Zoom has long been one of the most widely used solutions for video conferencing. Nevertheless, as more and more companies search for Zoom alternatives, we wanted to offer a thorough list of your company’s top Zoom alternatives. In this blog post, we’ll go over several choices you have, some of which are less well-known yet can be ideal for your company. We sincerely hope this information will enable you to decide which video conferencing platform is best for you.

Some of the most popular Zoom alternatives include:

– Skype:

A well-known platform for video conferences, Skype provides a wide range of capabilities for companies of all kinds. Skype is a flexible alternative for many firms because it interfaces with various business software.

– Google Hangouts:

Another well-liked choice with the ability to make voice and video calls is Google Hangouts. Hangouts is a fantastic tool for collaboration because it enables users to share files and screens.

– GoToMeeting:

HD audio and video quality are available on the user-friendly platform known as GoToMeeting. Given that it can accommodate up to 1000 attendees, this platform is ideal for companies that need to host sizable meetings or webinars.

– Adobe Connect:

Web conferencing, webinars, and video meetings are just a few tools that Adobe Connect’s flexible platform makes available to companies. Businesses may design unique Branding experiences for their meetings using this platform.

These are but a handful of the numerous alternatives available to you while looking for the ideal Zoom substitute for your company. Do your study and select the choice that best satisfies your needs. A perfect Zoom substitute exists—you just need to discover it!

Nowadays, it seems like everyone works from home; therefore, many companies are using Zoom video conferencing to handle the hundreds of thousands of meetings that still need to be held. Zoom has some issues despite its increasing growth, most notably a recent lax security attitude and a disagreement over its end-to-end encryption policy.

Although the company’s core value is “Could this meeting be an email?” you’ll almost definitely require a video conferencing service to connect with employees and customers regularly. You can get started with the alternatives to Zoom on this list. Try our Web Conferencing Product Selection Tool if you’re just looking for video conferencing software. It will provide you with a few free recommendations from our Technology Advisors tailored to your needs.

Compare the best Zoom video conference alternatives

Similar functionality may be present in different video conferencing software options, such as screen sharing, mobile versions, internal messaging, and security or encryption capabilities. Not all software offers a free tier or allows hosts to schedule meetings from their calendars or through an app.

-Cisco WebEx

Different plans from the Cisco WebEx video conferencing suite are available for organizations, educational institutions, and healthcare providers. Conferences with up to 100 000 prospective attendees are included in each plan. All of the capabilities found in earlier editions and extras like Webex Teams collaboration features are included in the free plan, along with unlimited call lengths. Whiteboards that can be utilized during video conferences are among the extra features, along with messaging facilities, file sharing choices, and cross-device search capabilities.

Standout feature:

To avoid scrambling to find the correct meeting code at the last minute, the Contact-Me feature will immediately call your phone to connect you to your meeting.

-BlueJeans

The BlueJeans video conferencing software has advanced meeting features like remote participation, meeting notes with action items, and breakout sessions for up to 20 individuals from within an existing conference. Direct access to third-party security, sales, and learning management system software makes this an excellent option for sales, training, and consulting teams, even though some capabilities that require additional server space, like recorded meetings, are only available to meeting hosts with an account.

Standout feature:

Short highlight reels that capture the essence of your meeting can be found in intelligent meeting recap videos.

-Join. me

Due to its many advantages, users who connect using Chrome don’t need to download any additional software, Join. I make video conferencing simple. Another fantastic feature is the ability to join a meeting with just a link rather than an invitation. International calls are now free with the Pro and Business editions!

Standout feature:

Participants show up as moving, bouncing bubbles on your screen on the most recent desktop and iOS9+ versions of Join. Me. Some individuals may find this amusing, but others might find it distracting.

-Microsoft Teams

The organization’s enterprise and commercial video conferencing product are called Microsoft Teams. You can rapidly send Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents in meetings to collaborate virtually because it uses Microsoft Teams because it is a member of the Microsoft ecosystem. The meeting tools are appropriate for seminars, live events, webinars, and audio conferences and can hold 10,000 participants while utilizing Office 365 security features.

Standout feature:

Teams feature an app-building capability that enables your developers to construct low-code apps to simplify operations and give a video interface for simple conferencing.

-Skype

One of the first video calling programs is Skype, which is still a popular option today. It is owned by Microsoft and provides inexpensive international calls in addition to allowing connections through the majority of Microsoft products. Although Microsoft Teams may be a better alternative for you if you have a larger organization, Skype is great for personal use, freelance employment, or small businesses.

Standout feature:

Automatic captioning features in Microsoft Skype provide a degree of anonymity for anyone who might be concerned that their supervisor is listening in on group calls, in addition to improving accessibility for the hard of hearing.

