Video communication applications have seen a significant spike in active users as people are forced to use these apps to socialise, sit in on team meetings, coordinate with co-workers, conduct lectures for students, and more.
Apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meets, and the more recent Messenger Rooms are currently being used as the primary form of business or social communication with the outside world. To help you decide which service is the best for you, we have decided to highlight the best aspects of all the four apps.
Zoom Zoom is a virtual conferencing platform that is easy to use. While the service was primarily aimed at enterprise consumers, it has become increasingly popular in the last couple of months, recording over 300 million daily users. Zoom’s rapid growth has caused a couple of scaling issues as participants join Zoom Meetings uninvited and broadcast not safe for work (NSFW). However, the company has been addressing these issues through updates.
Zoom Room enables companies to schedule and launch Zoom Meetings from their conference rooms, while Zoom Meeting is a regular video conferencing meetup that you host on the platform. One of the main reasons for Zoom’s popularity is that it isn’t expensive and quite simple to use. It can be easily accessed from a laptop or mobile device.
Zoom is ideal for participant control and screen sharing. With the free version of Zoom, you can conduct one-on-one meetings with no time limit, but group sessions (up to 100 participants) cannot exceed 40 minutes. Paid plans for Zoom start from $15 per month, while Zoom Room will require additional charges over the subscription. Zoom Room more of an enterprise-grade communication solution for larger companies.
Facebook Messenger Rooms Messenger Rooms is a new feature added to Facebook and the Messenger app. Messenger Rooms enables users to host video chat rooms with up to 50 participants. The service also has some fun little social features like AR filters and virtual backgrounds. The app is available on the social media platform for both mobile and desktop users. You do not require any additional downloads; the Messenger Rooms feature is already available on Facebook and Messenger. It is relatively simple to use and joining a room does not require a Facebook account.
Messenger Rooms is free to use and there is no time limit on video chats. Facebook also plans to integrate Messenger Rooms into Instagram soon. Given the feature’s social grounding and lack of screen sharing, we believe that Messenger Rooms is not an ideal solution for enterprises. However, it does seem more convenient than Zoom for online social meetups.
Google Meet Hangouts Meet was recently rebranded to Google Meet. This video conferencing solution is built into Google’s suite of apps and services, including Gmail, YouTube, Google Voice, etc. The Google Meet app is available for Android and iOS mobile devices. However, it can also be accessed via Chrome, Mozilla, Microsoft, or Safari web browsers. Google Meet boasts a light and fast interface, allowing you to easily manage meetings with up to 250 people.
To start a basic meeting on the platform, all you need is a Google account. This will allow you to host a meeting with up to 100 participants with a 24-hour time limit. G Suite plans offer real-time collaboration tools and will let you to record sessions on the cloud (minimum 30GB storage space) but start at $6 per month.
Google Meet is a cost-effective platform for enterprise customers and small businesses. While Google Meet allows screen sharing, it does not have all the screen sharing options that Zoom offers. According to Google, video meetings on Meet are encrypted in transit and recordings stored in Drive are encrypted in transit. Google Meet is ideal for businesses or individuals who heavily rely on G Suite, but it is not favourable for social use.
Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace in Microsoft 365, intended for regular Microsoft 365 users. Unlike the previous services that focused heavily on video chats, Microsoft 365 is more of a chat-based solution, a fitting rival for Slack rather than Zoom. However, users can still hold video meetings on the platform with up to 10,000 people. Microsoft also allows users to download meetings and store then on OneDrive.
Teams works with most devices and integrates with all Microsoft apps. It combines business VoIP, collaboration, and video features into a single app. Teams is designed to help users work more efficiently together in Microsoft’s 365 app ecosystem. It combines the functionality of a group chat and an email account, offering a better collaboration tool. Microsoft Teams also offers call recording and screen sharing.
Like Google Meet, Microsoft offers a free version of Teams, but it suffers from the same lack of features. The cheapest Team’s subscription is $5 a month per user. However, an additional $4 per user fee is required to use the call-in capabilities. You can also add webinar features for live streaming events, but that will cost more. With Teams, your meeting sessions are encrypted, but you need to have an Office 365 account to take advantage of the data encryption.
Microsoft Teams is included with all Microsoft 365 plans, but the service is also available for free. Microsoft has confirmed that free users will get unlimited chat messages, 10,000 searchable messages, 10 app integrations, 5G of storage and more. Microsoft Teams is an ideal tool for business communication and offers more hardened security as compared to Zoom. Microsoft 365 users should find using Teams highly beneficial.
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