We prove first that every $$\mathcal {H}$$
H
-commutative semigroup is stable. Using this result [and some results from the standard text (Nagy, Special classes of semigroups, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2001)], we give two equivalent conditions for a semigroup to be an archimedean $$\mathcal {H}$$
H
-commutative semigroup containing an idempotent element. It turns out that this result can be partially extended to $$\mathcal {L}$$
L
-commutative semigroups and quasi-commutative semigroups.