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Amazon WorkMail vs HCL Notes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.1
Replacing WhatsApp with Amazon WorkMail halved costs, improved communication, and provided scalable, stable services reducing downtime concerns.
Sentiment score
5.5
HCL Notes enhances efficiency and secure communication, offering ROI that outweighs its $100 annual cost per user.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.1
Customer feedback on Amazon WorkMail support is mixed, with experiences ranging from responsive assistance to dissatisfaction over communication issues.
Sentiment score
6.8
HCL Notes support is praised for knowledgeable staff and quick response, with high user satisfaction but room for growth.
We have sent some emails and they have responded promptly, so we are satisfied.
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Amazon WorkMail is one of those services that just works out of the box for me.
Owner at Marinov
Once Notes is running, it performs reliably without issues.
Architect at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate HCL technical support as eight out of ten.
IT Director at ATOS
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Amazon WorkMail is praised for scalability, accommodating large user bases and email traffic efficiently despite some cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.1
HCL Notes is scalable, integrates well with major platforms, but may face performance issues with large databases.
I do not have any concerns regarding the scalability of Amazon WorkMail, as we are sending about 40,000 to 50,000 emails per day, doing both transactional and batch with a queuing mechanism internally.
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The scalability of the product is really good.
IT Director at ATOS
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Amazon WorkMail is highly rated for stability, handling large volumes reliably with no reported issues or downtime.
Sentiment score
7.1
HCL Notes is considered stable, with high ratings despite occasional server issues, enhanced post-IBM with improved features.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek an intuitive interface, improved pricing, advanced features, better spam filtering, scalability, and enhanced support for Amazon WorkMail.
HCL Notes needs modernization with improved interface, reliability, integration, and user-friendliness to compete with alternatives like Microsoft.
The most crucial aspect is that I can set up my address book with the complex organizational structure needed for the accounts connecting to AWS.
Owner at Marinov
I think HCL can make its product better by being more visible on the market because most companies don't support or use HCL anymore.
IT Director at ATOS
It could be modernized by the development team.
Administration & Technical Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

Amazon WorkMail receives mixed reviews on pricing, appreciated for its free tier but considered costly beyond its allocation.
HCL Notes is praised for cost-effectiveness and adaptability, despite varied perceptions on pricing due to multiple components.
I have heard that compared to other providers, it is considerably cheaper.
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon WorkMail provides scalable, secure email management with AWS integration, enhancing efficiency, user experience, and workflow expansion.
HCL Notes excels in security, integration, ease of development, backward compatibility, and offers cost-effective groupware applications with email integration.
The encryption of emails, both in transit and at rest, has benefited our security strategy as it is a layer of security that provides us better confidence for customers and also internally tracks the security aspects.
Co-Founder & CTO at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Amazon WorkMail offers excellent classification options and adheres to the IMAP email protocol standards.
Owner at Marinov
We use HCL Notes for its offline capabilities, including the ability to work offline.
IT Director at ATOS
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon WorkMail
Ranking in Email Applications
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (2nd)
HCL Notes
Ranking in Email Applications
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkMail is 7.5%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.4%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon WorkMail7.5%
HCL Notes3.4%
Other89.1%
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

GM
Owner at Marinov
Centralized email accounts have streamlined routing, security checks, and long-term organization
While using Amazon WorkMail over time, I haven't encountered substantial disappointments, but there have been usual glitches with the web interface. For instance, while the service is generally 99.5% perfect, I experience issues like the folder structure I set up sometimes not remembering the state of expanded and collapsed nodes after refreshing the page. This lack of persistence in which nodes are collapsed or opened can be frustrating. However, since it's a minor technical issue, I doubt the average user would notice it. If Amazon WorkMail were not discontinuing, I wouldn't think there is much to improve or enhance about it. It is standard enough and easy to use, and any glitches are minor, not worth evolving or disrupting its current functionality. As for whether the user interface is intuitive and if I'm satisfied with its flexibility and customizability, there are some minor features lacking, but I don't feel a need for changes since it works as designed. The most crucial aspect is that I can set up my address book with the complex organizational structure needed for the accounts connecting to AWS. The lower-level functionalities suit me well enough. Other services often have customizable views of email representations with senders, subjects, and even snippets of content. While my external application on mobile can show customizable lines with my email list, Amazon WorkMail does not offer that feature. I don't really need it, but it would be a nice addition for power users.
AT
IT Director at ATOS
Has improved email security through built-in encryption and supported offline work effectively
We don't use team workspace with HCL Notes; we use only Microsoft because it's incorporated with the Microsoft license. Based on my extensive experience with HCL Notes, I think HCL can make its product better by being more visible on the market because most companies don't support or use HCL anymore, and most integrators work with Exchange or Outlook rather than HCL Notes. Inside HCL Notes functionality, they have to be more visible in the market, which is very important.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
University
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon WorkMail?
We are satisfied with Amazon WorkMail, as it is able to send emails and provide receipts, including the read and other statuses. Since we are doing more API side integrations, there does not seem t...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon WorkMail?
From the communication aspects, working with Amazon WorkMail has been seamless and cost-effective. My customers do not make any use of Amazon WorkMail's compatibility with Microsoft Active Director...
What is your primary use case for Amazon SES?
We are an integrator, and we have a product in which we use Amazon WorkMail. We send emails on a daily basis in a batch mode to customers. We have about 50,000 emails across various customers.
What needs improvement with HCL Notes?
We don't use team workspace with HCL Notes; we use only Microsoft because it's incorporated with the Microsoft license. Based on my extensive experience with HCL Notes, I think HCL can make its pro...
What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?
We use HCL Notes as an email system. We currently only use it as an email application, though in the past we used it for additional applications.
What advice do you have for others considering HCL Notes?
Regarding HCL Notes supporting various business processes such as CRM, I don't use it, but if I have an issue, I contact the support and we are satisfied with that. I would rate HCL Notes 10 out of...
 

Also Known As

Amazon SES
IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
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 Amazon WorkMail vs. HCL Notes and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.