requirement, and project managers find it easy to know who in the organization possesses a skill that matches the requirement."
"It is the single quickest way for us to start consolidating all of our files together when we are going to many countries."
"Connections, with its file sharing and lightweight document management capabilities, has helped us reduce the volume of email and network file usage."
"File sharing is the number one feature, as I can have a document or whatever live file I want everywhere, following me like a private cloud."
"IBM Connections is a good product with many functions."
"The solution is useful for team engagement and team collaborations, so that everyone is working together towards the same objective and we are using the best practices among ourselves, sharing and craft sourcing."
"Our own ROI was within nine months, and we directly benefited from more knowledge sharing (and avoiding re-inventing the wheel) and shorter meetings."
"We are able to handle more than one hundred POs at any given time with their shipping docs and info, with only one person in charge."
"The platform works well to collaborate with creating documents or media for a specific goal."
"Jive came out on top for feature, price, and ability to meet regulatory needs."
"Colleagues are more informed, it is easier to find content, and silo breaking has significantly improved our collaboration."
"In comparison to other platforms, Jive-n provides the fastest way to integrate new affiliates into your organization."
"We recently rebranded our organization and used this tool as our primary channel."
"Jive-n offers the best curated experience of the social-based content for enterprises."
"Various business groups were able to collaborate effectively using this tool."
 

Cons

"Technical support is hit-and-miss. In general, the support staff is willing, but there is a large range of capabilities among them, from mediocre to excellent."
"Ideally, the product will increment advances from consumer social networks and file sharing tools sooner, as users expectations are formed by the software they use at home and on their devices."
"The perfect software doesn't exist, but I think Connections is really a good piece of software with few things lacking."
"When we went from 1,000 users to 2,000 users, we hit some problems and then it required a lot of retuning and reconfiguration."
"I was involved in the setup process to an extent. It was quite complex."
"For most of my users, the consistent feedback has been about how difficult it is to use and how the interface is poorly designed."
"It is not easy to create a company’s Intranet home page since the home page is the first page the user lands on."
"The downside for me, as an admin, is that the admins don't have that much of power in the back end/background, i.e., not much power in terms of the access, tweaking and changing the settings."
"The mobile app could be better."
"Stream activity could be better organized."
"Jive-n can improve their integration, plugins and democratize their configuration abilities."
"Create a better way of adding users in bulk by email address."
"The search engine could be improved and also provide some kind of indexing."
"We had major performance issues when our user base went up."
"A visual navigator would be very useful as many colleagues have an issue to find their way and connect the dots."
"Standard Silver technical support is similar to standard support by all vendors, i.e., not quick enough."
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Comparison Review

it_user8925 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer with 51-200 employees
Aug 23, 2013
Jive vs Sharepoint vs Drupal Commons
At Mediacurrent we often get requests to compare Drupal to other platforms used for intranet sites and social business platforms (like https://dev.twitter.com/ for example). This is often referred to as “Social Business Software”, which has grown in popularity in recent years. I decided to do a…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
18%
Construction Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

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.
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

IBM Connections, Lotus Connections
Clearspace, Jive SBS, Jive Engage, Jive-x, Jive-n
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Eloqua, Hitachi Data Systems,T-Mobile, UBM, Thomson-Reuters, Groupon, Nike, Cisco, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Connections vs. Jive and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.