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HCL Notes vs Zoho Mail 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
6.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zoho Mail
Ranking in Email Applications
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho Mail is 5.4%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zoho Mail5.4%
HCL Notes3.4%
Other91.2%
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.
Salem Shafik - PeerSpot reviewer
Zoho Mail suits small businesses well but can improve user organization features
For the admin side of Zoho Mail, they need to add features for organizing users in organizational units. We currently only have the ability to add users to groups, but some admins need to organize users in organizational units and apply security policies or other configurations based on these units.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution provides great security."
"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 most valuable feature is the UI."
"Notes is a perfectly adequate front end. It's clear and straightforward."
"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 most valuable feature is the access that it provides to documents. This offers us an easy way to make changes."
"It offers unique capabilities, excellent security, and replication features."
"HCL Notes is stable most of the time."
"We can create email accounts for our customers."
"Zoho Mail organizes your email well, and you can do a lot of things if you use other Zoho applications along with it."
"Zoho Mail is a cost-effective solution."
"The solution has more security compared to other products. Zoho Mail comes with TLS and SSL. It has email-sharing features. It is an advanced product."
"Zoho gives you a set amount of free users, so you can use it until you reach the limit and see if it's something you want to adopt. I tried it and stuck with it. Since then, I've seen a lot of improvement. I already think it's top-notch, but I believe it will become one of the best in the world."
"The interconnectivity between these applications makes it particularly useful."
"The notifications, scheduling, and meetings are all integrated."
"I like Zoho Mail's user interface."
 

Cons

"Some people complain that they want something more modern and jazzy."
"The solution could improve by adding some more features."
"Notes needs a major upgrade for the UI."
"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."
"The interface could be more user-friendly. Some additional trainings could be added as well."
"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."
"I would like to see integration with other solutions."
"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."
"They could increase the available space which is currently 5 GB. Gmail provides 15 GB of storage space, which would be more useful."
"They have issues when they are rolling out updates"
"The initial setup of Zoho Mail can take some time because we have 30 to 35 users and we need to register each one. This can take one or two days to complete. The process could be better for administrators to register their users. If the setup interface was better in explaining the process it would be helpful to become more user-friendly."
"The interface isn't quite good. Everything looks a little low-quality."
"I once tried doing bulk email sending with Zoho Mail, but it was declined. I didn't realize it was declined until several hours later when I checked for responses."
"For the admin side of Zoho Mail, they need to add features for organizing users in organizational units."
"We face some challenges in our current architecture with the introduction of data privacy regulations. When you are sending a calendar invite to a group of people for a meeting or an event, there is no structure for privacy. You can't hide all the contacts. Maybe that feature exists, but I don't know where it is."
"The solution's meeting plans and online virtual activity task list could be improved and made more seamless."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
"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."
"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 annually for the use of the solution."
"The price is reasonable."
"It was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."
"The solution is not costly."
"If you have ten users, for Google, you'll pay $100. With Zoho Mail, you'll only pay $30 to $40."
"Zoho Mail is more cost-efficient than its competitors."
"The solution is more affordable compared to other products. It is cheap."
"Zoho One has all 50 applications in it, and Zoho Mail is part of it. Zoho One is about 35 GBP per person per month. It includes Zoho Projects, Zoho Mail, Zoho CRM, and everything else."
"One of the reasons people use Zoho in Nigeria is because we can pay for it in Naira. It's very affordable already. For example, we can get Zoho Mail for somewhere between 1000 naira per user, which is less than one dollar. In my opinion, it's very affordable."
"There is no license required to use Zoho Mail."
"The solution’s pricing is very reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Retailer
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

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.
What do you like most about Zoho Mail?
It also offers the search functionalities. For end users, the search is quite easy to use. There are a few tabs to select to find exactly what you're looking for. It's pretty simple. As long as the...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Mail?
Zoho Mail is economical compared to Microsoft and Google Workspace. Speaking specifically about Egypt and the region, they have competitive pricing compared to others.
What needs improvement with Zoho Mail?
They could increase the available space which is currently 5 GB. Gmail provides 15 GB of storage space, which would be more useful. Additionally, considering how WhatsApp backup automatically goes ...
 

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
BBDO, HuffPost
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Notes vs. Zoho Mail and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.