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Google Hangouts [EOL] vs HCL Sametime comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 27, 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 Hangouts [EOL]
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HCL Sametime
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Meetings (24th)
 

Featured Reviews

Mariana-Piñeres - PeerSpot reviewer
Customer Success Manager Latam at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Recording and transcription enhance global client meetings
Google Hangouts sometimes consumes significant resources. When comparing it to WhatsApp on desktop for calls, there are instances when Google Hangouts freezes or stops working, but switching to WhatsApp runs smoothly. This might be related to the resources Google Hangouts requires. The service occasionally experiences lag issues where the image gets frozen or the voice transmission becomes interrupted. When these issues occur, possibly due to internet connectivity or other factors, WhatsApp continues to function properly while Google Hangouts does not perform well.
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

"Google Meet is a clear and simple solution."
"The solution is extremely stable; there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn’t crash or freeze."
"Online sessions are reliable and there are almost no glitches."
"We use Google Hangouts as our major mode of communication."
"It has efficient recording features."
"The most valuable feature has been the ability to present presentations during meetings."
"The most valuable features are that you don't have to create a separate account, it's easy to use, and you don't have to enter an ID or password to start video conferencing."
"The product is stable."
"The security was quite good."
"Audio and video calls provide faster communication than chat."
"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."
"I can view the status and availability of colleagues or team members, which makes it easy to approach them when they are available."
"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."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more focus on features for interacting with the participants in a group chat, such as screen sharing."
"Google Hangouts, however, was not [compatible with my device]. Google Hangouts is a browser-based application."
"There is a significant problem with performance when you have a poor connection."
"Google Hangouts could improve by allowing someone to record a meeting without the need to have a company email. You cannot record with a Gmail account."
"I would like to have a whiteboard feature, where I can draw a sketch or diagram and show it to the people in the meeting."
"I'm not completely happy with the message options in Hangouts because for now it's only possible to send pictures, which is unfortunate because I would also like to be able to send documents and other things."
"Google Hangouts is not as feature-rich as Slack, but it's sufficient."
"We've noticed the product works better in Chrome and doesn't work as well in Safari browsers."
"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."
"It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or other files."
"Sametime hangs sometimes and therefore needs to get restarted."
"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."
"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The screen-sharing feature is the most valuable feature."
"I believe my company has a yearly license for Google Hangouts, but I'm not sure because this is a corporate account, so I don't have the details."
"There is a need to make certain payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product and some other tools that are included in the suite offered by Google. Google Hangouts alone as a product is available for free."
"This solution is available for free with the opening of a Google account."
"We access the solution through Google Workspace. It is inexpensive to use."
"There is an annual subscription to use this solution."
"I don't need to buy Google Hangouts separately because it comes free with Google Workspace, and it is also available for my personal Gmail ID."
"For individual use, there's no license requirement as such. For storage or some other purposes, if I go beyond 15 GB, then I need to buy something."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
15%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise18
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Hangouts?
Google Hangouts comes as a package, so it's difficult to say or comment on the price of this particular product.
What needs improvement with Google Hangouts?
Sometimes when we have a call and need to share audio or play a video, we find it challenging to switch from sharing the complete desktop to only a particular Chrome tab, as it doesn't support audi...
What is your primary use case for Google Hangouts?
My main use cases for Google Hangouts are for calls and coordinating with my team. I find the recording feature in Google Hangouts very useful, as it normalizes what happened in the call, even thou...
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Also Known As

No data available
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 Zoom Video Communications, TeamViewer, Microsoft and others in Virtual Meetings. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.