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HCL Sametime vs Webex 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
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Webex
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
130
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of HCL Sametime is 1.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Webex is 5.2%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Webex5.2%
HCL Sametime1.6%
Other93.2%
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…
Akhil Viswam - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Collaborating in hybrid incident calls has become faster while the meeting interface still needs fixes
The best features are the ability to schedule meetings and launch ad hoc meetings. Additionally, we can create breakout rooms within the meeting itself, which is another excellent feature. Whenever we have production issues, many teams join a single Webex call. Sometimes we need to group together as separate smaller groups and work in parallel to identify the production issues. In those cases, we create Webex breakout rooms and each member joins the corresponding breakout session to progress on their task. Webex helps significantly in the hybrid environment. When we are working from home, it is very easy for us to meet with other team members and the management to get in touch and progress. Webex improves communication because even if we are working from home, we can connect with people and talk to them on a video call. It has improved the incident resolution time by getting into a call in Webex rooms and remediating the issues together as soon as possible. Audio and video quality is excellent for Webex. It has saved considerable time in terms of incident remediation. Whenever we have issues, we jump on a call and work together in parallel. This approach saves time and improves efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Audio and video calls provide faster communication than chat."
"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."
"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 product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"The chat and meeting scheduling features in Webex are most valuable for our team's productivity."
"It allows for collaboration between like teams located in different manufacturing facilities as well as corporate offices, including training."
"I have found a lot of virtual meeting solutions seem the same. Some might work a little bit better, it is difficult to pinpoint a particular functionality that's widely different, they all have screen sharing and video in-voice."
"Webex offers a wide range of useful features and is pretty robust."
"If you're looking for the simplest and cheapest option for video conferencing you should consider Webex compared to other solutions."
"The solution has many features, for example, it has more features than Zoom, which we also use, and you can configure whatever you want in great detail, making it very flexible and allowing the solution to scale well."
"One of the most valuable features of Webex was that it was easy to use and there were no hassles."
 

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."
"Sametime hangs sometimes and therefore needs to get restarted."
"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."
"I would like the next release to be more user-friendly."
"There are too many issues with getting people connected to meetings. Reliability and consistency need improvement."
"The accessibility of the share screen option provided by the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The solution could improve by having cross-platform compatibility. For example, if you wanted to have a call with someone with Microsoft Teams you could do it with Webex. Not everyone wants to use the same virtual meeting application."
"Webex can be improved in terms of better user experience."
"The software, licenses and hardware combine to make the solution extremely expensive."
"The scalability is not that good. If we small group meeting the solution is good, but if there is a large group of people to join the meeting then the network seems unstable."
"I was in a meeting on the free version where there were no controls. You couldn't mute somebody or put it in dedicated speaker mode. It was an important meeting, and because of the lack of an ability to control who the speakers were, we got a version of a heckler. Well, it wasn't really a heckler per se. It was just somebody who thinks they know everything."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price of Webex is in the middle range compared to the market."
"I am using the free version of Webex."
"The price should be improved significantly."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"You can opt for yearly licensing with Webex."
"I am not aware of the pricing details."
"I believe the license to be monthly."
"There is a need to pay the licensing charges to use Webex Enterprise Edition."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Virtual Meetings solutions are best for your needs.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise68
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Webex?
From when I last implemented it, I found the price to be expensive. The licensing model doesn't work because if I want to implement it for an organization, I need to pay a per-user license, which m...
What needs improvement with Webex?
Webex is top-notch at this point in time. The only improvement I see is related to RAM and CPU usage, as older systems with 4GB RAM or i3 processors might slow down the application. I do not have a...
What is your primary use case for Webex?
Webex is primarily used for customer meetings, collaboration with team members, presenting to customers, and virtual calls with customers. In my daily work, I get on the meeting and take the discus...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime
Cisco Spark
 

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
Seagate Technology, Kohn Pedersen Fox, World Vision International, Glen Raven, University of Notre Dame, CEV Multimedia, The Food Group, LUMEDX, California Baptist University, and Georgetown University Law Center.
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Sametime vs. Webex and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.