HCL Notes Reviews

Name: HCL Notes
Brand: HCLSoftware
Rating: 3.8 (17 reviews)

3.8 out of 5

17 reviews
77% willing to recommend

612 followers

What is HCL Notes?

HCL Notes is a secure on-premises email client that allows teams access to email, calendar, and contact management capabilities. The solution integrates other collaboration tools seamlessly along with HCL Domino business applications, into a single workspace. HCL Notes is most commonly used in corporate environments for email, but can also be used to create websites, custom applications and business workflows, discussion groups, and document libraries. In addition, the solution enhances user experiences, helps internal teams collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, and streamline communication management operations.

Get the HCL Notes Buyer's Guide and find out what your peers are saying about HCL Notes, Google Workspace, Microsoft Exchange Online and more!

HCL Notes is the #8 ranked solution in top Email Applications. PeerSpot users give HCL Notes an average rating of 7.6 out of 10. HCL Notes is most commonly compared to Google Workspace: HCL Notes vs Google Workspace. HCL Notes is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 52% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a government, accounting for 14% of all views.

Helped 851,604 peers since 2012

Featured HCL Notes reviews

Chiheb Charmiti

IS Manager & Consultant HCL Domino at JACOB & ASSOCIATES

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.

Read full review

Herad Howell

Military Officer at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees

I primarily value HCL Notes for its security features. The software's secure communication is particularly useful when dealing with professional entities. It ensures that business is conducted smoothly, allowing me to use my organization's email confidently, as opposed to my personal Gmail, which might not prompt responses from some entities.

Read full review

reviewer1419795

Sr. Analyst at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

The way Notes has improved us is that we are able to do a lot of things from the single platform of Notes. While it is a good thing — I would definitely say it is a good thing — but then this software is pretty heavily outdated. So that is a pain point. We do not really want to do everything through this platform, but it is the only platform where we have those tools now. In a way, it is good that we have a lot of capabilities built into the same platform, but this platform is old and it is sluggish. The first thing that I would like to see in a new version of Notes is a major improvement with the UI. With HCL Notes, once you open it, it looks like you are using Windows 98. That is how basic and rudimentary it is. The UI is definitely the primary area that can see improvement. Also in the UI, the general sense of the user experience can be enhanced. Things are really not always where you might think they should be. If I want to recall an email, two years after using Notes, I will finally know how to recall an email. I am sure that even 80% of my colleagues do not even know how to recall an email because that option is hidden somewhere deep in the options. HCL definitely needs to prioritize what users understand about the interface, what users want, and redesign the UI accordingly. It really is too late now. You are stuck in an ancient system when you compare the other solutions that are 20 years ahead of you. It feels pretty primitive. If you check the smartphone interface it is pretty basic. Things that you could do with Outlook in 2006 are things that can only be done by HCL Notes in 2020. The sense you feel when using Notes on a smartphone is almost like I am using a first-generation Android phone again. HCL does not really encourage using Notes through smartphones. There is a chat interface and they have a software called Sametime. That enables users to chat and send files to each other in real-time, which is similar to something like Skype for Business. It is there in HCL Notes, but it also does not work properly. There are many different, small examples that I can use to state how Notes does not work or where it is lacking. Definitely a tighter integration is needed to check what users want, and what users do not want. A total UI overhaul would be necessary to keep the product alive.

Read full review

HCL Notes mindshare

As of May 2025, the mindshare of HCL Notes in the Email Applications category stands at 3.4%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications

PeerResearch reports based on HCL Notes reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Email Applications	May 20, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	HCL Notes vs Google Workspace	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	HCL Notes vs Microsoft Exchange Online	May 20, 2025	Download
Comparison	HCL Notes vs Microsoft Exchange	May 20, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Google Workspace	4.1	22.2%	95%	102 interviews Add to research
Microsoft Exchange Online	4.3	14.1%	96%	90 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

"It offers unique capabilities, excellent security, and replication features."
"The software's secure communication is particularly useful when dealing with professional entities."
"The most valuable feature is security. It's very easy to manage security on records, views, and tables."

Room for Improvement

"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."
"One area for improvement would be making the interface more user-friendly."
"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."

Pricing

"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."
"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."

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our HCL Notes Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

Real Estate/Law Firm

Retailer

Construction Company

Healthcare Company

Hospitality Company

Aerospace/Defense Firm

University

Wholesaler/Distributor

Non Profit

Energy/Utilities Company

Legal Firm

Wireless Company

Consumer Goods Company

Logistics Company

Media Company

Outsourcing Company

Performing Arts

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Transportation Company

Compare HCL Notes with alternative products

Learn more about HCL Notes

HCL Notes is available for Windows, Apple iOS, and Android.

HCL Notes Features

HCL Notes has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Instant Messaging with HCL Sametime.
Unified Inbox: This HCL Notes feature helps you consolidate multiple email accounts into one viewable platform.
Filters: The HCL Notes filters allow users to filter their emails by sender, date received, opened/unopened, and more.
Reminders: With the reminders feature, users are prompted with reminders to send or reply to emails.
Notifications: HCL Notes notifications feature pings users, notifying them when they receive new emails.
Task Management: HCL Notes has built-in task creation and assignment functionality.
Reporting & Statistics.

HCL Notes Benefits

Some of the benefits of using HCL Notes include:

Mobility and accessibility: HCL Notes provides users with access to their mail and calendar wherever and whenever they are doing work.

Easy integration: With HCL Notes, you can interact with files directly from your email messages — preview, download, follow, comment, or share them with your team.

Better access capabilities: HCL Notes makes it possible for you to access profiles, roles, skill sets, and areas of responsibility for all your contacts. It also allows you to view related blogs and collaboration histories of shared work.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by HCL Notes users.

An Administration & Technical Director at a tech services company says, "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."

PeerSpot user Bogdan C., Kierownik Biura Informatyki at an insurance company, mentions, “The most valuable feature is the access that it provides to documents. This offers us an easy way to make changes.”

Marcos S., Diretor at MASTERDOM, comments, “The solution is practical, good interface, and performs well. The usability of the old applications to the new version of the client is very good. The migration is very good for some legacy applications.”

HCL Notes was previously known as IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes.

HCL Notes 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