-River

The river is a safe collaboration platform with functions like file sharing, chat, tasks, and integrations. Encryption in transit and at rest are examples of regulated data security features. Your data is safe on the Virtual Private Cloud thanks to Ryver’s use of AWS cloud services, which also use 2-factor authentication as an additional security feature. The river also provides single sign-on with Okta, Microsoft ADFS, OneLogin, and other services for even greater convenience and security.

Standout feature:

The task manager in Ryver is its most distinctive feature. Users can import important chat conversation threads into the Ryver project management software. Team members can exchange tasks and create notifications there. The workflow technology from Ryver even enables job automation for enterprise customers.

-ezTalks

The ezTalks free plan permits 40-minute meetings for up to 100 persons using the screen sharing feature and meetings of up to 100 participants with video or audio recordings. Use the screen-sharing tool with annotations to enhance your presentations. For group collaboration, use the interactive whiteboard in-meeting. Use the remote control to actively take notes on the whiteboard or have an assistant run the slides during a meeting.

Standout feature:

You can record your meetings as an MP4 and store them locally or in the cloud if you download ezTalks.

-Google Hangouts Meet

Formerly known as Google Hangouts and Google Meet, this service is now called Google Hangouts Meet. All G Suite plan tiers can now access the product. With the option to communicate via web meetings or desktop/mobile apps, Hangouts Meet offers video and audio conferencing features that integrate with other G Suite services, including Calendar, Gmail, chat, Drive, and document creation tools.

Standout feature:

It will be possible for Hangouts Meet to link to other programs already in use, such as Skype for Business. This functionality requires the Pexip Infinity Platform, a third-party platform, but it promises generally improved connectivity.

-GoToMeeting

The “GoToMeeting” video conferencing service is intended for large-group gatherings and one-on-one video conferences. Use the Smart Meeting Assistant to transcribe the entire meeting while taking notes and sending the film to all attendees. Use these notations to assign tasks to participants and the business messaging chat tool to interact with them about business-related topics. You can maintain people’s attention on your most crucial points by using drawing tools on the screen.

Standout feature:

Here, you can find a variety of alternatives for managing G Suite accounts, including Gmail and Drive. You can keep the job application on another device while dissecting today’s statistics thanks to nGoToMeeting’s ability to share your complete screen or specific programs.

What is Zoom Video Conferencing?

One of the most widely used video conferencing products available right now is Zoom. During the novel coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic, The New York Times boldly asserted that “we live in Zoom now” about users attending virtual business meetings and dance parties on the platform. If the meeting is for less than 40 minutes, small businesses and individuals are free to use the Zoom Basic plan. Additionally, this plan permits an infinite number of concurrent meetings and up to 100 participants in each free video conference.

For large-scale commercial users, the free plan is insufficient. While Basic supports group collaboration, it lacks administrative tools that may be used to customize meeting controls. Would you prefer to enable or disable features like chat, recording, encryption, or notifications? One of the three higher-level Zoom plans is required for this (Zoom vs. WebEx). Recently, we contrasted Zoom vs. WebEx to show that Zoom has fewer issues than Cisco WebEx conferencing.

The pricing with Zoom is likewise relatively straightforward. Unlike other businesses, they open up all their plans to the public. Budgeting for organizations and teams is now a lot simpler as a result. Zoom meetings can accommodate more participants, depending on the package, compared to another web conferencing software. When compared to other web conferencing applications, the Enterprise Plan, for instance, allows for up to 500 participants in a single session (before you start adding features).

Customers of the Zoom Business Plan have a personal phone support person for problems, and Zoom’s customer service is also fairly competitive.

What is GoToMeeting Video Conferencing?

A popular video conferencing program, GoToMeeting from LogMeIn, provides enterprise-level capabilities, including screen sharing, HD video quality, and SSL encryption.

There are tiers of pricing for GoToMeeting, including choices for companies of all sizes. GoToMeeting has a freemium version named GoToMeeting Free, even though their website only refers explicitly to professionals, Businesses, and enterprises. Yet, similar to Zoom. The meeting time allotment for this option is 40 minutes.

Every business needs more than what the Free plan provides. There are no meeting time limits, and no-limit screen sharing is included in all subscription tiers. The business and higher plans contain helpful tools like note-taking, unlimited cloud recording, and automatic transcriptions of recorded sessions. All accounts with GoToMeeting come with SSL encryption, which adds a layer of security for your critical corporate data.

A robust software ecosystem for webinars and video meetings is provided through GoToMeeting’s connections with CRM programs like Salesforce and workflow and scheduling systems like Slack, Office 365, and Google Calendars.

