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HCL Sametime vs Zoom Workplace Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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 Sametime
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zoom Workplace Business
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
234
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of HCL Sametime is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoom Workplace Business is 7.0%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zoom Workplace Business7.0%
HCL Sametime1.5%
Other91.5%
Virtual Meetings
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Yifate Yusuf - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead at GE
Unified communication has transformed our collaboration and consistently boosts project delivery
The best features Zoom Workplace Business offers include screen sharing, clear video and audio, online meetings, large-scale events, call management, mobile apps, unified communication platform, and collaboration. The feature I find myself using the most is an AI-powered collaboration platform that is used to streamline communication, increase employee engagement, optimize in-person time, and improve productivity. The screen sharing is very effective and a helpful tool where we are able to screen share with our colleagues and discuss different tasks and project management ideas. Collaboration has become very efficient, and remote working has also become efficient and prevalent in my organization. We have been able to save a lot of time using Zoom Workplace Business. It has been a game-changer. Zoom Workplace Business elevates the experience with Zoom AI Companion included at no additional cost. It is designed to help employees be more productive, collaborate better, enhance their skills, and unlock time savings.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"The security was quite good."
"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 product has video access which is a great feature."
"Since Zoom has a really good streaming quality and works on low latency as well, we prefer to use Zoom over other communication channels for video calling and conferences, although we have other communication channels for text messages."
"In summary, this is a good video conferencing solution and although I don't use it much anymore, it worked and did everything that we needed it to."
"Some of the most valuable features are the performance and ease of use. Also, since everyone knows about and is familiar with Zoom, you don't need to teach them how to use it."
"The product is quite secure and you can use it remotely. I've never heard of there being any security issues."
"We are satisfied with this solution, it's good."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to connect to and conduct meetings."
"The solution is easy to use with an easy user interface."
 

Cons

"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
"Sametime hangs sometimes and therefore needs to get restarted."
"It lacks some features compared to modern solutions. For example, it doesn't allow sending screenshots or other files."
"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."
"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."
"Zoom is an immature product that is not yet stable."
"One thing that Zoom can improve is the chat. You can send messages to a specific person without messaging everyone. But everyone sees the whole chat if the administrator lets them see the chat. Maybe they could add an option to let you open a private conversation on the side with a person."
"Zoom does seem to use a fair amount of resources on your system. If you have other apps open, the audio can get really choppy sometimes if you try to do something else, like send an email."
"I would appreciate it if the updates weren't so frequent."
"It's a heavy application that requires a lot of bandwidth. I would like to see Zoom incorporate those features where you can share documents and form teams while still maintaining efficiency."
"The quality of transcription in Zoom Workplace Business could improve."
"The solution needs to have a feature that allows you to take over another person's screen. right now, that's not possible. This is important for our purposes due to the act that we are often using the solution to troubleshoot issues for our clients. If we could just take over their screen and go in and fix issues, it would make troubleshooting infinitely easier."
"Zoom is not a good product for webinars."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"As an organization, we are paying a license fee for Zoom. Personally, I use the free version."
"The cost for Zoom is reasonable."
"The cost of Zoom is approximately $150 USD annually."
"Zoom is free."
"I use the free version that is available, so I'm not sure what the licensing prices are."
"There are no licensing fees required."
"It is reasonable. It has a monthly license."
"I rate the product's pricing two or three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business102
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise110
 

Questions from the Community

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LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom
Hi @Krista Thompson ​ - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. LucidSpark is designed to do a better job managing multiple users participating ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoom?
I cannot say anything about pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Zoom Workplace Business since it is handled globally for us.
What needs improvement with Zoom?
I would like the price to be a bit lower. Besides pricing, there are no other points I would like to see improved.
 

Also Known As

Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Fortinet, Veeva, Proofpoint, Box, Ticketmaster, Trend Micro, Caesars Entertainment, Santa Clara University, Pandora, Stanford Continuing Studies
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Sametime vs. Zoom Workplace Business and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.