--- title: HCL Notes Reviews meta_title: 'HCL Notes Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 188 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how HCL Notes works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 3.2 review_count: 188 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-07' parent_category: name: Collaboration & Productivity url: https://www.g2.com/categories/collaboration-productivity --- # HCL Notes Reviews **Vendor:** HCL Technologies **Category:** [Email Client Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/email-client) **Average Rating:** 3.2/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 188 ## About HCL Notes HCL Notes is an enterprise email client that integrates social collaboration, messaging and business applications into a single workspace ## HCL Notes Reviews ### 1. From Lotus Notes to DominoForEver - now V 14.5 **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vittorio O. | Fondatore, socio e CEO, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 27, 2018 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** It is a very good and durable technology we have 25 years of experience and looking forward. Some important success stories in this period!! **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Ibm marketing under estimate the product for some long years. This was a very big problem. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** I'm very happy with Ibm Notes and Domino and my customers too! **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** This is a very comprehensive platform for both business and social collaboration. It enables users to address a wide variety of business challenges. Of course, it also includes email functionality. ### 2. Reliable Hub for Keeping Emails and Apps Organized **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ruchi S. | Technical Specialist Professional, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 31, 2026 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I like its reliability and how it keeps emails and applications organized in one place. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** It feels outdated and not very user-friendly compared to modern tools. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps manage emails and internal communication in a structured way, making it easier to track conversations and stay organized. ### 3. Much more than just secure email, whole of business functionality when paired with Domino **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel B. | President, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 26, 2023 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I've long enjoyed the rapid and flexible "full text" search in Notes. My primary use involves custom applications built in Domino for Notes clients, used in house and distributed to many customers. It's hard to beat the rapid development possibilities paired with indexed "no-sql" data storage. I've also been impressed with HCL's continued stewardship of the product, pushing thoughtful updates and modernization. My customers appreciate the all-in-one-place utility of Notes, combining their email access alongside business and operational applications. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** HCL Notes remains strongly connected to its legacy of on-premise and in-house administration. This can present some friction for organizations that have otherwise committed to cloud or distributed (low or no in-house administration) solutions. There were some initial bumps in the road as HCL took over from IBM, although those appear to have smoothed over. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Although this prompt only allows me to choose email client, Notes is much more than just an email client. It's a full featured application platform hosting email, in-house solutions (like support, logs, timesheets, whatever your imagination or consultant / developers can provide). This is the major value for me with HCL Notes; email is simply a cherry on top. ### 4. Secure Email **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ravi M. | Senior Systems Analyst, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 19, 2023 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Email is secure and make documentation is easy. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Some of the mails with HTML contents cause the notes client to crash. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** easy to use and easy to save data. ### 5. Huge competitive advantage **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Simon B. | IT & Compliance Director, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 17, 2022 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Security and RAD features. We are able to build new APIs and other features in hours, sometimes minutes. The security and replication allow us to achieve 99.999% uptime for our company. And the licence terms are very reasonable. A top quality product with great support! **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Some legacy features are problematic. QA when bringing out new releases can be spotty, with obvious errors that should not have made it into production. Documentation is improving, but still leaved something to be desired. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have been able to provide a complete technical solution to our enterprise with no reliance on alternative technologies. We have significant compliance obligations and Notes' workflow capabilities have been great at implementing high levels of compliance. ### 6. Relax with HCL Notes! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nigel B. | Administration and Technical Director, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 16, 2021 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Security is unrivaled - The email client has NEVER been hacked! We regularly get hacked emails from Exchange/365 customers, I always sing Notes virtues! THE securing in applicatoins is stunning too, the programmers only need to worry about the app; the securing and ACL is all done and waiting to be used. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The email formatting is still not 100%. Image rendering is not what it should be. Marketing needs to be better, Schools and Colleges should have Notes and Domino free else all students come out loving Microsoft because they know nothing else! Verse should be free online for domestic users like gmail and hotmail etc then users will get to see the advantages of Verse/Domino **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Forget Security - It's done! **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Email rendering as above, Nomad is wonderful, we have apps on iphones working perfectly, with that build in security ### 7. Powerful software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 28, 2021 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** So many cool hidden features that many people don't know about. I like how the apps integrate seamlessly with email, calendar and instant messaging. Security is so important these days and Notes is rock solid. And it runs on my iPad and my Samsung phone, so all my apps are instantly available on Mobile without relying on a website browser. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The web conferencing tool isn't as good as others. I can't use it to manage my personal mailbox or other mailboxes. All I can use it for is my work email account. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's fast to develop simple personal productivity tools, especially when starting with the templates that are included. I was able to create them without the aid of the IT department. ### 8. Notes, what else? **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Wilhelm H. | I, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 31, 2022 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Overall ease of use, security, speed, continuity **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Missing marketing from Vendor/HCL, not being noticed within the market **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** do not really compare with competitors; notes will win anyway **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** mailing to an from everywhere ### 9. Stable and versatile - More than just e-mail and calendaring **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 14, 2020 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** The platform allows for a high level of systems integration and process handling. Started with R5 and found that each release did not require heavy testing to ensure backwards compatibility. In fact, applications written in R5 still run unmodified in R11. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Licensing can be confusing and documentation is hard to find. As the product can do so many things it is hard to explain. While under IBM's rule, it became stagnant ( not keeping up with modern features ). HCL has done an excellent job so far in trying to correct this but documentation is still hard to come by or missing entirely ( release notes / fixes, etc ). **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Highly recommend looking into the systems integration side of things ( using services built into Domino like DECS ). Makes using the platform have a much higher ROI as you can easily pull information from external sources to provide employees with access to data. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Integration of various systems into a common user platform / interface. Offline connectivity is a bonus along with the ease to replicate applications between sites for continuity. Web enabling applications has been a great benefit as well to assist in removing special client installation/setup requirements. The ability to run both in parallel allows for a smooth transition. ### 10. Domino - Application Design and mesaging **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Hardware | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 15, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** The ability to design simple application without any specialized skills and the security of domino, allowing you to secure on multiple levels ( ID, Network, Server, Operating system, application level and Form level security. Using ACLs allow you to selectively allow or deny access based on business needs / requirement **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** OEM is slow to improve on software - Updates are not released fast enough, The Versioning's of the separate products do not match. A good example is IBM Verse part where for installation and configuration, the user is expected to cope data to certain location and manually change multiple values in multiple locations. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** IT is the Best - I am impressed by the simplicity of implementing the new verse on AIX - No Need to setup up separate windows server for verse. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Expense Request, Email Application response, review cycle ### 11. All your office works **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Muhammad Q. | Process Engineer, Oil & Energy, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** IBM Notes is the top application that I use the most in my office. You can e-mail, call a meeting, set up a to-do list, create various folders to segregate mails from different persons, etc. Anything you want IBM Notes to do for daily communication, it can do it easily without any hassle. the most important thing that I like about this software is its meeting calling feature. The other thing that I like the most is scheduling your tasks with in-built Calender. You can also initiate "Out of Office" notification when you are on leave. It is the best software that I used at my work. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** You have to get different rights to send or receive mails to/from persons outside your organization. On the other hand, sometimes conditions regarding mail segregation do not apply. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** It is a good communication tool for daily tasks, calling meetings and sharing data to your colleagues and getting their feedback. It allows any user with no experience to start using it without any difficulty. It offers great ease of use. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am doing my daily communications with my uplines and down the line. Every assignment is sent to me via Notes and I update my seniors via the same protocol. Vendor documents related to different projects are also emailed to me via IBM Notes, that I review and provide feedback to my Manager. ### 12. It's a great all around email product **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pedro M. | Enterprise Tech Support, Computer Software, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 13, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** The performance of my Domino environments is just great. I do not remember the last time I had downtime that affected mailflow or my users. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Sharing information with users on what is and isn't possible with Domino. It is sometimes dificult to find the KB article or the exact information needed. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Have an open mind, most people have this idea from 10 years ago and that is not where the product is today. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Just providing great email service to customers. The newer versions have narrowed the GAP to other systems in terms of usability, look and feel. ### 13. Efficient For Internal Organizational Communication **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Management Consulting | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 04, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** IBM Notes can be use to schedule meeting with clients and internal teams. IBM Notes is integrated with IBM Sametime to facilitate both group and individual chats easily across the regions. Besides, IBM Notes can be easily used to reserve Guest House when having business trips in offices in other countries. HR related matters like leave management can be easily accessed on IBM Notes platform. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** IBM Notes is less compatible for web/internet browsing compared to other search engines. The web browser takes more time to load data and sometimes the page will be just blank. Still need to use other web browser. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Company having many offices worldwide can consider IBM Notes can as a good software platform for information sharing and standardization across the company. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easily sharing templates with other colleagues within the company intranet platform that is linked within IBM Notes. Contact detail management platform for referencing any contact details, thus saves a lot of time asking other staffs. ### 14. IBM NOTES ALL IS ALL YOU NEED TO GET THINGS DONE. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Eli L. | Experimented Consultant , Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** So for sending emails, and chating with my colleagues IBM notes has been a very good tool , very reliable. You can manage all of that easily with IBM Notes, we use it in the firm and it is a great tool **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** the user interface is kind of old , it looks like from the 90's, and sometimes it's not very responsive. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Is not very fast software but it works and its stable. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Collaboration, organization, communication, with clients, colleagues. Calendar function and other apps ### 15. One stop solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Steve H. | Managing Director, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** The Domino Server supports a variety of programming languages. It has an integrated email engine, data storage, and web development, all in one box. Other solutions require you to install multiple servers or at least multiple software applications, sometimes quite disparate and you have to try and get these connected. You would then have to have them restart automatically in the case of a server restart. May or may not have to have them start in a particular sequence. Domino provides a one-stop solution that has everything self-contained. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Lack of business templates. Certainly, a CRM (may even be basic) would be a highly welcomed solution for all organisations. It could easily integrate with the mail file. Integrated code management. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Now that HCL has taken over Domino, I believe that this platform will provide an extensive opportunity for business applications. Internet connectivity is readily available nearly everywhere now, but when you do not have it available, Domino/Notes does provide the offline capability like nothing else as easily....ever. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Booking systems, Help Desk, Purchase Order management, along with a host of other business benefits. We have realised a lot of benefits, such as a rapid application development platform, easily located source code. ### 16. Usage of IBM Lotus notes **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** sonyabevis t. | Python Dev, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Every organization requires a setup to create and organize the databases from the complex operational procedures. Lotus plays a vital role in doing the documentation of an organization. It is also helpful for the administrators as it allows them to restrict the unwanted access of employees.In some organizations it is used as a training program for database training and enables to define any problem in the systems. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The software is not advanced as it needs to provide the updated version which will allow the users to work efficiently and effectively. Also, it is a slow software and is considered as relatively outdated. Moreover, the users finds difficulty to use the software as it does not provide friendly functionality. And the irregular users do not find it easy to use as it is not easy for them to relearn the functions, however, the users who use it very often are very comfortable in using it. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is very useful for the documentation as it makes the work easy through databases. It also helps in the training programs and allows to tackle the operational problems.The employees can easily access the notes to work on by logging in to their emails. ### 17. IBM notes, used as an efficient tool for email **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** abby m. | Java Developer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 30, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** IBM Lotus Notes has been used for years for the office work. It not only provides feature of emailing but multiple other features like inbuilt messenger. Overall it is an efficient and effective email tool to use if you get to know how it works. It has many useful features like auto-emailing which allows any application other than IBM to send emails through the Lotus Notes. It also allows to organize and keep track of the databases. Thus, any type of customization can be done easily. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** IBm does not allow large attachments to send through emails and this limits the communication to some extent. Moreover, it does not provide with the updates and advanced functions. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is an efficient application for the communication of business purposes through email. Also it is effective for internal and external Communication. ### 18. One place for email, database manipulation and document management **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 10, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** IBM notes is secure and convenient for managing database applications and mail in one platform. It is fluid in it's transition between mail, calendar and databases for ease of use - we particularly like the ibm traveller application for mail on the go. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** We could use an application for iOS iPhone to do database management as the new app released for this is iPad only which we do not have. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** If mobile database manipulation is ciritical to your workload make sure you have access to an iPad as this is the only platform that an app is available for. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use notes for mail, database manipulation and document creation as well as calendar management. ### 19. The best tool for your email **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Betza O. | Periodista audiovisual, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 16, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** With this application you can use in a more productive way your e-mail, program through the calendar your appointments, commitments and daily tasks and you will have the best results, you can also integrate messaging functions and share files, you will have available your contact list, configure workflows and manage them with **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The interface needs a renewal in the design, this would make it more attractive to the user. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use it in some opportunities to manage the great database that we have, and to share ideas about our audiovisual samples, before making them public, we have also sent the links of our publications by mail with the help of this plan. ### 20. IBM Notes 10 **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Keerthana S. | Process Associate, Accounting, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** It gives advanced email methods and mail management techniques.The search options helps to find what we need of. It supports both IOS and android applications. That's the best part which i like about it. Not only for an email, it can be used as calendar, messaging, browsing as well. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** While using this software for quite while i am not finding any difficulties in using it. Initially it takes time to understand about the usage for this product. Might get more doubts about how to use it during initial days. Once we get use to it, it is more user friendly. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use more of prototyping within the teams. So instant messaging services we use while prototype so that everyone be on same track. If i talk about benefits it really saves times in team work. ### 21. Integration of various business functions **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Industrial Automation | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 06, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** It has facilities such as calender email, contact lists and messaging. It has file sharing facility, can be able to interfaces with server of organizationand **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** It doesn't have android app to use it, user interface is not as outlook or other email tools. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Try it and you will be worry free from missing meetings due to its notification functionality **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** On time email notification, calendar, workspace, contacts can be accesible from unique interface. ### 22. Swiss Army Knife of Collaboration Software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Milan M. | System Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 06, 2018 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Its a reliable and most stable Server Software I have ever came across, it lets you tackle the every possible Challenge you might have. Rapid Application Development, E-Mail, Collaboration, Directory Server, CRM.... You name it.. All in All low cost to maintain and administrate. Easy to Administrate. Low System Requirements. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Full Notes Client had has been the most modern E-Mail Client for years, but that has changed, it needs a complete Design Overhaul. There are other Domino Clients, and a Notes Client will change completely with Version 11 which is going to be released in 2019. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** E-Mail, Calendaring, Pushing the Mail and Calendar Data to Mobile Devices, Directory Services, CRM, Custom Applications, Custom Applications for Mobile Devices..... Just to name a few. ### 23. After all these years: Still nothing compares to it **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David H. | Principal, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 29, 2018 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** - Security is refined, mature, and rock solid. Far better than any browser-based software. - Replication is mature and efficient, giving a built-in means for backing up app data to a server and allows working offline seamlessly. - a single, consistent environment for all our business apps including email. Learn how to use the Notes software once and it is the same for all apps across the board. Deployment of apps is brilliantly simple and manageable centrally by I.T. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The client software is a bit large and sometimes runs slowly. In the earliest versions of Notes, users could create their own apps easily in Notes. I wish users still had this ability built into the standard Notes client without a separate developer client installation. IBM is horrible at marketing, so people tend to believe the hype of competitors like Microsoft. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** There is a reason why this software has been so successful in spite of IBM's horrible marketing. I recommend getting started with a skilled IBM business partner who is already an expert at development and learn from them how to do your own development. Use the sample apps and explore the free apps at OpenNTF.org for tools, ideas, and sample code to take and customize for your own use. Email is great, but it's the apps where you'll see the ROI. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** - Billable timesheet tracking - I.T. Change Control management with approval workflow, user notifications, and history - Team collaboration for sharing files, meetings, tasks, having online discussions and a centralized calendar of team activities - Company website and blog - scheduler application used by our customers to use to give their clients the ability to schedule their own appointments online ### 24. IBM Notes is a basic scheduling and communication tools **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Avanish R. | Intern, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** IBM Notes is good at doing scheduling and does great job as a calendar. It is a user friendly tool. It has a very simple user interface which makes it easy to use. Workspaces were easy to set up and manipulate. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Email integration was sometimes difficult. Compared to other chat tools and calendars, IBM Notes looks like it is from the 90s. It has an issues of chat crashing sometime. Overall the performance is not that much bad but still there are some issues regarding compatibility in email. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** IBM Notes integrate well with IBM Same time which is the main reason of using this tool over any other. ### 25. IBM Lotus Notes, the best email tool used so far **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kratika N. | Graduate Student, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I have used Lotus Notes in office for 4 years. Besides regular email, this has so many useful features, one of it is the inbuilt messanger. I would say if you get a heck of it, it is one of the best email tools so far. I have also worked towards implementation of auto-email, where any of application (non IBM) could send email via lotus notes. Hence I can say that any form of customization is very simple ams quick in this application. