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HCL Sametime vs Zoom Workplace Business comparison

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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 November 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 5.8%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zoom Workplace Business5.8%
HCL Sametime1.5%
Other92.7%
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

"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."
"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."
"The best features of Zoom include its ease of use due to an intuitive interface, which makes it suitable for both personal and professional use."
"Zoom is quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"A good option for online meetings."
"Overall, Zoom is a good product and I recommend it for video conferencing."
"Zoom is the priority because other applications for communication and meetings have tricky and not user-friendly interfaces."
"What Zoom is, is it's a very convenient, easy to use, quick to set up, simple to learn tool."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"It is a scalable solution."
 

Cons

"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
"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."
"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."
"Security is a concern with this product, so I would not do anything commercial using it."
"When a lot of people join a meeting it is not possible to shrink the pictures and show them on a single screen."
"We would like to have the ability to connect people using phone numbers so that non-Zoom users can join conversations."
"There is nothing extraordinary about this application, as its main use is for connecting with people on the other side of the cloud, but other users could find other Zoom features valuable."
"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."
"I'd like to see more integration with Google Calendaring. When meetings are scheduled they are added into a Google Calendar. For example, if I am driving my car there are often times I have to pull off the road to join into a meeting as opposed to being able to click the link and have it startup. Sometimes I can do that, sometimes I can't, it all depends on how the meeting was generated initially."
"In the future, I would like to see remote access control for other computers."
"While the communication and video-audio conferencing features on Zoom are excellent, unlike Microsoft Teams, there is no direct integration with SharePoint. For us, that is the disadvantage of Zoom."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There is a free version available with time limits."
"I use the free version of Zoom that is available for download."
"Zoom is available with an open license that can support meetings of up to 40 minutes."
"The price of Zoom is a bit expensive."
"There is a subscription to use the solution."
"The personal version is free. However, there are fees required to use the solution for business."
"We have an annual subscription to the solution. The price could be reduced."
"We do not incur a licensing fee."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business102
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise112
 

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: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.