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HCL Connections vs Yammer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 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

HCL Connections
Ranking in Enterprise Social Software
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) (5th)
Yammer
Ranking in Enterprise Social Software
5th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Enterprise Social Software category, the mindshare of HCL Connections is 2.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Yammer is 5.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Social Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Yammer5.2%
HCL Connections2.6%
Other92.2%
Enterprise Social Software
 

Q&A Highlights

Jul 10, 2014
 

Featured Reviews

Hasnain Zahid - PeerSpot reviewer
Talent acquisition & development specialist at Software Productivity Strategists, Inc. (SPS)
A stable tool useful to manage marketing-related activities
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. Sometimes, the portal hangs because I find that if I am on a web page, I have to log out, and then I have to log in to the portal again. Since I see that the portal hangs at times, I have to move from one side of the portal to the next, making me feel that some things are scattered in the product. I attended a meeting with IBM recently, and they are improving a few of the things, in my opinion. The concerns that I have related to the product are being improved since I think many other users have reported issues similar to the ones I faced.
DB
Senior Technical Product Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Creates user groups and streamlines communication
I think we should have some improvements in Yammer, similar to what we have in Facebook and others, where we can have targeted communications, so that we can filter some communications to go to a specific subset of that group, not to everybody. We would love to have some AI technologies included in Yammer, but I do not have a specific use case in mind right now.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Connections is a good product with many functions."
"For us, the most valuable feature is really the threaded conversations, because we don't get a threaded conversation with other tools."
"The most valuable feature is Files, because we are working together with our accounting department in different countries."
"The most valuable features of Connections would be that it opens up communication silos that previously existed in the company, so that people have the opportunity to discover talents and interests in other areas that may not pertain to their normal job function."
"With IBM connections cloud you are able to get the users active in the solution from day one and start developing Social Solutions that deliver real business outcomes!"
"IBM Connections is a great product, with new functionality each year."
"IBM Connections is born for collaboration and one of the easiest steps is starting a community with a set of great collaborative, built-in applications and starting to collaborate over a project."
"It has really changed the way people work: File sharing, getting away from shared drives, being able to set up communities for information, and empowering business units to leverage support for their business units."
"It was reasonably good at creating online communities of interest."
"Groups is the most valuable feature in Yammer."
"From the point of view of knowledge sharing, we created a group per project, and while we had SharePoint for storing documentation, we were able to link to these and give them content in Yammer."
"It has improved information sharing across the company which allows for problems to be solved much faster."
"Messaging and groups are the most valuable features."
"The design of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"Increased collaboration between geographically distributed teams."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
 

Cons

"For most of my users, the consistent feedback has been about how difficult it is to use and how the interface is poorly designed."
"It would be helpful to have more interfacing of all the IBM platforms."
"When your activity becomes really big, it can become unreliable and very slow."
"Most Connections functionality must be customized and personalized but it is more expensive to customize this product, and the product does necessarily provide the widespread coverage that a customer may seek."
"The administration part of the product could be increased."
"Movies with high resolution after uploaded in the community had bad quality, were unreadable, or we couldn’t upload files in AVI or WMV."
"The support is an area where the product can improve...If you are having an issue on a Monday, the support personnel will contact you next Monday."
"The improvement's are could be more flexibility to manage files and to have a sync file area more intuitive and which respects the characteristics of other similar solutions."
"Customer Service: Good through YCN, but sometimes I got frustrated by translation issue."
"Cannot import or invite bulk users from an Active Directory security group."
"I'll give it a six out of ten because I'm comparing it to what's out there."
"I would give the technical support a rating of 3/10."
"If you are not an Office 365 shop, then there are probably better options (i.e., Slack, Facebook for Work)."
"If you are using other applications that are tough to integrate into the environment, that can cause limitations."
"This solution would be improved if it was well integrated with other communication applications."
"There are many competitors that are overlapping. Since Microsoft bought Yammer, it tends to be in the shadow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I think that there is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution."
"We get it as part of our Office 365 subscriptions, so I don't think we pay any additional cost for Yammer. It's included in the Office 365 subscriptions."
"The pricing is not bad."
"I don't know about the pricing. Now that Microsoft has bought Yammer, it should be a part of our subscriptions for Office 365."
"Yammer is a pretty cheap solution, and it's included in multiple subscriptions."
"Its cost is included in the license bundle for Microsoft."
"Compared to other products like Amazon, Yammer's pricing is fine."
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900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014
Hello, Looking at my referrers, I noticed that this question pointed out to my comparison between SharePoint & Connections (see previous discussions for the link). I didn't compare Connections and SharePoint/Yammer yet but just Connections & SharePoint Social. Now that I have a little bit more experience with Connections & IBM Products in general, I'd consider choosing either of ...
2 out of 9 answers
it_user128490 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Leader at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jul 1, 2014
I have experience using Yammer, Sharepoint, IBM -Sametime, Cisco-webex as a social platform. I liked Cisco - webex for various reason - Easy to use, online conferencing, blog, message broadcast, desktop share, meeting scheduler and seamless integration with MS office calendar. I found webex connect to be feature rich and meets most of our Orgs social needs. Many Thanks Pratyush
Jul 1, 2014
IBM Connections Integrates well with SharePoint. Post the integration configuration, most of the time, we should be able to get our SharePoint Libraries and Mysite integrated with connections. By having Microsoft Windows Authentication, we would be able to see the teamsitres, contents etf through SharePoint APIs on Conections page.Availability of Uploading docs are also single click away.Its visa versa from SharePoint as well. Questions regarding MS Yammer or IBM Connections would be subject to business decision however it would also be dependent on wheather we have Connections in the system or Yammer. if its a fresh new set up planning then in long run SharePoint with Yammer negates the need to have IBM connection and have more cost effective solutions. Best regards, Kumar
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Performing Arts
8%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HCL Connections?
The support is an area where the product can improve. My company faces some support-related issues because whenever we create or generate a ticket, it takes two days for the product's support team ...
What is your primary use case for HCL Connections?
I use HCL Connections for marketing purposes. The IBM product in our company already provides us with direct links to the marketing and HR sides.
What needs improvement with Yammer?
I think we should have some improvements in Yammer, similar to what we have in Facebook and others, where we can have targeted communications, so that we can filter some communications to go to a s...
What is your primary use case for Yammer?
We create user groups in Yammer, so we use it mainly for communications and engagement. The features in Yammer that I find most beneficial for team collaboration, communication, and engagement are ...
What advice do you have for others considering Yammer?
I would recommend Yammer to others if someone wants to communicate with a big team and needs a good communication platform. I cannot think of any advice or recommendation to share with users who wo...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

IBM Connections, Lotus Connections
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Yamato Financial Co. Ltd., University of Zurich, Gwinnett County Public Schools, Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., Telus, Rabobank, Christian Brothers Services, Grupo Financiero Banorte, The Loft Group, Dow Water & Process Solutions, JGC Corporation, College of Medicine, Swansea University, solvito GmbH, Loft Group, Hamm-Reno Group GmbH, Geno SA
Verizon, Rakuten,Nationwide, DHL, Westfield, Telefonica, 7-Eleven, Red Robin, Intuit, eBay,Darden, Suncorp, Tyco, Xerox, and ModCloth.
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Connections vs. Yammer and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.