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HCL Sametime vs Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Meetings (14th)
Office 365
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. HCL Sametime is designed for Virtual Meetings and holds a mindshare of 1.6%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
Office 365, on the other hand, focuses on Content Collaboration Platforms, holds 8.5% mindshare, up 6.8% since last year.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HCL Sametime1.6%
Zoom Workplace Business7.4%
Webex5.2%
Other85.8%
Virtual Meetings
Content Collaboration Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Office 3658.5%
Google Workspace7.9%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise7.7%
Other75.9%
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

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…
Anubrata Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at Landmark Group
Teams streamlines collaboration but Outlook experiences occasional slowness on Mac
Teams is a really good collaboration tool. You can work basically at any part of the world and communicate and collaborate with anybody, as long as they are connected to the internet. It helps with remote work, and although I don't work remotely, I have offices in Dubai and different geographical locations. It helps me connect with my colleagues and team who are not in the same geography as I am in Bangalore. Teams can facilitate team meetings, screen sharing, and organizing meetings.Regarding security, we have two-factor authentication governed by organizational policy. When trying to login to Office 365, Teams, or any Office 365 app, we are required to provide a password and use Microsoft Authenticator to sign in using a code. This is how two-factor authentication is implemented in our organization. Office 365 offers a suite of apps including OneNote, though I don't use it very often. In terms of integration with Microsoft ecosystem, it offers everything needed to get work done without any hassle.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The security was quite good."
"Audio and video calls provide faster communication than chat."
"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."
"I can view the status and availability of colleagues or team members, which makes it easy to approach them when they are available."
"Microsoft focuses on the customer GUI side, which makes it easy for customers to understand the product, and I recommend it because of the GUI and human interface, which allows customers to set it up without needing technical people."
"I like Office 365's usability."
"The valuable features I use most are Outlook, Word, print to PDF functionality, and Excel; for our meetings, we use Teams regularly, and it serves as a good platform for our ongoing meetings and project management."
"The formulas are great, you can play with Excel and you can put the formulas in and kill some time, and it is very, very useful for the user."
"It is scalable and easy to expand to more users."
"In summary, this is a good product and one that I recommend."
"Office 365 has greatly aided my organization during the COVID period by facilitating remote work, meetings, and scheduling."
"So far, substantial savings of approximately 30 to 40 percent vs the old licensing model."
 

Cons

"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."
"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
"It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or other files."
"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."
"Sametime hangs sometimes and therefore needs to get restarted."
"Skype for Business could use some help."
"Office 365 is costly for individuals and small businesses."
"We have experienced stability issues."
"The one big problem with the solution is if you are presenting in Teams and someone puts their hand up, you don't get a notification. If you are running a meeting and just presenting you don't know that people have their hands up and want to ask a question."
"I'm not happy with how Microsoft Office 365 works."
"Constantly evolving with new features, which can be challenging for users."
"There are several additional features we would like to see, such as advanced features of SAN protection in Office 365. The main thing is the SAN protection; we would like to see a lot of advanced features added because we had a lot of spam attacks."
"The version we are using is very generic. It requires that you perform a lot of customizations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"I would rate the solution 3 out of 5 for the price. I think Microsoft presents a good solution concerning the price."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"The pricing is not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."
"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Virtual Meetings solutions are best for your needs.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HCL Sametime?
I view it as part of HCL Notes and Domino, and my opinion is similar to those products. It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or oth...
What is your primary use case for HCL Sametime?
It was used for communication through text messages, primarily.
What advice do you have for others considering HCL Sametime?
Overall, it was quite good. I would rate it an eight out of ten. It's a better product than some others from HCL, but overall, I wouldn't recommend it, given the availability of superior alternatives.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Office 365 is that it is moderate.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
Office 365 could be improved or enhanced in some ways. It would be better if it were more simple to find the points, or sometimes there are so many possible configurations that it makes you confuse...
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
Teams and Outlook are important for us, and Teams is central to our operations. I utilize Power Automate for streamlining repetitive tasks in our organization, but not for large tasks. For tasks su...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime
Microsoft Office 365, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 F1
 

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
Me & the Bees Lemonade
Find out what your peers are saying about Zoom Video Communications, TeamViewer, Microsoft and others in Virtual Meetings. Updated: May 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.