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3CX Live Chat vs HCL Sametime comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 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

3CX Live Chat
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
IP PBX (1st), Unified Communications (2nd), Live Chat (4th), Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP (6th)
HCL Sametime
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of 3CX Live Chat is 3.3%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Sametime is 1.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
3CX Live Chat3.3%
HCL Sametime1.6%
Other95.1%
Virtual Meetings
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed ACHOUR - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at Beyond IT Services
Enhanced service desk workflow which streamlines operations and offers strong integration capabilities
The customers use 3CX for IP telephony and call center activities. Additionally, they use 3CX for service desk activities, including integration with other ITSM products to collect data from customers who need technical support on their platforms 3CX has proven to be a good solution, particularly…
Bogdan Chechlowski - PeerSpot reviewer
Kierownik Biura Informatyki at EIB SA
Stable product, communicate very fast and allows to see who's online in the office or work environment
It was used for communication through text messages, primarily Being able to see who was online and communicate very fast was a good feature.  The security was quite good. However, when we tried to implement it for email at a high level, we had to use another solution, FortiMail Gateway. I view…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Simplified deployment of hosted voice, and the use of a session border controller which can be deployed cheaply on a Raspberry Pi makes port handling easier and more stable."
"It has made my life as the VoIP Division Manager easier."
"Fully equipped soft PABX without hidden extras."
"The integration with SMS has been helpful. That's how a lot of customers prefer to communicate nowadays. It makes it convenient for the customer to reach us."
"They can increase their productivity with the many options that 3CX gives them."
"Easy management console access through web browsers with a good interface to Outlook and multiple CRM systems."
"I have been using it in my environment, and if you use it, you have to say that VoIP can't get any simpler than this."
"3CX constantly adds new features based on their customers feedback and it is one of the most versatile PBX systems we have worked with."
"A very good communication and real-time collaboration software, it is simple, fast, reliable, keeps history and the best feature of all is its intelligence."
"I can view the status and availability of colleagues or team members, which makes it easy to approach them when they are available."
"Audio and video calls provide faster communication than chat."
"The security was quite good."
"This solution saves time and cost in communicating with team members, streamlines tasks in my organization by encouraging us to chat directly with the relevant person, and strengthens professional relationships through increased communication among peers."
 

Cons

"No issues with the solution, except its services require a business model change."
"In 3CX, customization is not as easy as I would like. With 3CX Call Flow Designer, you can set up the flow of a call, deliver it to the department, and automate the process. I can't do many things with this."
"There are a lot of quality of life things that could be improved. When adding extensions, you need to use the extension import setting, you can't just use an import function to update extensions. You have to delete and recreate the extension, which can have all kinds of unintended consequences."
"In 3CX, customization is not as easy as I would like."
"It is not supported by Linux versions. This product is also not open source, which is not much appreciated by the guys like me, who love experimenting with the codes of any product they receive."
"It would be great if the web meeting functionality could be extended to enable users to call standards-based video conferencing systems."
"Support could be better, especially when you have an emergency and need assistance."
"The solution could improve the web meeting feature. There is a lot of competition from all the other applications that are out there, such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. I find I do not use it that much. I do not know how much effort they are putting into the web meeting part of the program but it could improve."
"It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or other files."
"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."
"Sametime hangs sometimes and therefore needs to get restarted."
"It seems that the software might in the future, support the software telephony exchange but at the current time, it is not doing that and because of that one key feature of real-time communication is missing from it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"3CX sells an annual subscription, but we usually split it out monthly for clients, so they don't see an annual bill for the 3CX licensing, it's just part of their monthly phone bill. As they're paying us for carrier service anyway, we just roll it all together. Your standard phone service would be an additional cost, you either need to maintain a local carrier with POTS lines or PRI or a SIP, or you have to go with a cloud-based SIP."
"There aren't any additional costs. With the license I purchased, I have all features that I need. I don't have to buy an add-on or another license."
"We have purchased an annual license to use 3CX Live Chat. There are different options available, you can pay monthly or yearly. I am completely satisfied with the pricing of 3CX Live Chat, it is cheaper than competitors and it is a better solution."
"Switching from POTS or PRI to SIP Trunk save the customer real costs. ROI is seen in less than a year."
"The price of the solution is reasonable. There are a few license options and we are using an enterprise license."
"The price of the solution is in the middle range compared to other solutions. There are different license options available. For example, there is a professional version and an enterprise version, and with the enterprise version, you have the ability to modify the dashboards. You can purchase a license at many different time frame increments, such as monthly, yearly, or two years."
"We used a yearly license depending on the customer's requirements, and the customers did not complain about the pricing."
"There is no add-on costing on the standard fees."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise2
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3CX Live Chat?
The pricing of 3CX is around six out of ten. For some customers, the first year may be free of charge, allowing them to try the solution before deciding to implement it.
What needs improvement with 3CX Live Chat?
The reporting and dashboards of 3CX could be improved.
What is your primary use case for 3CX Live Chat?
The customers use 3CX for IP telephony and call center activities. Additionally, they use 3CX for service desk activities, including integration with other ITSM products to collect data from custom...
What needs improvement with HCL Sametime?
I view it as part of HCL Notes and Domino, and my opinion is similar to those products. It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or oth...
What is your primary use case for HCL Sametime?
It was used for communication through text messages, primarily.
What advice do you have for others considering HCL Sametime?
Overall, it was quite good. I would rate it an eight out of ten. It's a better product than some others from HCL, but overall, I wouldn't recommend it, given the availability of superior alternatives.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

3CX PBX
Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Connect2Cloud, Superior Group, Daifuku Co. Ltd., Seaward, The City of Fort Worth, Christian Brothers Services, Berlitz, Deutsche Notes User Group, Danske Fysioterapeuter, Slumberland, La Vacanza, Rheinmetall AG
Find out what your peers are saying about 3CX Live Chat vs. HCL Sametime and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.