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Google Workspace vs HCL Notes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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
7.3
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (5th), 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 February 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 23.5%, up from 23.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.2%, down from 3.6% 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

"The most beneficial feature is Gmail, which we use extensively."
"Ability to co-edit and collaborate on content."
"I think it is a great subscription for me. I think it is important, especially when making an internal email subscription. For example, I can easily create my colleague's email address, and we can use it. I benefited from G Suite. I am using the G Suite Drive, which provides 30GB of storage, and it is helping for me. I think it's better for me."
"The implementation was very easy."
"The solution is stable."
"Google integrates well with our system. G Suite has an open API, so you can connect any open system with Google capable of working with API. This is the main reason we use it."
"It's certainly easier to meet. We have offices around the world and the ability to have a company meeting on Google Meet platform makes it a whole lot easier to actually have everybody virtually in one room at the same time."
"It's easy to control the admin settings, like updating the SDS, NIK, etc. I"
"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 solution is practical, good interface, and performs well."
"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."
"HCL Notes is stable most of the time."
"The software's secure communication is particularly useful when dealing with professional entities."
"It is easy to integrate the product with other services."
"The most valuable feature is the UI."
"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."
 

Cons

"There is some redundancy in the functionality between certain modules."
"I believe that Sheets could have a more functional and user-friendly interface. Google Sheets currently lacks macros and cross file links which can be found in Excel."
"Integration with Microsoft Outlook could be improved."
"The feature set of Google Sheets is limited."
"Integration with Microsoft Outlook could be improved. The new integration was implemented last September, and we are facing some issues with OAuth 2.0 authentication."
"We would like to use something within Google Workspace for project management, but we didn't find it there."
"Google Meet is a very good product, but it's not up to the mark if you compare it against other products like Zoom or Microsoft Teams."
"There's a bit of a learning curve."
"Notes needs a major upgrade for the UI."
"The performance was terrible because we have a very large database with around three million records, including attachments and scanned comments. It was slow, and integrating new technologies or designs was also slow."
"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 interface could be more user-friendly. Some additional trainings could be added as well."
"The loading time can be excessive."
"We had trouble connecting this solution to the database from Microsoft. We have done it, although it can be easier."
"GUI and replication can be improved."
"There is a chat component but it does not work properly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is a bit on the higher side than normal. For a basic Google account it costs $100, but Enterprise is %150."
"There are different versions of the solution available, such as premium."
"The pricing is comparable, it's pretty decent."
"The pricing is very high, although I cannot tell if this is the result of the Indian vendors artificially inflating it."
"We have purchased an annual subscription."
"It's cheaper to run a couple of users in a Google platform than what it would be with Microsoft Exchange."
"The price per client within the business is too high."
"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."
"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."
"It was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."
"The price is reasonable."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
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?
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...
 

Comparisons

 

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: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.