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HCL Sametime vs Microsoft Teams comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 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 Sametime
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Teams
Ranking in Virtual Meetings
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
181
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Social Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of HCL Sametime is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Teams is 3.9%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Meetings Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Teams3.9%
HCL Sametime1.5%
Other94.6%
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…
Ayush Saxena - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Collaboration has transformed daily work and supports seamless global voice communication
Microsoft Teams could be improved, especially regarding contact center solutions which have a growing need for omnichannel capabilities, integrating with external platforms such as social media and email for a unified experience. Minor improvements might include reintroducing features such as GPU options available in classic Microsoft Teams to address issues in modern Microsoft Teams related to video meetings and content sharing. Furthermore, essential information such as who started or ended recordings should be more accessible in the Microsoft Teams admin center. I rate it a nine because Microsoft Teams occasionally experiences glitches in the client, leading to missing chat history or other transient issues. The performance issues with the desktop client and the support service complexities contribute to my rating being less than perfect. I have not identified any other improvements needed for Microsoft Teams.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"Audio and video calls provide faster communication than chat."
"I can view the status and availability of colleagues or team members, which makes it easy to approach them when they are available."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Teams are video conferencing, chat function, and the one that shows you that you've got new messages."
"It's great for meeting conferences."
"Using the solution's screen-sharing feature, we can go through a document together and take control."
"All of the solution's features are useful since we use it for saving data, chatting, meeting, and all such purposes."
"In regards to COVID and the Pandemic, we would not be able to do our regular job without this mechanism in place."
"What I like most about Microsoft Teams, is that we can pin applications on the top of the group."
"We primarily use the solution for communication within our function teams, and we use it for project organization."
"We can share all files on Microsoft Teams directly. It is integrated with Outlook."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The webinar should be integrated into Sametime for a larger number of participants."
"The interface is too colorful and looks like Windows XP."
"The solution should offer a way for people to virtually raise their hands in a meeting so that everyone can speak. There's a user voice for this already, but it would help if there was some sort of visual cue as well."
"The desktop and mobile apps are quite different."
"There are a couple of faulty areas that need improvement."
"If I could completely eliminate Outlook and only use Teams, that would help me immensely."
"The tool's AI feature works well for English. However, it should also work for other languages, such as Vietnamese."
"The product should improve its security."
"I don't like the online version of Word and Excel. It skews the layout."
"Sometimes, other participants cannot see the shared screen during meetings. The tool also needs to automatically switch to devices as we change them. When I try to switch audio from speaker to Bluetooth, I have to manually do that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"My understanding is that there are licensing fees, but I'm not sure how much they might be."
"We are using the free version of the solutions."
"The solution's pricing is fair enough and not expensive. Teams' licensing costs are yearly. However, Zoom is less expensive."
"There is a need to pay for the licensing... I know that the payments are made on a yearly basis...There are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing."
"The solution's pricing is average."
"It is a bit more than moderately expensive."
"You don't buy only the Teams license; you buy it as part of the Microsoft 365 bundle."
"The solution has a reasonable price in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise76
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Teams?
From an organizational point of view, the pricing and setup costs for Microsoft Teams are right, especially since it integrates all the new technologies coming to market, including AI and various A...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Teams?
One issue is that now it requires the presenter to initiate the meeting. Previously, anyone could quickly become a presenter, but now I have to ask or request for the presentation. This can cause p...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Teams?
I have been using Microsoft Teams for more than ten years, and it is one of the key communication tools in my organization. I use it for my personal purposes as well. For any kind of communications...
 

Also Known As

Lotus Sametime, IBM Lotus Sametime
MS Teams
 

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
Honeywll, AIRFRANCE, AccuWeather, Lilly
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL Sametime vs. Microsoft Teams and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.