This article will cover the top Zoom alternatives of 2023. You will have to check out the best interface the app offers and the quality of conference calls. Let us do that one by one.
Zoom is one of the top-rated, top-rated video-conferencing software used today. With the pandemic making the news and work from home being the everyday lifestyle, video conferencing applications such as Zoom have risen above the threshold. They have embraced people, the ongoing circumstances, and challenges. The latter has made the public rely on some of the top meeting and conferencing apps and similar Zoom alternative apps for the video, audio, and meeting services offered in the simplest UI possible.
The Business plan starts from $19.99/host/month, which lets 10 or more host accounts at a time and other additional features offered in the Basic and Pro model.
Why Use Zoom?
- Zoom’s user interface is simple and cloud-based and offers cloud stability.
- Both audio and video quality are highly defined.
- Zoom offers end-to-end encryption for both free and paid users.
- The free version accommodates up to two participants. The video calls can be for unlimited hours.
- Meeting sessions can be for 40 minutes at a time for the free version, allowing up to 100 participants at most.
- Also, if you are hosting the meeting and using the free services, you need to register yourself. However, as a participant, you can join using the link without any registration.
Why Not Zoom?
- Data protection is inadequate and unsatisfactory.
- Zoom accesses a large amount of data and shares them, for instance, the email address and other information you share during video conferencing. Additionally, if you log into Zoom through your Facebook or Google account, the situation is even trickier since it accesses all the information collected by Facebook or Google.
- Even though Zoom offers end-to-end encryption for both basic and paid users, as an account admin, you will have to enable the E2EE feature in their dashboard to maintain the security level as promised by Zoom.
10 Best Zoom Alternatives (Free + Paid) in 2024:
1. Google Meet
Google Meet is one of the best and most popular Zoom alternatives that are freely available for you. Previously, Google Hangouts evolved into Google Meet to meet advanced business needs. Google Meet is ideal for business meetings, video conferencing, and hosting and attending webinars.
Features of Google Meet:
- You can use Google Meet on both Android and iOS devices.
- The Enterprise plan allows you up to 250 participants with up to 16 attendees visible on the screen at a time.
- The mobile app is handy in terms of viewing and controlling the participants in the meeting. You can easily join or start the meeting. Also, you can access the chat rooms, conference details, and more.
- The freemium version lets you share, call, record videos, dial into conferences, etc.
- You can even enjoy its multi-device compatibility and live captioning during the meeting session.
- You can pin, mute, or remove participants as a host and admin.
- GoogleMeet offers integration with Google and Microsoft apps. You can record and save your meeting details in Google Drive or even update your Google Calendar for any event.
Google Meet Plans:
- Free: The plan allows up to 100 participants, with the meeting duration extending up to an hour. Meet does not offer any free trial provision.
- Essential: It starts from $8 per user/month. The Google Workspace Essential plan accommodates up to 250 participants and up to 300 hours of meeting.
- Enterprise: The pricing model is quote-based; based on on-demand requirements.
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2. Zoho Meeting
Zoho Meeting is an excellent Zoom alternative suitable for small and mid-sized business organizations. It is a popular application for hosting online webinars and meetings and broadcasting demos. One of the best features is joining or launching a meeting on Zoho without installing the application.
Features of Zoho Meeting:
- You can join the Zoho meetings on both Android and iOS devices.
- The software lets you host/launch a Zoho meeting only through iOS devices.
- It provides you an app extension for Firefox and Chrome browsers too.
- You can host video conferences, in-chat sessions, online meetings with a screen-sharing feature, audio, and video sharing.
- Can automatically schedule and sync the meetings with Google or Zoho calendar.
- You can control the participants by muting, removing, switching the presenters, or allowing attendees to talk in between. You can even moderate the messages.
- Do not have any limitations on the meeting duration.
- Zoho Meeting app also offers you polls and Q&A features to boost the engagements. You can even track the answers using webinar analytics.
- The Lock Meeting feature allows you to host private meetings. You get to control the attendees’ entry despite whether the person has the attendee link or not.
- It uses SSL/128-bit AES encryption protocols to establish strong communication standards.
Zoho Meeting Plans:
- Free version- The plan allows you to host webinars and online meetings with limited feature accessibility.
- Meeting-10- Starts from $2.50/month/user
- Meeting-25- Starts from $5.00/month/user
- Meeting-50- Starts from $7.50/month/user
- Meeting-100- Starts from 10.00/month/user
Also, you get a 14-days free trial period.
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3. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a fast-rising, up-trending Zoom alternative that is ideal for mid-sized and large enterprises. It is yet another cloud-based video conferencing tool with similar features to Zoom. You can host meetings, make audio & video calls, share media, send texts remotely, share screens, etc. The four features it offers are- chat, meet, call, and collaborate. The latter includes inviting over email, screen-sharing, using a digital whiteboard, chat meetings, etc. At the time of writing this article, Microsoft Teams was rated 4.6 on Google Play based on 4,289,991 votes and 4.8 stars out of 5 on the App Store as per 1,934,504 reviews.
