HCL Sametime vs. Vonage Business Communications

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HCL Sametime
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
HCL Sametime (formerly IBM Lotus Sametime, acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in 2018) is an enterprise-level unified communications and VoIP platform. It includes features such as instant messaging, web conferencing, voice and video integration, telephony capabilities, and presence information.N/A
Vonage Business Communications
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Vonage Business Cloud is a communication solution aimed at small-midsize companies. It integrates with third party applications, and includes IP-PBX capabilities, video conferencing, and collaboration tools. Pricing starts at $19.99 per month and increases with the amount of phone lines needed.N/A
Pricing
HCL SametimeVonage Business Communications
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL SametimeVonage Business Communications
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL SametimeVonage Business Communications
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
HCL SametimeVonage Business Communications
Cloud PBX
Comparison of Cloud PBX features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
8.4
7 Ratings
2% above category average
Vonage Business Communications
9.4
5 Ratings
15% above category average
Hosted PBX9.02 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)9.02 Ratings9.04 Ratings
User templates8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Call reports8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Directory of employee names8.07 Ratings10.05 Ratings
Call Management
Comparison of Call Management features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
8.0
8 Ratings
5% below category average
Vonage Business Communications
9.4
5 Ratings
14% above category average
Answering rules8.05 Ratings10.05 Ratings
Call recording8.02 Ratings8.12 Ratings
Call park8.01 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Call screening8.02 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Message alerts8.06 Ratings10.05 Ratings
VoIP system collaboration
Comparison of VoIP system collaboration features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
8.0
6 Ratings
3% below category average
Vonage Business Communications
-
Ratings
Video conferencing8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio conferencing8.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Video screen sharing8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant messaging8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile apps
Comparison of Mobile apps features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
8.0
8 Ratings
4% below category average
Vonage Business Communications
10.0
5 Ratings
15% above category average
Mobile app for iOS8.08 Ratings10.05 Ratings
Mobile app for Android8.07 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HCL SametimeVonage Business Communications
Small Businesses
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Nextiva Business Phone Service
Nextiva Business Phone Service
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Nextiva Business Phone Service
Nextiva Business Phone Service
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HCL SametimeVonage Business Communications
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(10 ratings)
1.9
(22 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(2 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(4 ratings)
8.5
(10 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL SametimeVonage Business Communications
Likelihood to Recommend
HCL Technologies
Sametime is well suited for very quick conversations, where you know the person is an active Sametime user. It also serves as an easy way to reach out to someone you may not know when looking for an answer to a quick question, as they are likely to be a Sametime user. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to use Sametime for Audio or Video chat. The quality and reliability are horrendous.
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Vonage
Vonage Business Cloud is well suited if you have small or limited IT staff and/or you have many remote workers and little or no on-prem hardware. I would recommend Vonage to small to medium-sized businesses. It would not be well suited to a large organization where everyone works in the same building and the IT staff has servers and staff to manage a VoIP system.
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Pros
HCL Technologies
  • Sametime's web-based interfaces are "zero load", requiring no plug-ins to be installed to join a meeting, launch a meeting, or use chat in a browser. A plugin is required only if you want to share your screen.
  • Integration with IBM Notes is very tight. Sametime's chat status can change according to your Notes calendar. You can easily see if someone who just emailed you is available to chat. Your chat History is right inside Notes as well.
  • IBM's mobile apps are top notch. We automated the apps for our users thanks to IBM's work with third party MDMs. This made it very simple for us to deploy the Sametime mobile apps -- Chat and Meetings -- and get new capabilities such as Audio & Video mobilized quickly.
  • No down time, ever. The rock solid WebSphere back-end of Sametime means the environment is always up. Period.
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Vonage
  • Eliminates physical phone consoles that can be pricey and unnecessary for staff.
  • Has a companion app that allows you to use your personal cell phone to check messages or make calls.
