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HCL Notes vs IceWarp comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

HCL Notes
Ranking in Email Applications
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IceWarp
Ranking in Email Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.1%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IceWarp is 5.7%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AvinashLotke - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for collaboration and storage but improvement is needed in API integration
The solution has traditional SSL integration, SAML, and Federation Services. In its latest version, it added SAML integration. However, it needs to work on API integration, especially for dashboards or integration with SAP for log and data system management. It doesn't yet have the kind of API that Google and Microsoft provide for synchronizing users with Active Directory. I think IceWarp needs to improve in a few areas. They have two types of admin consoles - a web-based one and a remote one. I'd like to see these combined into a single web-based admin console. The log reading and information system also needs improvement. The current way of showing incoming and outgoing logs isn't very clear. For new users, it's hard to understand these logs, especially compared to Office 365 and other systems with easier-to-read logs. They should also add an export option to get all logs with a single click whenever we need them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Notes is a perfectly adequate front end. It's clear and straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the UI."
"The initial setup was easy for me."
"The most valuable feature is security. It's very easy to manage security on records, views, and tables."
"The product is very stable and scalable."
"HCL Notes is stable most of the time."
"The most valuable feature is the access that it provides to documents. This offers us an easy way to make changes."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of IceWarp is the chat rooms and file-sharing, they are useful. It is convenient that everything is in one place. You can easily share and collaborate documents, making the program's unity a significant advantage."
"IceWarp has multiple applications that are easy to use for many people."
"The solution is easy to manage and includes features such as smart documents and the archiving of user data."
"It has great communication capabilities for team chatting and web conferences."
"The TeamChat feature has been really good for our email management. It lets us collaborate, share files, and invite guests like Google Spaces or Microsoft Teams. I like the two-factor authentication for security. However, they need to improve their document collaboration tools, as their Word, Excel, and PowerPoint features are basic compared to Microsoft and Google."
"The groupware module is the most valuable feature."
"The solution has a very good log-in to the UI when compared to other solutions."
"It's scalable and stable."
 

Cons

"Notes needs a major upgrade for the UI."
"One area for improvement would be making the interface more user-friendly."
"There is a chat component but it does not work properly."
"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."
"Some people complain that they want something more modern and jazzy."
"The solution could improve by adding some more features."
"I would like to HCL update Notes' development tool and make it more attractive like Microsoft Visual Studio and similar products. For example, there's a programming language that I used for my product Woodpecker called LotusScript. LotusScript has been available since around 1995. When LotusScript was released, it was like the original Visual Basic, but it has improved since then."
"I would like to see integration with other solutions."
"The solution should improve the mailing list feature. Google has a similar feature where you can automate sending files to different people in a sequence, but that feature is no longer available in the current version of IceWarp. Other features may also have been removed in the current version."
"It is difficult to disable user rights on the console so some users accidentally delete their documents or user details."
"The solution has traditional SSL integration, SAML, and Federation Services. In its latest version, it added SAML integration. However, it needs to work on API integration, especially for dashboards or integration with SAP for log and data system management. It doesn't yet have the kind of API that Google and Microsoft provide for synchronizing users with Active Directory."
"Although it is not a tool, video conferencing should be scalable and operate in a professional and efficient way."
"The tool's configuration capabilities are not straightforward. Apart from that, if I want to archive emails into a vault so that they can be retrieved again later, the integration doesn't work, and IceWarp crashes."
"The solution needs improvements in security, particularly regarding document management."
"Support should be improved. Most of the time, the queries are not resolved within the SLA."
"The exchange compatibility mode is rather limited. Their technical support can also be better. They only provide online support, and there should be some option for escalating."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 price is reasonable."
"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 was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."
"We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."
"The solution is expensive. There are many components or features which make the price very high."
"Our licensing is on a yearly basis. There were no additional costs."
"I would rate the pricing and eight out of ten."
"The license is based on the number of users."
"The solution is inexpensive which is its main benefit."
"Costs far less than other solutions."
"Price-wise, it's a cheaper solution, without a doubt. Price is the reason we are still using the tool."
"The solution is priced well."
"Pricing and licensing is very competitive and in some cases, cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Some people want something more modern than the Notes current front end, but it works. It's clear and straightforward. Those wishing a newer look can use the alternative HCL Verse product. To moder...
What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?
We use HCL Notes / Domino for application development, plus the usual office functions like email, personal and group calendaring, to-do and so on.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IceWarp?
IceWarp was very cost-effective, offering services at a significantly lower cost than Google, which was appealing for our organization.
What needs improvement with IceWarp?
The solution needs improvements in security, particularly regarding document management. Users currently have the rights to delete smart documents, which poses a challenge for administrators. A mor...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Marriott, Toyota, Sony, Wendy's, Canon
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Notes vs. IceWarp and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.