Features of Microsoft Teams:
- The ‘Raise your hand’ feature enables you to let the participants know that you have something to say.
- It lets you record meetings in the cloud which you can share later.
- It allows Google Chrome extension and works for both small and large teams.
- Also, its premium version allows storage up to 1 TB along with 365 integration and third-party applications.
Microsoft Teams Pricing:
It has a free trial and a free version. The premium version- Business Essential Plan, begins from $5 per user and is subject to an annual commitment. The Business Premium plan costs $12.50 per month, while the Office 365 E3 starts from $20.00/month/user.
4. Skype
Microsoft’s Skype is one of the oldest and most popular Zoom alternatives known to the public. It is mostly known for its audio and HD video calling quality. It now offers several other features that make it a Zoom competitor. You do not need to install the application on your browser.
Features of Skype:
- You can use Skype on your tablet, mobile phone, Alexa, Xbox, or your PC.
- The web version is as handy as its mobile version.
- It also offers screen sharing, smart messaging, private, secure conversations, and call recording & lives subtitle features along with phone calls.
- The UI is simple and intuitive. You can host a meeting with a single click.
- Also, with its Skype web feature, you can connect to Skype and make calls or even hold interviews anywhere anytime.
- You can even make calls to people who are not Skype using a local phone number.
- Skype also has a raise hand feature just like Zoom.
- You can send files up to 300 MB in the form of photos or videos.
- Skype also has a caller identification that lets you identify numbers.
- You text to phone numbers through SMS online anywhere, anytime, with Skype.
- The Skype Translator helps real-time translation of voice calls, video calls, and instant messages.
- Skype To Go lets you reach out to international numbers at low calling rates.
- The extension of Skype allows you to share news and articles among your skype contacts.
Skype Pricing:
Its premium plans for businesses start from $5 per user/month.
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5. Cisco Webex
As an alternative to Zoom, Cisco Webex is ideal for video conferencing, cloud calling, web conferencing, online meetings & webinars, and screen sharing among peers and organizations. It is flexible, inclusive, and secure.
Features of Cisco Webex:
- Calling
- Meeting
- Messaging
- Polling
- Events
- It enables audience tools for active participation, collaborative interaction and is also used for polling and Q&A among attendees.
- You can invite anyone and host a meeting with up to 100,000 attendees from anywhere in the world.
- Webex integrates with more than 100 popular apps, including Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Twitter, and Apple.
- It provides adequate security to your Webex profile by offering exclusive features of idle time-out, forced PIN lock, and wiping off of Webex content.
Cisco Webex Pricing:
You can always start for free and decide on opting for a Starter, Business, or Enterprise plan ranging from $13.50 per host per month to the Business tier, which costs $26.95/host/month to a negotiable price in the latter case. The Enterprise tier can handle up to 100,000 meeting attendees with unlimited cloud storage.
6. FaceTime
A zoom alternative available on iOS devices, FaceTime is a popular videotelephony application that lets you make audio and video calls among peers using Apple products. It is therefore ideal for iPhone and Mac users across the world.
However, unlike Zoom, you cannot invite people through links. You will have to add the contacts through their phone numbers or Apple IDs to connect with them over FaceTime.
Features of FaceTime:
- The application is widely well-known, especially for its high-quality image and video.
- It allows up to 32 participants while only four participants other than yourself display on screen at a time.
- You can use texts, stickers, Animoji during the video chats too.
- Also, FaceTime integrates with iMessage, allowing you to sync instant messaging with video and audio calling.
FaceTime Pricing:
It is free for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS users.
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7. Cisco Jabber
Like a Zoom alternative, Cisco Jabber unites the concept of desktop sharing, instant messaging, voice/video conferencing, screen sharing, VoIP, web conferencing, and presence. Jabber is a Zoom alternative for Windows. The software is often considered to be an all-in-one solution for collaboration and communication among devices and features.
At the time of writing this article, Jabber is rated 3.8 on Google Play (based on 33,371 votes) and 4.6 stars on App Store (based on 25,480 reviews).
Features of Cisco Jabber:
- Multilingual support
- Integrated Cisco phone line
- Cisco unified communications manager integration for session management and manageable call control.
- It also offers a bot framework that assists in automating business- sending/receiving messages, handling active chats, and responding to incoming calls.
- It is available both on desktop as well as a mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
Cisco Jabber Pricing:
There are no free trials or free versions. The pricing varies from organization to organization, depending on the demand. However, Jabber for Desktop will cost you $50/license.