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Only drawback is the capacity of attachment which we could send over email. Sometimes that becomes a limitation in communication. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Internal and external business communication ### 26. The IBM Note collaborative platform **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alex M. | COUNTY ICT COORDINATOR , Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** What I like in IBM note is grouping my emails according to dates and some times which is a great as to have gone through all the emails on a page scroll which is too tiresome work. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Nothing can be disliked in IBM note, I say. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** My opinion is IBM Notes is the best recommended for you. Go for it, get it easy. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** It solves very many issues, like sorting emails by instant search, I can reach my contact without no hassle, pap!. I still can use instant messaging and its a nice user directive. Thank you, IBM. ### 27. use this daily for email and meeting scheduling **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Legal Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I love that I can set recurring appointments on the calendar, invite others to meetings and get notification of acceptance, and search through old emails easily to find a needed message or document **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The email search feature is slow, although that is potentially just my machine **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** I like being able to schedule recurring meetings or appointments with ease, so I don't forget to put something on the calendar, and also using the group chat feature to coordinate a meeting on short notice or even deal with an issue while using the chat ### 28. Either you want to share information or you don't. If you do, read on, if not, nothing can help you. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Keith B. | Chief Executive Officer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 09, 2018 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Security. Yes, users like Single Sign on but it is not a secure option. Security is where this wins against everyone. Granular to the field and macro to an entire server or network. In an age of privacy failures, how anyone can choose to not leverage Domino is unbelievable. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Public misconceptions. Many times people understand and use it better once they are trained on it or helped when they need it. Ignorance breeds contempt. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Less server failures and more options for your development teams to extend and not be a silo like Sharepoint **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have used it to sell online products, run our web sites, manage security IDs, handle onboarding, manage support tickets and even run as a CRM. ### 29. Simple, cheap and trustful **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** IBM Domino is a great platform for building business applications and e-mail as well. It offers a full range of on-board features like included encryption, inplace deep security and simple end user friendly deployment of apps. It is the cheapest way of doing business apps. It is 5 to 10 times cheaper than Microsoft offerings. It can be used on-premises, in a private cloud (e.g. Docker) or on a SaaS cloud. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** There is not much marketing by IBM for Domino anymore (if ever was). But with the switch to HCL it will be much more prominent and visible to the business decision makers. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is perfect for businesses who want to solve core business requirements like erp, crm oder project management. And it INCLUDES a full featured mail client including full mobile support for all major platforms. ### 30. Routinely usage of IBM notes **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Annalena A. | Php Developer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 06, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Its advantages are that it allows to do filing and also works well with my gateway system. Moreover, it keeps record of files and databases. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Very time consuming and stuck frequently on loading in the system. Completion of work remains delayed. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am currently getting no benefit from it as it is time consuming and does not have any advanced features ### 31. A dawn to the new era of Notes **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Paul S. | Lead Software Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 15, 2018 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Cleaner UI, snappier responsiveness, increased capacity on databases and lookups, invite forwarding, forwarding emails as attachments, responsiveness by HCL to customer requests, roadmap for future versions, Office integration. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The email client should adapt some design aspects from Verse as users really seem like that and those who don't like Notes mail for not being Outlook simply can't let that go. We will start steering new hires directly to Verse to help with that. Search could be better/easier for users. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** We primarily use it for legacy workflow applications and email. Trying to reinvigorate Notes in the enterprise by optimizing older apps built by citizen developers and then recasting them with the new mobile and web front ends. ### 32. Great Email Client **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Federico O. | CEO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 12, 2018 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I've been using the Notes client for over ten years and I'm convinced it's a great client for managing email, calendar and contacts but above all for collaborating in teams. In particular, my favorite feature is the possibility to develop customized applications (databases) that help daily productivity **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The only feature that could be improved is the graphical interface. In fact, while I find it excellent, the opinion of the majority of users is that it is "ugly". By comparing it to other mail clients, users do not put it as the first choice for that reason. