Alma Suite vs. HCL Notes

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Alma Suite
Score 4.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Alma Suite is a private social network for companies, that includes a task management tool, a private wikipedia for knowledge management, an idea manager, a game for training, professional profiles, discussion groups, news, instant messages, and postings. The vendor’s value proposition is that they bring together different tools that enable companies to work as a team in one place and be more aligned. Additionally, the vendor says their solution’s simple, easy to use and friendly…
$5
users
HCL Notes
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
Notes from HCL (formerly from IBM, acquired by HCL in late 2018) is a collaboration platform based on the Lotus platform.N/A
Pricing
Alma SuiteHCL Notes
Editions & Modules
Alma Suite Enterprise
$5
users
Alma SuiteEnterprise
$5
users
Alma Suite Unlimited
Quote
users
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Alma SuiteHCL Notes
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$100 usersNo setup fee
Additional Details70% Discount for NGOs 50% for Benefit corporations, Educational Institutions & Health Care. 30% for Companies already working with a Consultant on Cultural Development or related issues.—
More Pricing Information
Features
Alma SuiteHCL Notes
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Alma Suite
6.7
1 Ratings
16% below category average
HCL Notes
6.9
10 Ratings
13% below category average
Task Management8.21 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Mobile Access6.41 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Search5.51 Ratings6.09 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings5.06 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Alma Suite
7.0
1 Ratings
13% below category average
HCL Notes
9.2
10 Ratings
14% above category average
Chat5.51 Ratings6.010 Ratings
Notifications8.21 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Discussions7.31 Ratings9.57 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase7.31 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings9.14 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Alma Suite
-
Ratings
HCL Notes
7.6
9 Ratings
7% below category average
Versioning00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings6.05 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings6.05 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings6.08 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Alma SuiteHCL Notes
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.8 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.7 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Alma SuiteHCL Notes
Likelihood to Recommend
6.4
(1 ratings)
7.0
(16 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
1.7
(5 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Alma SuiteHCL Notes
Likelihood to Recommend
Alma Suite
My business is HR consulting. Best benefits: organize freelance consultants by projects and tasks.
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HCL Technologies
I often work with teams from other country and regions, hence HCL Notes is a very useful platform for internal company management operations. It standardized organisational work standards in most of the offices worldwide. HCL Notes also enables chat with other team around the world that I find very helpful when initiating conversation or just want to have a quick update rather than sending emails and waiting for replies. However, HCL Notes is not very efficient in web browsing and user still need to use other internet service providers.
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Pros
Alma Suite
  • Great for task administration.
  • Customer service is friendly, pragmatic and always available.
  • Organize freelance consultants by projects and tasks.
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HCL Technologies
  • It has a really strong and robust database that's extremely scalable and holds up well to thousands of users and many different environments.
  • It has a really good enterprise-grade framework for development custom database applications
  • All of the custom database applications along with the email all have a nice uniform look and feel so their easy-to-use.
  • I really like how it's developed and supported on every client OS (Windows, OSX, Linux)! The competitors definitely do NOT offer this (M$).
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Cons
Alma Suite
  • Need to improve in the way it shows project development in time: Gantt chart, schedules, etc.
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HCL Technologies
  • Notes' backwards compatibility sometimes gets in the way. Menus are cluttered with extraneous, outdated options and features that modern users will never use, and Preferences are often difficult to navigate for those coming from Gmail or Outlook. We have greatly simplified this via Policies, but users still find it daunting to go through all the options that are available.
  • The IBM Notes client for Windows & Mac is essentially the Eclipse Java development platform...so it is HUGE. Performance initially was very slow but IBM has done a good job of speeding things up. As IBM moves more toward cloud-delivered applications, this will not be as much of a problem.
  • Notes and Domino can be complex to manage for administrators who are more accustomed to ActiveDirectory, Group Policy, etc. Editing a notes.ini file to add a feature, or working with XML files by hand to create a SmartUpgrade kit can be daunting to those coming from more modern administrative roles.
  • Some users claim to "hate" Notes mail. While I have heard this less and less over the past 10 years, we have had 3rd party software offer plugins to Outlook and it's rare to see any for Notes.
  • The client update process should be automated more. I would like to see the Notes client update quietly and quickly more like an Adobe software update. If an update fails it should automatically try again without prompting the user over and over.
  • Notes multiple language spell checking is a downloaded add-on Java-based resource that has to be deployed in a convoluted way that is difficult for users to grasp. Therefore any foreign language spell check updates must be done individually per Notes client by IT, which is unfortunate. I would prefer to see that be a "live download" update option for users to get directly from IBM (don't make me download it and put it on my network).
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Likelihood to Renew
Alma Suite
No answers on this topic
HCL Technologies
I've been in IT business and as a Programmer/Developer for 20+ years with too many programming languages experiences/back ground (C/C++/Visual Basic/Basic Program/Unix/COBOL/Java). Also with 18+ years with Lotus Notes/IBM Domino, I am still and always think Lotus Notes is the best RAD platform available!. When the time where resource is very limited and the expectation is very high and the turn around is too short, IBM Domino/Notes is the platform to use and it's the only choice available.
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Usability
Alma Suite
No answers on this topic
HCL Technologies
Easy to use for the user, most of the apps we developed, there is not much need for user training. Most of the times, we just do a demo to the users group and they can pick up from there.
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Support Rating
Alma Suite
No answers on this topic
HCL Technologies
I've been using the production for a very long time and very happy with it. Also, all the online resources and forums for notes is very friendly and easy/quick for getting help. I found out that compared to Microsoft or Oracle or any other platforms, IBM Notes online forum is the best I have seen.
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Implementation Rating
Alma Suite
No answers on this topic
HCL Technologies
Implementation is easy and smooth if the requirement is well gathered/documented. Notes is a RAD platform, all projects in Notes is simple in the implementation step.
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Alternatives Considered
Alma Suite
Better features for project development follow up than Asana and Wrike (previous choices)
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HCL Technologies
Outlook has been considered for years as a replacement platform. Pricing and support staff made it prohibitive. Our long-time use of Microsoft Office productivity suite naturally led us to consider the adoption of Office365. A recent investigation told us that Azure Cloud services propel an O365 solution to the forefront. Early adopters in international divisions have paved the way for Azure and O365.
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Return on Investment
Alma Suite
  • Positive: Internal Communication and Collaboration
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HCL Technologies
  • Over the years, we have lost countless hours of productivity from the thousands of crashes we have experienced.
  • One benefit of IBM Notes is that it is very simple to train a new user on. Many people prefer and are familiar with Google tools, but those that use IBM Notes have very little trouble acclimating themselves.
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ScreenShots

Alma Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of Alma Suite HOME: everything that happens in your company will appear here. Simple and easy layout.Screenshot of Task Manager. List of task that can be filtered.Screenshot of Tasks detail and updates.Screenshot of Private Wikipedia: Knowledge BaseScreenshot of Wiki ArticleScreenshot of Game for training and testing: simple and fun. Easy to setup.