8. GoToMeeting
GoToMeeting is a web conferencing and online meeting software that works as a free Zoom alternative in the market. Owing to some common features, both the software share a few similarities, especially in empowering the business while keeping it safe and secured.
GoToMeeting, like Zoom, allows collaboration and meeting anywhere, anytime, on any device, whenever an organization requires a virtual platform to collaborate and grow their business and enhance productivity.
Features of GoToMeeting:
- Since it is cloud-based, it records all the meetings and intel in its cloud.
- Its Smart Meeting Assistant automatically transcribes meetings, highlights, and marks the important items from the agenda.
- It offers a wide range of workflow tools, such as Outlook, Chrome, Salesforce, etc., all of them integrated for easier workflow management.
- The meetings are password protected; therefore, accessibility is restricted and, thus, secure.
- The admin can even control invitees and remove anyone from the meeting.
- Also, once you start the meeting, you can lock it and approve only expected guests.
- The video, as well as the audio, is encrypted.
- You can share the content on the app through screen sharing or text chatting, all TLS-encrypted in transit and AES-encrypted during rest.
- Other features include the diagnostics report to analyze the meeting performance or look into troubleshooting issues.
GoToMeeting Pricing:
You can try its free version or the paid plans.
The professional plan starts from $10.50, while the Business plan starts from $14.25, allowing up to 250 participants. The Enterprise plan accommodates up to 3000 participants and can cost depending on the company’s needs.
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9. BlueJeans Meeting
Another one of the Zoom alternatives, BlueJeans Meeting, is a virtual meeting platform that allows amenities similar to Zoom. It is available on Google Play and App Store as well. It is rated 4.4 on Google Play based on 16,816 votes and 4.8 on the App Store as per 38,097 reviews at the time of publishing this article.
Features of BlueJeans Meeting:
- The audio calling feature allows Dolby to voice while the video calling offers HD quality clarity during virtual meetings.
- Up to 25 attendees can be displayed on the screen during a meeting.
- The Breakout session enables dividing meetings into smaller, manageable groups for interactive discussions.
- It allows universal and real-time closed captioning, screen readers to support disabled users.
- It also allows Smart Meetings wherein you can tag critical meeting moments, assign actions, and produce reels out of highlighted moments.
- Digital whiteboard, annotations, and screen sharing features enable interactive online sessions.
- Meetings are encrypted end-to-end and, thus, secure.
BlueJeans Meeting Pricing:
There is a free version as well as a free demo available. The paid plans are:
- Standard: It starts from $9.99.month for entry-level users.
- Pro: It starts from $13.99/month for boosting businesses using analytic tools and integration features.
- Enterprise: It starts from $16.66/month for large enterprises.
10. Join.me
A free alternative to the Zoom app, Join.me is a leading online meeting and collaborative team application that allows screen sharing, virtual meeting, and other Zoom-like features.
Capterra rates it 4.3 based on more than a thousand reviews from different viewers. You can download it on Google Play which rates it 3.5 as per 8,814 votes.
Features of Join.me:
- The interface is relatively easy.
- You can schedule meetings from Google Calendar or Outlook.
- The audio and video features come along with audio controls for hosts, live video bubbles, personal backgrounds, cloud retention, and no time limit.
- Join.me can be used across Android, iOS, PC, and iPad anytime and anywhere.
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Conclusion
All in all, Zoom has got quite a few competitors, as noted in the article. If you are not content with Zoom and the available resources, you can always follow any of the above Zoom alternatives/competitors and make your life and business easier. Have any questions? Check out the FAQs below.
Zoom FAQs:
How Many Alternative Hosts Can You Have In Zoom?
You can add up to 10 alternative hosts in Zoom.
Is There a Free Alternative to Zoom?
Zoom offers various free alternatives, such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Skype.
What Can I Use Instead of Zoom for Free?
You can opt for Skype as one of the oldest and most reliable alternatives to Zoom application for video and web conferencing or hosting meetings and interviews anytime and anywhere. You can even make calls to local phone numbers.
Who Is Zoom’s Biggest Competitor?
Microsoft Teams and Google Meet are the biggest and absolute top-rated Zoom competitors in the market.
Does Google Have a Zoom Equivalent?
Google Meet stands in competition with Zoom offering video and audio conferencing and an equally intuitive platform for users to connect, collaborate, and interact personally and professionally.
Is Microsoft Teams Better than Zoom?
Microsoft Teams is fast-growing and highly popular as a freely available Zoom alternative. Along with the free version, professionals and large institutions can opt for the premium plans to enjoy advanced features and access the privileges.
Why Is Zoom More Popular than Google Meet?
Zoom is comparatively far easier to use. The UI is more interactive, simpler, and far more intuitive than Google Meet. Also, the latter requires you to possess a Gmail account, sign in, and use the same to participate in a Google Meet meeting from your mobile device, which isn’t the case with Zoom.
