TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Bloomfire

    Score8.4 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Bloomfire provides knowledge engagement, aiming to deliver an experience that connects teams and individuals with the information they need to excel at their jobs. Their cloud-based knowledge engagement platform aims to give people one centralized, searchable place to engage with shared knowledge and grow their organization's collective intelligence.

    $25

    per month

    HCL Notes

    Score3.5 out of 10
    N/ANotes from HCL (formerly from IBM, acquired by HCL in late 2018) is a collaboration platform based on the Lotus platform.N/A
    Pricing
    BloomfireHCL Notes
    Editions & Modules
    Basic
    $25.00
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BloomfireHCL Notes
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup Fee$25No setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BloomfireHCL Notes
    Considered Both Products
    Bloomfire
    No answer on this topic
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    158 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    90 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    160 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    54 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    99%
    Implementation went as expected
    73 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    BloomfireHCL Notes
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Bloomfire and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Bloomfire
    -
    Ratings
    HCL Notes
    6.9
    10 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Task Management00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
    Gantt Charts00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
    Scheduling00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
    Workflow Automation00 Ratings5.06 Ratings
    Mobile Access00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
    Search00 Ratings6.09 Ratings
    Visual planning tools00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Bloomfire and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Bloomfire
    -
    Ratings
    HCL Notes
    9.2
    10 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Chat00 Ratings6.010 Ratings
    Notifications00 Ratings9.010 Ratings
    Discussions00 Ratings9.57 Ratings
    Surveys00 Ratings9.14 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings10.06 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 Bloomfire and HCL Notes
    Feature
    Bloomfire
    -
    Ratings
    HCL Notes
    7.6
    9 Ratings
    5% 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
    BloomfireHCL Notes
    Small Businesses
    Slite
    Score5.7 out of 10
    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Zendesk Guide
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Guru
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BloomfireHCL Notes
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.2
    (174 ratings)
    7.0
    (16 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    1.7
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (14 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (15 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BloomfireHCL Notes
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Bloomfire
    Ad testing:
    • PTS: needed to bring a new senior marketing team member up to speed on how we got to our current TV campaign
    • Solution: Series featuring consumer insights, why specific spokesperson, agency brief, the entire creative process - scrips, animatics, rough cuts, feedback, and testing at each step. Including the actual creative from each step.
    • Total time to build: 1 hour
    Concept testing:
    • PTS: things get lost, findable but version control
    • Solution: everything in one placeConcepts, testing, IHUTs, verbatims, videos with transcripts. Reduces the possibility of missing something, helps with any builds (reuse), but gives us a the chance to dig deeper. Example: search on terms like "indulgent", or "crispy" or "share" much faster
    • Total time to build: 1 hour
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Bloomfire
    • Quickly reach out to whatever employee segment you want to reach by posting a topic and it will send a notification to everyone in that group with a link to the posting.
    • Bloomfire saves all of the previous posts so in your free time you can go to the site, and explore the various range of topics others have posted. The information on there will only be as good as the person posting it, but it will be people within your company and industry posting it. So it will always be helpful.
    • Bloomfire is a place to be noticed by your peers. Have a great topic you want to express, my company allows all to post there as long as we keep it professional. So you can share your ideas or experiences in a safe and productive manner. But we do have some fun on there too!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • 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$).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Bloomfire
    • I would recommend adding a feature to combine different posts/series by job title (so in addition to the Revenue Ops category, there could be a structured walkthrough for Revenue Manager).
    • Live Q+A sessions for group onboarding initiatives.
    • Ability to label bookmarks by priority/job type.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • 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).
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Bloomfire
    Most likely we will renew, our team needs a refresher on possible opportunities to advance our usage and learning of opportunities to move this answer to a 10, can't live without it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    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.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Bloomfire
    Bloomfire is an easy-to-use platform for posting information and asking questions of my peers. It also has a user-friendly search capability. Yet like any other CMS, the secret to success rests in such items as the ability to use metadata to tag content or posts, and Bloomfire provides a wide range of options to make posting content and subsequently searching for it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    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.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Bloomfire
    I have not needed to pose questions to the support team yet, as it is a very simple piece of software to use, however, its help documents and the bot ready to answer questions let me know I am in good hands. The help center could load a little quicker, but that's my only complaint.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    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.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Bloomfire
    No answers on this topic
    HCLSoftware
    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.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Bloomfire
    I like Bloomfire because it is more concise with the work I do whereas Google search engine would provide broader information. It has just been so user-friendly, and easier to use [than] I could have imagined. I would use this program over any other that I have tried in the past.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Bloomfire
    • Feedback from users in being able to perform transactions for members has greatly improved.
    • There has been an increase in engagement of material presented in posts by learners in training classes.
    • Reps and agents say they feel confident they can easily locate information if ever there is a need on the front line.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Bloomfire Screenshots

    Screenshot of You are provided with a variety of options to brand your Bloomfire community, such as customizing its colors, displaying your organization’s logo, and building a custom Promo Bar. This creates an aesthetic that truly reflects your company’s culture.Screenshot of Bloomfire features an AI-powered search that makes sharing and searching for information a lot easier. It deep indexes every word in each piece of content, regardless of whether it’s a PDF, slide deck, video, or any other file type. The platform also creates tags for your content automatically. And if a video is uploaded, Bloomfire automatically transcribes it, making the spoken words searchable and allowing users to jump to the exact part of a video where certain keywords appear.

All of those features result in an easy and smart searching experience. There’s no need to navigate through folders or guess file names. All you need to do is perform a search like you would with Google. When searching, you can further narrow down your results based on categories such as author and content type.Screenshot of Bloomfire's AI enables you to search and find the video you are looking for based on its audio contents.Screenshot of Use Bloomfire while you work seamlessly across your favorite apps.