Zoom vs. GoToMeeting Feature Comparison

For video conferencing to succeed in corporate settings, it must offer cutting-edge functionality. High-quality audio and video, call recording, screen sharing, easy meeting scheduling, and mobile assistance are all necessities for enterprise customers. Let’s look at how each company stacks up regarding essential factors.

-Call Recording

Local recording is a feature offered by both Zoom and GoToMeeting. This type of data preservation is carried out on your local computer automatically. Longer meetings can quickly be recorded because the local recording is simple and available on all plans. You won’t be able to locally record a session on Zoom or GoToMeeting if you use the Android or iOS mobile app. You’ll require cloud call recording if you want peer-to-peer file management and simple sharing with coworkers.

-HD Video Conferencing

The power of video conferencing lies in its ability to simulate face-to-face interactions, and for this to function correctly, the best possible video performance is needed. A 1080p video is available via Zoom and GoToMeeting that is only impacted by your internet connection.

These include advanced user administration choices that let you change the video’s quality. Both enable the speaker to spotlight himself or display audience members in a grid-like gallery using various angles throughout the presentation. Zoom is superior to the gallery view because it supports 49 simultaneous webcams as opposed to Zoom’s 25.

Those who want to alter the aspect ratio or select which webcam to use can do so in Zoom’s dedicated options section. Additionally, Zoom offers a helpful feature that reduces the harshness of lighting on a person’s characteristics, making it ideal for business conversations from poorly lit home offices. The “correct” method for joining a meeting from your computer is to use the free Google program, which we’ll cover later in this article. Also covered are the GoToMeeting settings for fine-tuning. The video brightness, contrast, color, saturation, sharpness, and gamma sliders can all be changed, but there is no image softening. There are controls for white balance and illumination intensity. One of the best possibilities is powerline frequency, which enables you to reduce flicker on monitors with low refresh rates.

-Screen Sharing

Screen sharing is a crucial feature for presenters who need to deliver software demonstrations or illustrate their work on projects. Because of this, almost all free online conferencing applications, such as Zoom and GoToMeeting, enable screen sharing. With all the required features offered by other video conferencing solutions, both provide a complete screen-sharing experience.

These include:

• Are you prepared to reorganize your workspace? Let’s share a keyboard and mouse!
• the ability to broadcast the screen to a specific audience
• Instead of sharing your entire screen, application-level sharing enables you to share just a single application window.
• The Chrome web browser allows you to screen-share with other users. To accomplish this, you must first download and install the Screen Share extension from the Chrome Web Store. After installation, open the attachment and select “Share” to begin screen sharing.
• VoIP programs for Mac, Windows, and mobile devices sharing
• The top whiteboard sketching tools are available from MarkerboardMAXX.

Although GoToMeeting and Zoom have added capabilities that not all other meeting software has, Zoom wins regarding screen sharing, zoom has a few more symbolic tricks up its sleeve than GoToMeeting, with options like shared control of the screen and sequential sharing by participants. Zoom enables dual monitor users to share their entire screen with visitors or just a section of it; this feature is a little more complex than application-level sharing alone.

-Scheduling Meetings

Either option makes it simple to set up meetings. You can schedule an appointment using GoToMeeting and choose the time and date and whether it will be repeated.

You can alter your audio preferences and schedule repeating events to show on Outlook or a Google Calendar. There are a few more settings options available in Zoom, but the setup and scheduling process is the same across all of them. Your pre-planned meetings can be sent to Outlook, Google, or Yahoo Calendars.

Zoom can share more calendar applications than GoToMeeting and includes all the features you’ll ever need. Zoom enables you to use a password throughout the conference and more simply configure the meeting itself. The UI is simpler and easier to use with Zoom.

-Compatibility

Most consumers won’t have trouble using either platform on their preferred device because both are compatible with Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.

However, Zoom goes above and beyond in terms of compatibility. If you intend to utilize the new MacBook Pro with its M1 chip or other ARM laptops that come out in the future, they offer an ARM client that might be helpful.

In addition to its Chrome extension, Zoom also provides a Firefox extension. In comparison, GoToMeeting only offers a Chrome addon and is utterly inoperable on Firefox.

Who is Using Zoom vs. GoToMeeting?

Choosing the type of meeting that is best for your company might be challenging because there are so many different varieties. Most customers will come back three or four times before choosing to renew their web hosting contract, so there’s no purpose in keeping them if they don’t like what you’re giving them. Both organizations and individuals can use the top five services mentioned above. Even though some could argue that each of the aforementioned features deserves to be in its category, we chose the best parts first. This does not suggest that the other provider isn’t competitive, though. Between GoToMeeting and Zoom, there are differences in a few sectors, including education, healthcare, and legal compliance.

