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Google Workspace vs HCL Notes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Workspace
Ranking in Email Applications
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (4th), Content Collaboration Platforms (3rd)
HCL Notes
Ranking in Email Applications
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 24.1%, up from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.0%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Jerome Poudevigne - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless collaboration with advanced calendaring and real-time document editing
One area of improvement for Google Workspace is the Google Meet functionality. Currently, users cannot upload files directly through Google Meet; instead, they have to share links via Google Drive, which adds unnecessary steps and complexity. This is especially frustrating when dealing with external users who do not have Google IDs. Another area requiring improvement is the chat/messaging feature, which is basic compared to other products like Slack. Having an integrated and efficient messaging system would be beneficial.
Chiheb Charmiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Accessible from any device, good support, and works very well for emails, document sharing, and workflows
What I like about this solution is that you can use it for mailing, as a client for email, and you can also use it for workflows. So, you can easily develop applications. Even people who haven't got great IT skills can develop some basic applications to use in the company, especially a workflow application. So, it is for mailing and for applications, which is a great thing about HCL Notes. It is very good for managing and sharing documents on the network or inside the company. It works very well for sharing documents. 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. People who are on the move outside the company but need to interact with the database of the company can do some tasks in the HCL Notes application offline. When they have connectivity, the information is updated or replicated in real-time. They can install the application on different devices. They can use it on mobile phones or iPad.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are the speed at which G Suite Enterprise works."
"I use Keep to assign tasks to a team of programmers, which is very easy."
"G Suite Enterprise is user-friendly, and the technical toolkits and other information are on the website. Additionally, the technical documents are comprehensive."
"The implementation was very easy."
"Good search features, reliable storage, and quick thinking."
"The corporate email feature on Google's Gmail is fantastic."
"The valuable feature of Google Workspace is its integrated environment where everything is pre-integrated, like chat and document sharing in Gmail."
"Google Meet is the most valuable function for me. It has enhanced collaboration in our team."
"The most valuable feature is the UI."
"It is easy to integrate the product with other services."
"The solution is practical, good interface, and performs well."
"The product is very stable and scalable."
"Notes is a perfectly adequate front end. It's clear and straightforward."
"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 security. It's very easy to manage security on records, views, and tables."
"The software's secure communication is particularly useful when dealing with professional entities."
 

Cons

"There are too many steps for sharing pictures."
"G Suite could offer something a little more solid in terms of chat — something that is a little more like Slack and integrates with everything. But, unfortunately, the chat is very basic there. It doesn't offer that many features and feels like it doesn't belong there."
"There are 120 different products and Google is ready to copy their competitors and vice versa. Some of them work, and some of them don't. There are many newer tools with no-code environments which allow for a leaner self-owned system, where I'm not tied to paying hundreds and thousands of dollars a year to another company."
"The user interface, especially on Google Drive, could be better."
"Expensive with a complicated licensing structure."
"To a degree, the project management service could be improved."
"I believe Google Drive has potential for improvement. Enhancements could be made in terms of synchronization and the functionality of the Google Sheets app, particularly in areas like formulas and pivot tables, to make it more comparable to Microsoft Excel. Google Chat needs to make improvements so that we can send Excel and PDFs from the mobile app itself. I would like to see Google Bard integrated with the product."
"Google Workspace doesn't have some of the Excel and PowerPoint presentation functions you get with Microsoft Office."
"It is a heavy program and uses more resources than an email client should."
"I would like to see integration with other solutions."
"The only improvement that we're planning to do is that all our applications are still designed in the layout and format of Notes version 4, and our plan over the coming years is to modernize their look. One of the things they're developing or considering deploying is a program to automatically upgrade the look and feel of databases. If they deploy that, that will be revolutionary. In other words, we decide on a corporate look and feel for our database and press a button. We've probably got 50 different applications in Notes, and it would just go through the whole lot and upgrade all of them to look the same."
"The solution could improve by adding some more features."
"The interface could be more user-friendly. Some additional trainings could be added as well."
"There is a chat component but it does not work properly."
"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."
"One area for improvement would be making the interface more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable."
"It's cheaper to run a couple of users in a Google platform than what it would be with Microsoft Exchange."
"The pricing is very high, although I cannot tell if this is the result of the Indian vendors artificially inflating it."
"The price of G Suite Enterprise is reasonable compared to HotSpot. I'm not going to say G Suite Enterprise is affordable. It's valuable, you find value in paying your gas bill or your electricity bill, because of what it allows you to do."
"The solution is expensive."
"We pay on yearly basis."
"We pay a monthly subscription for the use of this solution."
"I can't recall the exact pricing per user for Google Workspace, but I know it's not that expensive. I'm in a mid-sized company that's able to maintain and afford Google Workspace, so it has competitive pricing, and I would rate its price as four out of five."
"It was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."
"The solution is expensive. There are many components or features which make the price very high."
"We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"The price is reasonable."
"We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Workspace?
Easy-to-build forms are allowing me to get feedback and information from my internal teams as well as from the customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Workspace?
I'm not satisfied with the cost because I feel these services should be free as they use our data.
What needs improvement with Google Workspace?
Google Workspace lacks the ability to copy and move files from one folder to another easily. I also find it challenging to perform many operations using the context menu in Google Sheets, Google Do...
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?
One area for improvement would be making the interface more user-friendly. Compared to other competitors, HCL Notes could enhance its GUI. While I am capable of using it, others who are less famili...
What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?
I only use HCL Notes for email services. When dealing with businesses, particularly professional entities such as ministries or other companies that provide military-related items, using HCL Notes ...
 

Also Known As

G-Suite Enterprise, G-Suite, Google Apps for Business, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G-Suite Basic, G-Suite Business, Google Vault
IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

There are over five million businesses that use Google Apps for Business worldwide. Some key customers include The Roche Group, National Geographic, American Red Cross, City of Los Angeles, Flight Centre, and Konica Minolta.
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. HCL Notes and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.