Google Workspace vs HCL Notes comparison

Google and HCLSoftware are both solutions in the Email Applications category. Google is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1, while HCLSoftware is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.0. Google holds a 22.9% mindshare in EA, compared to HCLSoftware ’s 3.3% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of HCLSoftware users who would recommend it.

Google Workspace

Read 101 Google Workspace reviews

6,268 Views
5,616 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

HCL Notes

Read 16 HCL Notes reviews

1,371 Views
828 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

Google Workspace

HCL Notes

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Google Workspace and HCL Notes are both prominent platforms in the realm of business communication and collaboration. Recent user reviews suggest that Google Workspace is preferred due to its pricing and accessible support, whereas HCL Notes is notable for its superior integration capabilities.

Features: Google Workspace is known for its affordability, scalability, and seamless integration with multiple devices. It includes tools like Gmail, Drive, and Meet, which enhance document collaboration and usability. On the other hand, HCL Notes is recognized for its robust security and integrated features, which facilitate application publication on the web and provide critical integration features for certain users.

Room for Improvement: Google Workspace experiences disconnects, slow email loading, and limited storage for email attachments. Users desire enhanced Outlook integration and improved communication tools. HCL Notes is seen as outdated, needing a modern user interface, enhanced user experience, and more frequent updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Workspace offers easy setup through cloud deployment but faces mixed reviews regarding customer support. In contrast, HCL Notes typically requires on-premises or hybrid deployment and has a consistent licensing scheme, though its support and update frequency could be enhanced.

Pricing and ROI: Google Workspace offers competitive pricing with tiered plans suitable for different business sizes, delivering good value and ROI with features like ease of use and integration. HCL Notes, while generally cheaper, provides significant built-in features and security, making its pricing a worthwhile investment for security-conscious businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Workspace vs. HCL Notes Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. HCL Notes

March 2025

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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 Workspace

Ranking in Email Applications

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Wireless Email (2nd), Cloud Storage (6th), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)

HCL Notes

Ranking in Email Applications

9th

Average Rating

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 22.9%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Notes is 3.3%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Email Applications

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair

IT Manager at Universal Carpets & Rugs

Email collaboration and accessibility have improved team productivity

The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive. People are given email access to Google Drive. The team can share manual files and work accordingly. They can access different teams from anywhere, collectively putting files, sharing them, and managing them. Additionally, the manufacturing product does not require any downgrades. It works fine and continuously for the last three or four years. Users can access their emails from anywhere in their browser without a laptop or can directly access from Gmail. This is helpful for salespeople.

Read full review

Chiheb Charmiti

IS Manager & Consultant HCL Domino at JACOB & ASSOCIATES

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like most about Google Workspace is the Google Drive app because you can easily access it from anywhere and from any device. I also find the solution easy to use. It's user-friendly."

"I like the capabilities for collaboration on any platform. For example, I might be on an iPad whereas the person next to me is on a laptop and the person next to them is on their phone. We can all collaborate together and update documentation in real-time."

"personally prefer to use G Suite applications, such as Gmail, Slides, and Sheets, because they give you the freedom to share the document you're editing and co-work with other colleagues simultaneously."

"We haven't had any issues with scalability - we have over a thousand employees, and G Suite just scales."

"The initial setup is easy because it's all pre-configured."

"Google Chat is the most valuable feature of the solution."

"The real-time editing feature is valuable."

"The solution is very intuitive."

More Google Workspace pros

"It is easy to integrate the product with other services."

"HCL Notes is stable most of the time."

"HCL Notes has fantastic built-in security. The email and personal communication components are excellent, but they are some applications provided by HCL that Notes previously provided when it was under IBM and Lotus. Everyone wants email, so that's just part of the product. However, more savvy users can build their own solutions for managing information, and that's the great thing about it."

"The product is very stable and scalable."

"The solution is practical, good interface, and performs well."

"The most valuable feature is the UI."

"It offers unique capabilities, excellent security, and replication features."

"The initial setup was easy for me."

More HCL Notes pros

Cons

"The tool should improve its on-prem capabilities to include people who are working offline. The pricing is also a challenge for both the Indian and overseas markets. The tool has a cap of 300 licenses. The product's price has also increased by 10 percent. Businesses are struggling to justify the ROI. Users cannot block emails unless they have a strong firewall."

"It would be nice to have additional software, such as Microsoft Teams, since our basic edition, Google Meet, cannot record video."

"In Google Meet, there is no feature for recording a meeting. It should have a feature for recording."

"To a degree, the project management service could be improved."