 -Educators:

GoToMeeting and Zoom were in the corner of educators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Zoom Basic abolished the time limits on meetings for educators, and GoToMeeting produced an emergency work kit with a way to join.

These two educational alternatives are both very competitive. Among the learning platforms that Zoom interfaces with are Moodle, Desire2Learn, and Blackboard. According to the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) compliance, which can be activated on the platform, Zoom is also very secure, protecting student data and records. 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) encryption and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security provided by zoom are used to safeguard data both in transit and at rest.

Thanks to GoToMeeting’s natural language processing, which provides students with detailed and accurate recordings, students will have correct and comprehensive notes. Professors may also provide students unique URLs to participate in class meetups. Like Zoom, GoToMeeting uses SSL encryption. This protects sensitive student information by encrypting data during transmission between locations and after it has been stored on end devices.

It’s difficult to deny the reality that Google Docs, Gmail, and Hangouts have all significantly enhanced their organizational capabilities. They have improved in usability, and booking meetings through their automatic scheduling engine is now lot clearer.

-Healthcare Professionals:

The federal HIPAA act must be followed if you intend to operate with patient medical data. Fortunately, Zoom and GoToMeeting adhere to these standards, making them valuable platforms for organizations in the healthcare sector.

Zoom has a telehealth-focused program called Zoom for Telehealth that complies with the Personal Health Information and Protection Act (PHIPA), the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and HIPAA (PHIPA).

Two acts in Canada are comparable to HIPAA. Neither of them has a complaint from GoToMeeting. An example is a zoom for Health, an alternative to the typical enterprise-level packages that provides numerous features useful for healthcare professionals—including high-quality HD video—even when hospitals have slow internet connections—.

Zoom and GoToMeeting offer a range of screen-sharing tools for doctor collaboration, but Zoom’s integration is noticeably superior. For instance, Zoom has direct integration with Epic, one of the most well-liked workflow programs in the healthcare industry. Medical device connections for gear like stethoscopes and examination cameras that use this Zoom are also provided.

GoToMeeting offers several different telehealth alternatives but does not have a unique healthcare program. Nevertheless, patient health information mentioned in meetings is stored for later use because it is HIPAA compliant across all of its plans and provides unlimited cloud storage.

-Law Offices:

Lawyers can “see” and “hear” one other via video conferencing from anywhere in the nation without wasting time or money on travel. Fly in. Attorneys frequently use video conferencing for remote depositions and virtual mediation as well. Features like gallery view enable a Slack alternative for team collaboration with multiple lawyers having a visible presence during meetings. Screen sharing allows for the display of legal documents and presentations.

Zoom Rooms and GoToRoom offer conference room integration for a simple setup in legal offices. Like BlueJeans, GoToRoom also integrates Dolby Voice for better audio quality. Since recording is a crucial task for lawyers, the availability of both local and cloud-based recording on both platforms is quite beneficial. Both websites provide users unlimited cloud storage without additional costs, although GoToMeeting has an advantage over Zoom.

Who is the Best Overall?

The features and cost of GoToMeeting will work for you if you are a big business or aim to be one. Due to the possible integrations, the system is highly adaptable.

Organizations of all sizes looking for a video conferencing solution may benefit from zoom’s emphasis on the end-user experience and seamless meeting flows. It is a force to be reckoned with due to its sophisticated reporting and market-leading security features. It all comes down to which option best satisfies your particular requirements, as you can’t go wrong with either in the long run.

Capacity Tips the Scale Between Zoom vs. GoToMeeting

We think GoToMeeting is superior to Zoom if you’re seeking an enterprise-grade solution designed for video conferencing. Zoom only allows 1,000 attendees unless you pay extra for their “Enterprise Plus” service, whereas GoToMeeting Enterprise allows 3,000 attendees to join at once.

Second, Zoom for Healthcare is a web conferencing system for hospitals and other healthcare organizations that costs $200 per month and includes all levels of GoToMeeting that are HIPAA compliant. This indicates that patient data will be protected if the appropriate rules are in place. Other industries than healthcare that need to retain their data safely for compliance or liability concerns can benefit significantly from unlimited cloud recording.

Your business must adopt various corporate communication strategies, not just video conferencing. The interactive enterprise VoIP comparison table offers in-depth details on all the leading unified communications providers.

Conclusion

We sincerely hope the information provided has been helpful as you consider which video conferencing system will work best for your company. Remember that each platform has particular advantages and disadvantages, so do your study before choosing one. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns or need assistance determining which platform is best for you. We would be delighted to help you find the ideal answer to your needs!