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** There are no recommendations that I deem particularly necessary. It is an excellent product for the purposes for which it is born. In daily use it allows you to work without interruptions, both online and offline, using its excellent replication mechanism. It has a great integrated chat for instant communications and its client on Android and iOS works very well. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** IBM Notes allows me to collaborate better with my colleagues, allows me to collaborate with them especially at a distance with a speed and immediacy that I can not find in any other product. ### 33. IBM of UPS **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dianne M. | Residence COUNSELOR, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I like IBM that helps makes the scanning efficient and good with the Clerks, Marketing Sales Representatives in the Packaging and Conmon Goods Department. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** IBM has minor glitches that will not affect the belt line operations of packages going through the system **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** The business problems UPS encounters daily are numerous mislabeling from the scanning system on the packages if the productivity is not coinciding with the volume layout. ### 34. Software includes messaging applications etc **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Contact management Notes can be considered a Standard **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Instant issues with chat crashing There aren’t a lot of integration with notes **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Does a. Great job as a calendar and scheduling tool ### 35. One stop for Everything **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I have used IBM Lotus Notes as default email client after switching from outlook and since then I can not imagine even single day in my office without it. it does a great job as a calendar and scheduling tool. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Sometimes, I observed constant issues with chat crashing. There aren't a lot of integrations with IBM Notes and other applications that I regularly use. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Security is top notch. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Notes security is top notch. I use it day to day communication with my team, management and Client ### 36. IBM notes **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Its an email and social platform that has A LOT more options and freedom than your standard email service like yahoo **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The customization isnt quite there yet. I understand it's more formal for networking and business but I enjoy a large amount of customization in any interface. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Its awesome cause it's like if you combined Google plus with linked in. Its nice having all of my networking needs in one space which frees up time. ### 37. Love this!! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Amber W. | English Teacher, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I like that it comes up with cool designs and logos. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** There's nothing about it I dislike at all. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** We've been able to share project wide and work simultaneously on the same documents. ### 38. Perfect interface and very easy to use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Syed R. | Assistant General Manager, Financial Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Its very convenient email and meeting scheduling. it is very useful for everyday office purpose **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Wish to have more features in future. Lack of feature. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Emailing and scheduling solution for a organization ### 39. Amazing application **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Individual & Family Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** My organization is a small IBM Business Partner. We use Notes for email and application development. It provides us secure access and storage of our mail data. Since we are small, it's used across the organization. We can also do team scheduling through calendaring and/or custom applications. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** I do not have any dislikes. I love everything about it. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** We write business-critical applications in Notes and Domino for our customers. ### 40. I use IBM notes daily **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Executive Office | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 29, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Its filing capabilities and how it works with our Gateway system. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Freezes up frequently and takes a long time to load **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** No problem solving in my position ### 41. Good collaboration too **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Entertainment | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Easy to use user interface. Best when entire team is using. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Limited across other platforms and speed gets laggy at random times. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Best for collaboration among large groups. Even better for cross functions and global connections. ### 42. Best Price Quality Tool for integrated devolpment **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Business Supplies and Equipment | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** What is the application framework that best integrates mail, web server, nosql database and application framework in one tool? Only Domino! **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** The interface is really dated and client is based on ugly Eclipse interface ... Java sucks in this case ... **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** From business applications to web solutions, limit is the sky! ### 43. Great email and calendar **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 21, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Email, calendar and contact management capabilities. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** You can use a free 30 day trial but it is a bit expensive. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Utilizing IBM notes for all sorts of email capabilities. ### 44. IBM **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Health, Wellness and Fitness | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2019 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** The ease and convenience of the product **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** We are happy with product and don't have any dislikes **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** organization ### 45. Mature product with good life still left **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2018 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** Ease of use and setup, especially as a developer. Can quickly put together databases with minimal effort. Because Lotus Notes was first a mail system, can include document routing and approvals with minimal effort. Development code, Lotus Script is very much like Visual Basic making it easy for developers to pick up and run with. