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Google Workspace vs HCL Notes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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

Google Workspace
Ranking in Email Applications
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (6th), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)
HCL Notes
Ranking in Email Applications
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 22.9%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.3%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Email collaboration and accessibility have improved team productivity
The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive. People are given email access to Google Drive. The team can share manual files and work accordingly. They can access different teams from anywhere, collectively putting files, sharing them, and managing them. Additionally, the manufacturing product does not require any downgrades. It works fine and continuously for the last three or four years. Users can access their emails from anywhere in their browser without a laptop or can directly access from Gmail. This is helpful for salespeople.
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

"Reduces IT spend, freeing up cash for other areas: sales, marketing, recruitment, etc."
"They are launching more and more features for mobile, which I understand our customers appreciate."
"The most beneficial feature is Gmail, which we use extensively."
"It is quite a useful tool. It allows many people to work on a document. You can actually provide review comments and tag anybody to make the comment changes. You can also attach a document in Google Chat."
"The most valuable feature of Google Workspace is its ease of use and stability."
"I find smart sheets in Google Sheets to be useful."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"We value the collaboration levels that are offered. Having everything integrated in a single platform is a dream come true for us."
"The solution provides great security."
"Its security is absolutely stratospheric. In an application, you can lock down to field-level security. For example, I could log in and see a field in an HR database with salaries. When you log in, you see exactly the same database, but the field with the salary just isn't there. So, you can literally have field-level security on it, and you can also have secure encryption. For example, I could give you that database allowing you to see the salary, but a calculation that shows how much they get per month in another field is encrypted. So, you won't be able to see that because you don't have the encryption key. You can implement high-level security very simply."
"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."
"HCL Notes has fantastic built-in security. The email and personal communication components are excellent, but they are some applications provided by HCL that Notes previously provided when it was under IBM and Lotus. Everyone wants email, so that's just part of the product. However, more savvy users can build their own solutions for managing information, and that's the great thing about it."
"The initial setup was easy for me."
"Notes is a perfectly adequate front end. It's clear and straightforward."
"The product is very stable and scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the access that it provides to documents. This offers us an easy way to make changes."
 

Cons

"The problem with the presentation is that if you upload a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation and you convert it to Google presentation, the slides or pictures, their images are not editable. You can't edit the slides that you brought in. They're just images."
"Integrating Copilot with Google Workspace is slightly difficult."
"In Google Meet, there is no feature for recording a meeting. It should have a feature for recording."
"Some people complain that Google Mail is inflexible. It was advanced 10 years ago, but other solutions are cleaner and clearer."
"And I think Google Translate could add more features. For example, it could be integrated when typing in a document or a web browser like Grammarly."
"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."
"There's a bit of a learning curve."
"Google Meet can have a bit more functionality. It should show the views of more people. Right now, it shows just eight at a maximum, or six. When there are more people on the call, more than eight, everyone is not showing."
"I would like to see integration with other solutions."
"GUI and replication can be improved."
"Some people complain that they want something more modern and jazzy."
"The loading time can be excessive."
"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."
"I love this product. I have used it for many years, and I have been a developer for it. If anything, it can be faster in the client version. The client version is a little bit hard. It is not fast. This is the only problem I see. Otherwise, it is a very good product."
"It is a heavy program and uses more resources than an email client should."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's low in cost as compared to Office 365. There is an annual licensing cost."
"We normally purchase the license on a yearly basis."
"It's about $8.30 up a user per month."
"The pricing is comparable, it's pretty decent."
"There are several areas where a G Suite implementation can reduce costs: lower license fees than some competing products, reduced hardware, and IT support costs."
"The pricing is a bit on the higher side than normal. For a basic Google account it costs $100, but Enterprise is %150."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"2,500 Rupees per month per user."
"We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is expensive. There are many components or features which make the price very high."
"It was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."
"We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
"The price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
 

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?
As far as Google Workspace is concerned, it is working fine for us. Our needs are fulfilled, so that's fine. However, integration with Microsoft Outlook could be improved. The new integration was i...
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?
While HCL has made significant advances in the user interface and diverse platform compatibility, some improvements could be made in user-friendliness and graphical interface enhancements.
What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?
I am a technician and software developer with a unique product called NotesTracker, a software product for users of HCL Notes and Domino. I started my company, Asia Pacific Computer Services, to do...
 

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: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.