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HCL Notes vs Superhuman 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
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Superhuman
Ranking in Email Applications
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 Superhuman is 0.6%, down from 0.8% 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.
Siddharth Mallya - PeerSpot reviewer
Email triage solution that actions and handles emails based on preferences
Superhuman could be improved by being made available across a broader range of devices including Android and Windows PCs. Superhuman is also a phone app, which is available only on DiOS right now. Because it's not available on Android, you have to use Gmail for your phone, and use Superhuman for your desktop. The search feature could be improved. Currently, Gmail search is a lot more robust because you can filter results based on your requirements. Superhuman does not offer this way of searching which can make emails difficult to find.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The offline access feature in HCL Notes helps me significantly due to its strong replication mechanism, allowing me to work wherever I am, and when I connect, it facilitates two-way replication of information."
"The software's secure communication is particularly useful when dealing with professional entities."
"Notes is a perfectly adequate front end. It's clear and straightforward."
"HCL Notes is stable most of the time."
"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."
"The security and performance of the solution are good even though our platform is variable, except for the mail services."
"HCL Notes has fantastic built-in security. The email and personal communication components are excellent, but they are some applications provided by HCL that Notes previously provided when it was under IBM and Lotus. Everyone wants email, so that's just part of the product. However, more savvy users can build their own solutions for managing information, and that's the great thing about it."
"It is easy to integrate the product with other services."
"The best feature about Superhuman is the fact that you don't have to manually go through your emails. This solution segregates your email according to your preferences and how you want to categorize emails."
"It is fast, and it increases your productivity."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"There is a chat component but it does not work properly."
"One area for improvement would be making the interface more user-friendly."
"Some people complain that they want something more modern and jazzy."
"It is a heavy program and uses more resources than an email client should."
"Regarding additional functions, the front end of the databases on the home screen looks somewhat old-fashioned. It could be modernized by the development team."
"Superhuman could be improved by being made available across a broader range of devices including Android and Windows PCs."
"It can have a few more integrations. As far as I know, it is being integrated with Salesforce."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. There are many components or features which make the price very high."
"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."
"The price is reasonable."
"We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
"We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"It was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."
"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."
"It is fairly expensive. They have monthly and yearly licensing options."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
16%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
 

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?
Regarding additional functions, the front end of the databases on the home screen looks somewhat old-fashioned. It could be modernized by the development team.
What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?
Our use case for HCL Notes is that we use it for critical production databases and a lot of administration databases. We use it for email and calendars extensively.
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes
No data available
 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Notes vs. Superhuman and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.