HCL Sametime vs Office 365 comparison

The compared HCLSoftware and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. HCLSoftware is ranked #15 in VM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 1.5% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in CCP , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 9.0% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of HCLSoftware users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

HCL Sametime

Read 5 HCL Sametime reviews

597 Views
496 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

Office 365

Read 153 Office 365 reviews

5,155 Views
3,660 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

HCL Sametime

Office 365

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HCL Sametime and Office 365 based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Zoom Video Communications, Cisco, TeamViewer and others in Virtual Meetings.

To learn more, read our detailed Virtual Meetings Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Virtual Meetings

March 2026

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Helped 886,858 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Virtual Meetings (15th)

Office 365

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

153

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 1.5%, up 0.3% compared to last year.
Office 365, on the other hand, focuses on Content Collaboration Platforms, holds 9.0% mindshare, up 5.5% since last year.

Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
HCL Sametime	1.5%
Zoom Workplace Business	7.7%
Webex	5.7%
Other	85.1%

Virtual Meetings

Content Collaboration Platforms Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Office 365	9.0%
Google Workspace	8.3%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise	8.0%
Other	74.7%

Content Collaboration Platforms

Featured Reviews

Bogdan Chechlowski

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…

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Anubrata Ghosh

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.

Read full review

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."

"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."

"The security was quite good."

"Office 365 is the best business platform for startups or small companies."

"Office 365's most valuable features include its cloud storage and the ability to have the same document accessible on multiple devices."

"Having everything in one place in Office 365, and all the apps integrate together with OneDrive, and the email management is pretty decent."

"Microsoft 365 operates seamlessly in the background, allowing us to perform tasks across different Microsoft applications."

"Teams is more usable and has a lot more features."

"Overall, it's really good; the management tools we have, such as device management tools, email management tools, and security management tools, every aspect is there—if we require any tools, we have them."

"Office 365 has great possibilities for integration, such as single sign-on and the Azure part of it."

"Office 365 fulfills our basic requirements for developing documents and basic forms, provides a lot of facilities and options that are very helpful, and I use it for document creation which saves a lot of time compared to other document creation tools."

More Office 365 pros

Cons

"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."

"It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or other files."

"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."

"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."

"Using Office 365 is not that flexible on some mobile devices, like Android."

"I would rate Microsoft technical support as 3 or 4 out of 10."

"The Microsoft Intune admin portal still needs some compatibility support to run on all browsers."

"Integration with other platforms can be improved."

"I rate the technical support for Office 365 at about four to five out of 10 maximum."

"Pricing is the major concern because certain features are also part of some free suites that people are used to using in their daily life, which drives the demand for Office 365."

"Sometimes when the software pushes security patches it breaks Windows wide."

"The online applications have limited functionality compared to the local applications."

More Office 365 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."

"The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."

"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."

"For the moment, we are paying on a monthly basis because we are still adapting the support and how we want to proceed. I think we will move to paying for the annual license."

"The pricing is not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."

"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."

"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."

"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."

More Office 365 pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Virtual Meetings solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

15%

Construction Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	62
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	70

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...

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What is your primary use case for HCL Sametime?

It was used for communication through text messages, primarily.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Office 365?

Office 365 can be improved by increasing support, which currently is not efficient and takes a lot of time to resolve issues. It has been observed that support personnel often lack hands-on experie...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Office 365?

Email and collaboration are the main use cases for Office 365 at Omagi Media Labs. It is used for internal and external communication in daily work. Groups and Teams groups are created and used in ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Webex vs HCL Sametime

Compared 18% of the time

TeamViewer vs HCL Sametime

Compared 18% of the time

Skype for Business vs HCL Sametime

Compared 17% of the time

Vidyo vs HCL Sametime

Compared 15% of the time

More HCL Sametime Competitors

Google Workspace vs Office 365

Compared 37% of the time

Symphony vs Office 365

Compared 10% of the time

Dropbox Business - Enterprise vs Office 365

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft OneDrive for Business vs Office 365

Compared 4% of the time

Quip vs Office 365

Compared 4% of the time

More Office 365 Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Virtual Meetings

March 2026

Download HCL Sametime product report

Buyer's Guide

Office 365

March 2026

Download Office 365 product report

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

HCL Sametime. Secure Conversations Across Any Device

Your company can’t afford to take any data risks, but your teams still need to be able to interact and react quickly, wherever they are working. Sametime offers modern instant messaging, file-sharing, and online meetings with the proven security your business can trust.

HCLSoftware

Office 365 is more than just Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It provides powerful services like business-class email, online storage, and teamwork solutions that you can access from anywhere. Bring teams and resources together with solutions like Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business that make working together more productive and enjoyable regardless of where participants are located. Easily implement security and privacy controls to help protect business data and devices against malicious threats and help you meet your compliance obligations. Automatic updates ensure your employees will always have the latest features and security updates.

Microsoft

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

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We monitor all Virtual Meetings reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.