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HCL Sametime vs Microsoft Teams comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 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 Sametime
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Teams
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
178
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Social Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of HCL Sametime is 1.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Teams is 3.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Teams3.3%
HCL Sametime1.6%
Other95.1%
Virtual Meetings
 

Featured Reviews

Bogdan Chechlowski - PeerSpot reviewer
Kierownik Biura Informatyki at EIB SA
Stable product, communicate very fast and allows to see who's online in the office or work environment
It was used for communication through text messages, primarily Being able to see who was online and communicate very fast was a good feature.  The security was quite good. However, when we tried to implement it for email at a high level, we had to use another solution, FortiMail Gateway. I view…
Anna Virtsan - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Project Manager at UkrSibbank
Have streamlined daily workflow and task management but still face inconvenience from recent interface changes and limited integration options
There are challenges and issues in Microsoft Teams, such as after recent updates where group chats were combined with Teams, chats, and groups into one. Users have to work with settings to make it normal again so Teams are separated from chats, and that was a really inconvenient update. Many users ask me to help make it back again to separate Teams and groups from one-to-one chats. That's probably the worst update they've made recently. Additionally, there are some minor features, such as when I work with messages, I don't have an actual forward or quote option when replying to someone's message. I need to be careful not to miss the quote sign. For a lot of people, they are confused about where the quotes option is. I've received a couple of hundred support tickets just regarding this issue. The function to share email to Teams chat doesn't work sometimes due to our compliance policies, and sometimes it would be nice to be able to forward an email to the group chat and have further discussions. Microsoft Teams could improve by being less glitchy because it glitches a lot, leading to undelivered emails and undelivered messages. It would be beneficial if the MS application Shifts, which adds functionality to groups, could be integrated into the groups calendar. Currently, many teams don't use the app because it is not integrated with the general calendar or the Outlook calendar, making it basically a useless application. The platform needs less Copilot and more people. The general Copilot integration into the platform is less glitchy, but Microsoft Teams is quite heavy and glitchy sometimes. Stability depends a lot on compliance restrictions, policies, and quality of internet. Sometimes, when updates are enrolling, the platform glitches, breaks, or shuts down.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I can view the status and availability of colleagues or team members, which makes it easy to approach them when they are available."
"This solution saves time and cost in communicating with team members, streamlines tasks in my organization by encouraging us to chat directly with the relevant person, and strengthens professional relationships through increased communication among peers."
"The security was quite good."
"A very good communication and real-time collaboration software, it is simple, fast, reliable, keeps history and the best feature of all is its intelligence."
"Audio and video calls provide faster communication than chat."
"The transition to this solution is very quick so don't hesitate to give it a go, particularly for anyone already using Microsoft products."
"Microsoft Teams is a communication platform that enables one-on-one communication as well as group communication, and it is convenient with recordings and AI tools such as automatic transcripts."
"You can ping, chat, and call someone, and at the same time, on the next tab, you can see all the documents related to what someone is referring to."
"I find several features of Microsoft Teams valuable. First, the group chat feature is great for team collaboration and sharing updates. Second, scheduling meetings is very easy, whether through Outlook or directly in the tool. Another useful feature is the notifications for meeting start times, which ensure you don't miss any meetings even if you're working on something else. Additionally, Microsoft Teams creates a chat where you can take and share notes during meetings, which I find helpful."
"All the functions I needed were supported very well, making the product very effective."
"Microsoft Teams adds value for businesses by providing functionality that includes co-authoring on work documents, publishing Power BI sites for reporting and billing, and integrating calendaring."
"The chat functionality is the solution's most valuable feature."
"Setting up Teams was not difficult."
 

Cons

"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
"Sametime hangs sometimes and therefore needs to get restarted."
"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."
"It seems that the software might in the future, support the software telephony exchange but at the current time, it is not doing that and because of that one key feature of real-time communication is missing from it."
"It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or other files."
"Only once did we really get help from Microsoft support; the rest were cases we resolved ourselves while just exchanging useless emails with support."
"On rare occasions, it freezes and some people will lose sound or they could lose video."
"They need to improve the scalability of Teams."
"I would like to see Outlook options added to this solution."
"There could be performance spikes and better reliability. We saw a lot of stability issues."
"I would rate the stability of Microsoft Teams as a six or seven, as there is a lot of audio drop in between, so it's not that stable."
"The solution’s stability could be improved."
"The setup of Microsoft Teams is not very easy, with occasional issues in driver installation and browser compatibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The tool comes as part of the Office 365 bundle and you don't have to pay anything extra."
"If you have clients who do not have a computer and are joining with their phones it's an additional fee of $5.00 per user."
"Microsoft Teams is expensive compared to other solutions."
"The solution has a reasonable price in the market."
"The tool's price is high. We purchase Microsoft Office 365 on per user basis and we get support also on that basis."
"The challenge with Microsoft's licensing model is that the prices are on the higher side, especially for companies that have more users where spending a lot on licenses may be required."
"The tool's price is part of MS Office 365 and I would rate its pricing five out of ten. The tool's licensing costs are monthly."
"The standalone license is not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise73
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Teams?
When we pay for Microsoft Teams, it is always expensive. I do not know exactly how much the license is, but when we pay, it is always expensive.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Teams?
There are too many features in Microsoft Teams, and I think it is not good. I believe they should have fewer features in Microsoft Teams and limit it to calls, presentations, and sharing, similar t...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Teams?
My main use cases for Microsoft Teams are for meetings and calls. I have not yet used it for collaboration.
 

Also Known As

Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime
MS Teams
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Connect2Cloud, Superior Group, Daifuku Co. Ltd., Seaward, The City of Fort Worth, Christian Brothers Services, Berlitz, Deutsche Notes User Group, Danske Fysioterapeuter, Slumberland, La Vacanza, Rheinmetall AG
Honeywll, AIRFRANCE, AccuWeather, Lilly
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Sametime vs. Microsoft Teams and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.