Notes from HCL (formerly from IBM, acquired by HCL in late 2018) is a collaboration platform based on the Lotus platform.
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Miro
Score 9.1 out of 10
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Miro is the AI Innovation Workspace that brings teams and AI together to plan, co-create, and build the next big thing, faster. With the canvas as the prompt, Miro's collaborative AI workflows keep teams in the flow of work, scale shifts in ways of working, and drive organization-wide transformation.
$10
per month per user
Pricing
HCL Notes
Miro
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
1. Free - To discover what Miro can do. Always free
$0
2. Starter - Unlimited and private boards with essential features
$8
per month (billed annually) per user
3. Business - Scales collaboration with advanced features and security
$16
per month (billed annually) per user
4. Enterprise - For work across the entire organization, with support, security and control, to scale
contact sales
annual billing per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL Notes
Miro
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
—
Monthly billing also available at $10 per month for the Starter plan, or $20 for the Business plan.
Used MURAL at the beginning of the pandemic when they probably still were not up to speed with all the new users - back then it was laggy and unusable for most of the team (except the ones with super-fast internet). Have not encountered similar problems with Miro.
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.
I love Miro, which is why I vouched for it at my company. The fact that I can easily create tables, mind maps, roadmaps, and other visual representations and share them with others is essential for those who work remotely, as I do. Last week, I had to lead a brainstorming session to quickly address an internal issue, and Miro helped me set up a presentation and a collaborative board in one place.
Makes internal coordination between admin team and tutors extremely painless. It's like a single place where everyone can drop ideas, get updates and notes without loss of context which usually happens in long email threads.
Versioning and board history are handled very well, which drastically reduces the workload. They help me track how a policy or math guideline has evolved, and also make it easy to revert changes if something doesn't work.
Comments stick exactly where they are meant to, making internal reviews much clearer. Admins don't have to guess which note refers to which rule or section.
Exports are clean, so even non-Miro teammates get it instantly.
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).
Sticky notes cannot be easily resized. It would often be useful for them to transform into workspaces, because they become actual text content rather than just notes.
Perhaps there is no option to sort the work boards according to specific criteria (such as alphabetical order or date).
The various functions available should perhaps be explained clearly with a tooltip or something similar while you are working with the various tools. I often don't realise that certain things can be done.
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.
I have advocate for the renew of Miro quite few times, however, it is not under my control as the decision is made in another team with their own budget. I would buy for my own entrepreneur projects (1-2 members) as I do know the value and work there 100%. So, I would pay out of my own pocket to get the value. However, If I wouldn't know the value it provides, it would be hard to decide with the current freemium features
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.
I would rate Miro an 8 out of 10 for overall usability. It's easy to use and has lots of features for making the work easier. I can drag nodes, connect ideas and comment in real time without explaining much to anyone because every member of all the teams have access. For labelling schema design and maths concept mapping, it is incredibly perfect. However, issues related to lag when many nodes introduced and absence of LaTeX making complex equation writing hectic, are of great concern. If those issues were resolved, it's an easy 10.
I only give a 9/10 because of the speed at which it loads. I have never experienced issues with Miro logging me out early, or some other technical issue causing the program to crash, or even it just loading in perpetuity without ever actually coming up (unlike other programs such as SFDC). It take a minute for all of my boards to come up after I click on it in my favorites, but besides that, it's all good.
Sometimes it gets quite slow and there is a correlation between this and the size of the board. Hence we are trying to segment the boards based on product stages or projects so that the size doesn't go big. When you go from discovery to delivery on a simple board, it will get large and difficult to load, even crash or go white screen
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.
We have never reached out to or contacted support because Miro's platform has been incredibly intuitive and user-friendly. The comprehensive resources available, such as tutorials, documentation, and community forums, have provided all the guidance we needed. The seamless integration with our existing tools and the reliability of the platform have ensured that we rarely encounter issues that require external assistance. This self-sufficiency has allowed us to focus more on our projects and collaboration without interruptions. Overall, our experience with Miro has been smooth and efficient, eliminating the need for additional support
There was a series of webinars which Miro hosted with our organization that went over the basics, then progressively became more advanced with additional sections. The instructors were knowledgeable, and provided examples throughout the sessions, as well as answered peoples' questions. There was ample time and experience on the calls to cover a range of topics. The instructors were also very friendly and sociable, as well as honest. Of course Miro isn't a "God-tool" that does absolutely everything, but the instructors were aware and emphasized the strengths where Miro had them and sincerely accepted feedback.
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.
Easy to learn, Miro has a series of videos on YouTube that effectively taught this program to my team members and me. The program is drag-and-drop and works excellently. People pick up on how to use it efficiently, and it's great for organizing ideas more freely. This product is more challenging for some older audiences who are not accustomed to using a touchpad, but for most, it was very easy to use.
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.
I’ve used both Excalidraw+ and draw.io. Excalidraw+ is great for quick, lightweight sketches with a clean “hand-drawn” feel, but it’s less strong for running structured workshops at scale (facilitation tools, templates, board organization, stakeholder-friendly presentation). draw.io is solid for precise diagramming (flows, architecture), but collaboration and workshop mechanics feel more “diagram-first” than “team-first.” We chose Miro because it combines strong real-time + async collaboration with facilitation features (voting, timer, stickies), easy board structuring with frames, and presentation mode—so we can go from messy ideation to a shareable narrative without switching tools.
Maybe is possible now so... Could be useful to manage in some way source code for the projects? not to edit so when we make solutions with different components in MIro, maybe each component could redirect to the source code of this component
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.
I currently save around two to three hours a week now doing administrative tasks. It has saved the need for sending some emails and holding meetings.
I trust that I won't miss anything from my team now that we are all in sync with this tool. No more pouring over document comments in Office 365, Emails, Jira tasks, etc. It's all in one place, and can combine all of those other tools there as well with its elegant linking approach.
Starting projects and leading others is easy with these persistent and real time updates during meetings. No more "circling back on that point" because it is addressed right now!