"I don't recommend Google Workspace to others. It's expensive. Also, Google doesn't have enough oversight on their partners, so you will face some difficulties dealing with them instead of directly with Google."

"The solution could improve by having more frequent updates."

"It would be a lot nicer if the default Gmail came with features that we currently need add-ons for, such as tables, automatic BCC, resizing of the panel on the left-hand side, email highlighting, and configuring the display of time and date against each email."

"What needs improvement in Google Workspace is the Google Drive app, in particular, making the process of finding the shared and most used files and folders easier. The first time you get an invite to view a file or folder in Google Drive and you view that folder or file, it's pretty easy, but the next time you try to access it again, sometimes, it's a bit difficult to find what was shared with you. An additional feature I'd like to see in Google Workspace is the option to un-send messages in Gmail. Microsoft has a message recall feature, and this isn't available in Gmail, so it's the feature I'd like to be added to Gmail."

More Google Workspace cons

"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."

"Web support is very old and needs an upgrade. We can handle a different password for the client to access the mail services, compared to the web services. We need to implement many other components to get access to the web access. There could be a feature to interpret if the web access is available from any end-user equipment."

"There is a chat component but it does not work properly."

"We had trouble connecting this solution to the database from Microsoft. We have done it, although it can be easier."

"GUI and replication can be improved."

"It is a heavy program and uses more resources than an email client should."

"The solution could improve by adding some more features."

More HCL Notes cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 offer products with similar functionality at several different price points. Zoho offer a more extensive range of products and attempts to provide all the applications required to run most small and medium-sized businesses."

"The solution is expensive."

"The pricing is very high, although I cannot tell if this is the result of the Indian vendors artificially inflating it."

"Careful consideration should be given to the different licensing options and provisions should be made for additional applications that may be required for your particular business."

"We normally purchase the license on a yearly basis."

"There are several areas where a G Suite implementation can reduce costs: lower license fees than some competing products, reduced hardware, and IT support costs."

"Traffic management tools may be required for larger setups and should be included in any pricing calculations."

"The overall cost is very reasonable when considering all of the security features that you are receiving. It is a bit more expensive than our local host and/or other hosting companies that are available on the market, but it is worth it."

More Google Workspace 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."

"It was reasonably priced, but the product itself was not worth the cost."

"The price is reasonable."

"We pay annually for the use of the solution."

"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."

"We pay licensing fees on a yearly basis."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Workspace?

Easy-to-build forms are allowing me to get feedback and information from my internal teams as well as from the customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Workspace?

I'm not satisfied with the cost because I feel these services should be free as they use our data.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Workspace?

As far as Google Workspace is concerned, it is working fine for us. Our needs are fulfilled, so that's fine. However, integration with Microsoft Outlook could be improved. The new integration was i...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with HCL Notes?

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for HCL Notes?

I am a technician and software developer with a unique product called NotesTracker, a software product for users of HCL Notes and Domino. I started my company, Asia Pacific Computer Services, to do...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Exchange Online vs Google Workspace

Compared 29% of the time

Amazon WorkMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 29% of the time

ProtonMail vs Google Workspace

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon WorkDocs vs Google Workspace

Compared 4% of the time

Dropbox vs Google Workspace

Compared 2% of the time

More Google Workspace Competitors

Microsoft Exchange vs HCL Notes

Compared 32% of the time

HCL Verse vs HCL Notes

Compared 26% of the time

HCL Domino vs HCL Notes

Compared 14% of the time

Zimbra Collaboration vs HCL Notes

Compared 8% of the time

IceWarp vs HCL Notes

Compared 5% of the time

More HCL Notes Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace

March 2025

Download Google Workspace product report

Buyer's Guide

HCL Notes

March 2025

Download HCL Notes product report

Also Known As

G-Suite Enterprise, G-Suite, Google Apps for Business, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G-Suite Basic, G-Suite Business, Google Vault

IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes

Overview

Similar to G Suite, all Google Workspace plans provide a custom email for your business and include collaboration tools like Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and more.

As we’ve evolved G Suite into a more integrated experience across our communication and collaboration tools, we’ve rebranded to Google Workspace to more accurately represent the product vision.

Google

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.

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.”

HCLSoftware

Sample Customers

There are over five million businesses that use Google Apps for Business worldwide. Some key customers include The Roche Group, National Geographic, American Red Cross, City of Los Angeles, Flight Centre, and Konica Minolta.

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

Buyer's Guide

Google Workspace vs. HCL Notes

March 2025

Free Report: Google Workspace vs. HCL Notes

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