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HCL Notes vs HCL Verse 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

HCL Notes
Ranking in Email Applications
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HCL Verse
Ranking in Email Applications
13th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.5%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Verse is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Herad Howell - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure communications that prompts responses with room for improved user interface
I primarily value HCL Notes for its security features. The software's secure communication is particularly useful when dealing with professional entities. It ensures that business is conducted smoothly, allowing me to use my organization's email confidently, as opposed to my personal Gmail, which might not prompt responses from some entities.
MR
Stable, scalable, and good interface
HCL Verse has a nice interface and it is a practical email solution. There are a diverse set of features, such as the search bar on top of the screens. The usability from the old applications to the new version has been very good. It was great that we were able to migrate applications from the older version to the new one.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is very stable and scalable."
"Notes is a perfectly adequate front end. It's clear and straightforward."
"The initial setup was easy for me."
"The software's secure communication is particularly useful when dealing with professional entities."
"The solution provides great security."
"The most valuable feature is security. It's very easy to manage security on records, views, and tables."
"Its security is absolutely stratospheric. In an application, you can lock down to field-level security. For example, I could log in and see a field in an HR database with salaries. When you log in, you see exactly the same database, but the field with the salary just isn't there. So, you can literally have field-level security on it, and you can also have secure encryption. For example, I could give you that database allowing you to see the salary, but a calculation that shows how much they get per month in another field is encrypted. So, you won't be able to see that because you don't have the encryption key. You can implement high-level security very simply."
"It is one of the best products in the world for workflow applications. It works very well for workflows or decisional processes where a task needs to be first approved by someone. After that, the task moves to the next or final stage where another person approves it with some notes or attached documents."
"HCL Verse has a nice interface and it is a practical email solution. There are a diverse set of features, such as the search bar on top of the screens."
"The most valuable feature is the mail server."
 

Cons

"GUI and replication can be improved."
"Web support is very old and needs an upgrade. We can handle a different password for the client to access the mail services, compared to the web services. We need to implement many other components to get access to the web access. There could be a feature to interpret if the web access is available from any end-user equipment."
"While HCL has made significant advances in the user interface and diverse platform compatibility, some improvements could be made in user-friendliness and graphical interface enhancements."
"There is a chat component but it does not work properly."
"Some people complain that they want something more modern and jazzy."
"I would like to HCL update Notes' development tool and make it more attractive like Microsoft Visual Studio and similar products. For example, there's a programming language that I used for my product Woodpecker called LotusScript. LotusScript has been available since around 1995. When LotusScript was released, it was like the original Visual Basic, but it has improved since then."
"The only improvement that we're planning to do is that all our applications are still designed in the layout and format of Notes version 4, and our plan over the coming years is to modernize their look. One of the things they're developing or considering deploying is a program to automatically upgrade the look and feel of databases. If they deploy that, that will be revolutionary. In other words, we decide on a corporate look and feel for our database and press a button. We've probably got 50 different applications in Notes, and it would just go through the whole lot and upgrade all of them to look the same."
"We had trouble connecting this solution to the database from Microsoft. We have done it, although it can be easier."
"Security is very important to us, so improvements to this functionality are welcome."
"The solution could improve by allowing us to use a color that we want in the editing boxes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. There are many components or features which make the price very high."
"I don't remember how much we paid when we first bought the Domino license, but now, we pay only for the passport. For 30 client licenses, we pay about $1,500 per year, and we don't consider it very expensive for the quality of the product. In our case, we need 30 client licenses. So, we buy 30 client licenses independently of the server. It is very easy for us to choose and maintain this kind of license and get the passport advantage."
"The price is reasonable."
"We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"It is far cheaper to license. It is a third of the cost of our Microsoft license for 10 times the amount of usage. Developing applications cost a fraction of anything else. There are two reasons for that. First of all, applications are very fast to build. All the security is already built into the platform, so you don't have to worry about security at all. The other thing is that because fewer people use it than, for example, Microsoft SharePoint, the salary commanded by programmers is slightly lower. So, it is not only faster; you also get cheaper programmers. So, you really win-win-win on it."
"We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
"It was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"This is an affordable solution but the price could be improved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HCL Notes?
The security and performance of the solution are good even though our platform is variable, except for the mail services.
What needs improvement with HCL Notes?
We are talking about HCL Notes, and I'm not certain it is easier to manage or has a better interface. HCL Notes had some AI capabilities and support, though it was not very efficient.
What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?
HCL Notes has features similar to what we can get on other products such as Outlook, with everything in one place. We find that Microsoft is more efficient compared to HCL Notes. We have seen some ...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes
Verse, IBM Verse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Canon Marketing Japan Inc., Australian Trade Commission, BTC, Havas, Canal Barge Co.Inc., RAVInvest, Elemental Path, WDR mediagroup
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Notes vs. HCL Verse and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.