  • The desktop application is easy to use and has a number of customizable settings so that the app can be minimized but alert you of incoming calls.
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Cons
HCL Technologies
  • Not convenient for a large group meeting.
  • Very basic tool for internal communication only not available for third party communication
  • Very basic and limited mobile app features.
  • High speed connection is needed to connect to Sametime
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Vonage
  • They do not take billing support calls. Online chat only. That can be dicey.
  • Desktop app can have some hiccups and there are frequent updates. Sometimes it switches from my headset to webcam for no reason I can tell. Miss the call be for I figure it out.
  • Text messaging does not handle images. Frustrates my clients when they think they can send me a pic of a signed doc or vin# and I don't get it.
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Likelihood to Renew
HCL Technologies
Sametime is now an embedded experience for our users. They know it, they like it, they use it, and they expect it to be wherever they are. Because it is pretty easy to use and NEVER goes down, users know they can rely on it and won't be frustrated by it. Sametime is right up with there with Microsoft Office in terms of user adoption and appreciation.
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Vonage
No answers on this topic
Usability
HCL Technologies
Just about everything works the way you expect it would and it's relatively easy for users to figure out. Sametime was one of those things that we started with only a few people as a "test" and before the test period was done we discovered a few hundred people had figured out how to log in and most got it working all on their own. Many of our users want to use Sametime and do so regularly; we do not have to create policies enforcing its usage. Users find it practical to use Sametime to do things like chat, transfer files, share their screen, and so forth.
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Vonage
I thought it had very practical and useful usability. It has a clean and simple interface with large fonts that make it easy to read. It isn't particularly difficult, although figuring out some operations may be a bit challenging. For the most part though, it isn't very difficult to use
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Reliability and Availability
HCL Technologies
Typically if Sametime is not available, it's because Windows Updates were done on the servers and they were not rebooted. However, that's not a problem with Sametime -- in fact, if you have Linux you could probably run Sametime for years without any hiccups whatsoever. We have no internal Linux expertise.
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Vonage
No answers on this topic
Performance
HCL Technologies
Generally very good. Occasionally AV or screen-sharing will stutter and every now and then I hear of it dropping out altogether, but in all cases it was easy to re-establish
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Vonage
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
HCL Technologies
I have not needed to use the Sametime support team. Our local support team was able to configure it for me.
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Vonage
We hardly have any issues with it to where we need to call them. There was a point where our connections across the board were terrible and it held us up in production quite a bit but since then things have been pretty simple and streamlined.
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Alternatives Considered
HCL Technologies
We use Jabber globally in our company and Symphony (no relevant app in able list) in some of the teams as well. All these are instant messenger tools, but Sametime is the easiest one to be used and its chat history is easy to be searched. Sametime can be used to contact almost all internal staff as it’s included in default computer package. Symphony is used to chat with front end business while Jabber is used for call.
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Vonage
We believe Vonage Business Cloud is best for our organization over the AT&T and the Verizon platforms for several reasons including price, ease of use, connectivity, and other options. Since we have implemented this solution along with newer Polycom phones, we have had very few issues with our phones or our phone platform.
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Scalability
HCL Technologies
Sametime is rock solid. It runs on WebSphere, DB2 and other related IBM technologies. This does mean the back-end is highly complex and very difficult to learn and get comfortable with, however.
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Vonage
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
HCL Technologies
  • Sametime keeps many of our team members in contact throughout the day which leads to increased productivity which makes everyone happy.
  • We use the team chat room feature every day. This allows a team to stay focused on the task without any extra messages that are not on topic.
  • The split between IBM Sametime, Slack and Google Hangouts has caused some issues when team members are not checking for messages on a certain app.
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Vonage
  • We were able to remove expensive and out of date phones, and replace them with the user's choice of a new phone or Bluetooth, so we saved money.
  • There was training time that needed to be committed for a 50+ person office which reduced productivity for a while.
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ScreenShots