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Database size limitations. When databases grow large the performance goes down dramatically. This is why they introduced the db backend, but that adds a level of complexity and most developers did not adopt the technology. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** Definitely a good product, quick and easy to work with. A bit of a learning curve because it's not Microsoft. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Quick and easy app development. Reusable templates is fantastic. Develop your set of templates and reuse them for other apps. Templates then cascade updates to all your applications, no matter how many they are. Distributed servers and database replication also give awesome performance to sites no matter where they are or what the internet connection quality. Something Microsoft and others have never been able to figure out. ### 46. Domino/Notes not dead **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Paul G. | Chief Operations Officer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2018 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** The product use works. Best in security in market, easy of development and administration. Better then MS exchange/outlook and sharepoint. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** IBM has never marketed the product correctly. Miss the small to medium size business market. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Workflow and business processing ### 47. Notes for IBM **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2017 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I like all the options for tools and widgets you can use to personalize your system for mail and beyond. I like it’s func. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** name changes of users can be difficult within the system itself for distribution. **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** It does not work with Microsoft and other systems to integrate but its professional enough to stand alone. Works great for large organizations to fit the needs of many. **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Professionals love notes because it has tons of functionality and personalization. Rule building is one of the big time savers to help staff Prioritize and stay organized. Love that it comes with Urgent options and flags to note importance of messages. Also in calendar the reminders are often a life saver when you have busy meeting schedules. ### 48. IBM Notes is a really well designed email and collaboration tool **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2017 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** IBM Notes is very well designed and very stable as an email tool. I have been using the software for quite a while for to-do lists, emails and other applications such as calendars and maintaining notes. Its a great tool for collaboration and for group activity scheduling. Also works really well with difference OS **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** Nothing much really. The integration with other softwares could be better and the email functions could be updated a lot at par with Google email functions **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** Collaborations and group activities schedules. Emails. Maintaining tasks lists and other to-do lists. ### 49. love IBM notes **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vitali R. | Self Employed, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2017 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** it has everything you need to run business start from notes to emails **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** can be a bit complicated to use for new users **Recommendations to others considering HCL Notes:** it's not very easy to use, but if you get to know it well it has big potential for business **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** enterprise email client integrates social collaboration, messaging and so on ### 50. IBM Technology review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Andrew V. | Contract Specialist, Research, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 14, 2017 **What do you like best about HCL Notes?** I like sap and visual analytics. Amy yes. **What do you dislike about HCL Notes?** I dislike the lack of pictures. I did do **What problems is HCL Notes solving and how is that benefiting you?** How to reduce paper redundancy. ## HCL Notes Discussions - [In what industries is IBM Notes mostly used?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/in-what-industries-is-ibm-notes-mostly-used) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [View HCL Notes pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/hcl-notes/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=5§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-12+11%3A20%3A22+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=2a81774b-70cd-40f7-992c-457f71ac681d&secure%5Btoken%5D=567518fadbac47d47a564109d35387cd91527efde4c949dd647c6a229e15bdf5&format=llm_user) ## HCL Notes Features **Additional Functionality** - Third-Party Integrations - To-Do List - @mentions - Single Sign On - File Management - Activity Dashboard - Drag & Drop - Alerts/Notifications - Prioritization - Access Controls/Permissions - Screen Sharing - Content Management - Brainstorming - AI Copilot - File Transfer - Calendar Management - Status Tracking - Real-Time Notifications - Version Control - Task Management - Activity Tracking - Real Time Editing - Communication Management - Chat/Messaging - Tagging - Generative AI - Assignment Management - Task Scheduling - Project Management - Collaboration Tools - Workflow Management - Secure Data Storage - File Sharing - Document Storage - Task Progress Tracking - Discussions/Forums - Commenting/Notes - Reporting & Statistics - Contact Management - Video Conferencing - Progress Tracking - Mobile Access - API - Document Management - Customizable Branding **Inbox Tools** - Unified Inbox - Filters - Reminders - Notifications **Coordination Tools** - Calendar - Contacts - Task Management **Software Options** - Desktop Application - Mobile Application **Email Client - Agentic AI** - Autonomous Task Execution - Cross-system Integration ## Top HCL Notes Alternatives - [Microsoft Outlook](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-outlook/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (3,436 reviews) - [Thunderbird](https://www.g2.com/products/thunderbird/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (334 reviews) - [Front](https://www.g2.com/products/front/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (2,451 reviews)