No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

HCL Notes vs Zimbra Collaboration 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
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zimbra Collaboration
Ranking in Email Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.3%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zimbra Collaboration is 6.7%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zimbra Collaboration6.7%
HCL Notes3.3%
Other90.0%
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

AT
IT Director at ATOS
Has improved email security through built-in encryption and supported offline work effectively
We don't use team workspace with HCL Notes; we use only Microsoft because it's incorporated with the Microsoft license. Based on my extensive experience with HCL Notes, I think HCL can make its product better by being more visible on the market because most companies don't support or use HCL anymore, and most integrators work with Exchange or Outlook rather than HCL Notes. Inside HCL Notes functionality, they have to be more visible in the market, which is very important.
Vidya Shree - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at Molecular Connections Private Limited
Deploys quickly and has a good web interface
Zimbra Collaboration has a good web interface When it comes to administration tasks like configuring specific filters or group signatures, I have to dig into the configuration since there's nothing in the graphical or web interface. The solution’s forums don't have much information or…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is practical, good interface, and performs well."
"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."
"The security and performance of the solution are good even though our platform is variable, except for the mail services."
"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."
"I prefer to work with HCL and not with Exchange because it's easy to manage, easy to set up, and easy to migrate."
"The product is very stable and scalable."
"HCL Notes is stable most of the time."
"It offers unique capabilities, excellent security, and replication features."
"The pricing of the solution is excellent; it's a newer solution with a modern interface and dashboard, the interface itself is very responsive and easy to navigate, the initial setup is very simple and straightforward, the stability is good and keeps getting better with each new update, and the solution really does scale very easily."
"For a small company, Zimbra Collaboration is good because it is simple, inexpensive, and not very difficult to deploy."
"Zimbra Collaboration is mainly used for messaging, emails, calendars, video conferencing, and document sharing."
"Network NG Modules are valuable to us."
"Zimbra Collaboration has integrated a lot of their party tools and they have good documentation available."
"The logs, troubleshooting, and tracking we have found to be the most valuable features, and when we have any issues with lost messages these features are useful because it is very easy to track and log."
"The product is easy to set up."
"Despite sticking with Gmail for over a decade in terms of business, Zimbra have impressed me with some other aspects as well; if the time comes, I would prefer Zimbra to my current solution."
 

Cons

"There is a chat component but it does not work properly."
"We had trouble connecting this solution to the database from Microsoft. We have done it, although it can be easier."
"The problem with Lotus Domino is that there are no new versions of the product."
"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 loading time can be excessive."
"Notes needs a major upgrade for the UI."
"GUI and replication can be improved."
"It is a heavy program and uses more resources than an email client should."
"It does have a few bugs."
"Zimbra is not very stable, but it's okay."
"The support was lacking in my experience."
"The solution could improve by making it easier to use."
"We had a couple of issues with stability, but nothing that I couldn't work around or fix myself. Zimbra is a powerful product, but since VMware bought it, changes and bug fixes have been very slow in coming."
"File sharing permissions with Nextcloud integration need improvement."
"There are security and performance issues which is one of the concerns of using an open-source product."
"The new patches are, at times, not so good, so we don't install them, causing the tool to be not so stable overall."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is expensive. There are many components or features which make the price very high."
"We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
"It was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."
"The price is reasonable."
"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."
"We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the price a four"
"The solution is not expensive compared to other products."
"The solution is competitively priced."
"Zimbra Collaboration offers a good price-to-feature ratio."
"When it comes to the licensing of Zimbra Collaboration, my license covers the servers and I find its terms to be much simpler than those of Microsoft Exchange."
"Zimbra Collaboration is expensive, and there is no perpetual license option."
"The price of the solution is low."
"We do not pay for licenses to use this solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Applications solutions are best for your needs.
899,324 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HCL Notes?
We don't use team workspace with HCL Notes; we use only Microsoft because it's incorporated with the Microsoft license. Based on my extensive experience with HCL Notes, I think HCL can make its pro...
What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?
We use HCL Notes as an email system. We currently only use it as an email application, though in the past we used it for additional applications.
What advice do you have for others considering HCL Notes?
Regarding HCL Notes supporting various business processes such as CRM, I don't use it, but if I have an issue, I contact the support and we are satisfied with that. I would rate HCL Notes 10 out of...
How does Zimbra Collaboration compare with Microsoft Exchange?
Zimbra is a free, open source collaborative software suite. The features I like best are the ease of integration and the email, calendar, and collaboration server with web interface. In addition, I...
What needs improvement with Zimbra Collaboration?
When it comes to administration tasks like configuring specific filters or group signatures, I have to dig into the configuration since there's nothing in the graphical or web interface. The soluti...
 

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
NEC Biglobe, City of Ventura, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Hola Publishing, BIG, Sleepwell, LaFayette College, Xmission, DNA, Ring Line, Future Group, TIGC
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Notes vs. Zimbra Collaboration and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
899,324 professionals have used our research since 2012.