HCL Sametime 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
User Reviews

Overview

HCL Sametime

4.6

(16)

Pricing

Pricing available upon request

About HCL Sametime

IBM Sametime is a hybrid unified communications suite that offers enterprise-grade communication and collaboration applications. Users of IBM Sametime can integrate multiple channels of communication into an effortless and seamless experience. The solution can be deployed either in the cloud or on-premise.

IBM Sametime offers users communication tools such as instant messaging, chat rooms, voice calling and video calling. Users can switch between instant messaging and online meeting rooms that support collaboration options, such as screen-sharing. Users are also given access to a unified corporate directory. Rich presence allows users within the directory to indicate whether they’re online if they’re available to talk and where they’re currently located.

In order to streamline business processes, IBM Sametime integrates out-of-the-box with a number of IBM and Microsoft solutions. APIs are also available if users require customizable integrations.

Services are offered on an annual subscription basis that includes support via email, phone and through other online resources.

HCL Sametime Screenshots

HCL Sametime Pricing and Plans

Starting price: Connect with an advisor for pricing

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

Pricing available upon request

No plan information available

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HCL Sametime Features

Popular features found in VoIP
Caller ID
Call Monitoring
Call Recording
Call Routing
Computer Telephony Integration
Contact Management
IVR
Mobile Access
SIP Trunking
Voice Mail
More features of HCL Sametime
API
Conferencing
Data Security
Recording
Screen Sharing
Unified Communications
Video Conferencing

HCL Sametime User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.6

Ratings Breakdown

69%

25%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.6

Value for money

4.8

Customer support

4.3

Functionality

4.1

Michael B.

Verified reviewer

Human Resources

2-10 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2021

A classic collaboration product well before its time

Sametime is great and has been a favorite for years, even before HCL acquired it.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

Sametime is the first product to truly contain drag-and-drop of nearly any attachment type: text, images, links, audio, and more. It does not require downloading and attaching documents. And this was more than a decade before competing products like Zoom.

Cons:

Sametime is integrated with Domino, which is not the most current software suite, and is not mainstream anymore. It is a shame because Sametime is so superior in its own right.

Satya M.

Verified reviewer

Insurance

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed February 2021

HCL Sametime Review

Overall experience was good and since it has a storage capacity up to 2 weeks that's why if you forget or system will be crashed then also the messages will be stored. Also File sharing and Screen sharing options are nice and the most important thing is the look and feel is the best in Sametime. Auto login using the SSO.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Retaining history of the messages for around 2 -3 weeks that is best feature that it has. The Notification functionality was pretty good which will remind you 15 - 30 mins before your meetings. We can setup group meeting and group chat via the app. The Sametime is also available outside the network and also can be downloaded on the Phone pretty easily. For Group collaboration and Individual chat this App is the Best. Conference meeting can be created in this. File Sharing options is also very good. We can share files, screenshot , images etc.

Cons:

It can't be integrated with Microsoft outlook. If in the outlook you have a meeting then you can't see the same from Sametime. Also Sametime doesn't provide call facility through the chatting app which other popular apps are providing. It can't connect through the phone so that we can Customer care people can use the same to interact verbally in the team. Only via chat its possible. Sharing Screen in the Group is not possible.

Reasons for choosing HCL Sametime

Slack was good but the ease of use is not that much great. Business Hangouts is also awesome but the Admin functionality and customer support was not that much great. Sametime customer support was best and also pricing perspective Sametime is much cheaper then other two.

Reasons for switching to HCL Sametime

Skype every time we need to login using our username and password. Cisco is auto logged in but it is quite heavy weight. Same time is auto logged in with the SSO and pretty light weight.

Flavio F.

Verified reviewer

Telecommunications

10000+ employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2021

Our first experience on global collaboration

Sametime was the first application that our software development teams used on daily activities. It brought huge gains in communication effectiveness.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

Chatting, contact groups, VoIP, these features were the ones we liked the most.

Cons:

The screen sharing was not stable and we faced some crashes or hangings.

Verified

Reviewer

Information Technology and Services

10000+ employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2021

HCL Sametime: Lost legacy

The overall experience is average as its an old tool from lotus legacy to IBM and then to HCL ,A per the need of times ,I think a lot new features needs to be added along with the impeccable customer service is needed.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The embedded features are its usp. 1. Snip option 2. Quick attachment sharing. 3. Telephoney feature and integration with other applications.

Cons:

The con which I call out is delay in using the VC services rest all for the user prospective suffice the requirement.

Reasons for switching to HCL Sametime

Cost benifict Innovation Strong customer response

Verified

Reviewer

Banking

5001-10000 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed June 2022

Version I used

Overall, i was pretty simple to use for quick chats. I do prefer screen sharing, it is very useful. See if your version has before signing for it , if it's important.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

I used Sametime from 2017 till 2020. I am not sure version I had was the latest, or full version, mine did not have video conferencing, nor ability to share screen. Still it was good for chats, ability to save and easily search conversation by dates, and I liked it's location at the bottom, it was very easy to tell when I have a new message, something that I can't tell about all similar software

Cons:

Version we used did not have video conferencing nor screen share.

Verified

Reviewer

Accounting

10000+ employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2023

Chat

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

Being able to communicate with everyone at the firm and add people and create groups.

Cons:

No video feature and pretty basic. This was the old system used years ago before transition.

Antonio Giovanni A.

Used unspecified for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed November 2015

A well-established yet evolving and scalable collaborative platfom

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The release of the version 9 of Sametime by IBM marked an important milestone in the evolution of this product in the last 5 years, under several important aspects. From a functional standpoint, the new desktop and web clients are more user-friendly and very similar to each other: the "look and feel" of the web version is incredibly close to the kind of user experience of the classical desktop version. The videoconference and meeting management has been greatly improved from version 8. From a technical standpoint, the integration of pools of geographically distributed Multipoint Control Units for video data streams coordinated by clustered Managers is the main technical enhancement of the already highly distributed and clusteded architecture of Sametime. The new back-end components for multiplexing, bridging and adapting videoconferencing flows replace the PacketSwitcher of Sametime 8.5-, and makes the entire platform much more scalable than before, and ready to host desktop/web conferences with several hundreds of attendees all over the world.

Cons:

Because of the heavy use of graphical components to "emulate" the desktop-based application, the web client seems to be in some contexts a bit slow. Also, the configuration part, both on client and server side, could be improved. On backend side, an aspect is worth mentioning is that the new components of the Sametime infrastructure introduced wih the version 9, are essentially Linux-based. Being in a Windows IT environment, we had hard time setting up the environement to properly deploy VMCUs and Video Managers.

Jensen D.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

10000+ employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2021

Use Sametime for all your messaging needs!

Messaging platforms are crucial in a workplace and Sametime has everything you’d need to communicate with your peers. I’d highly recommend looking more into Sametime if you’re in needing of a messaging platform.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

It can be challenging working at a big company at times, but Sametime has made it easy to communicate with others in my company. I’ve found it to be very easy to locate other peers and have a quick conversation. Another bonus is that you can set a status, so if you’re in a meeting then someone won’t bother you.

Cons:

Sametime doesn’t allow you to send messages to users that are offline. If you’d like to send a message to an offline user, then it’ll prompt you to send an email. I wish there was a way to leave a message for an offline user to receive when they return.

Syed K.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

1001-5000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed February 2023

SameTime Chat