Managed IT Support Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom: The Definitive Videoconferencing Battle
The COVID-19 pandemic required workers to work from home, however the show needed to go on in some way. Overnight, videoconferencing platforms became the lifeline that held companies together. Even as operations go back to normal, videoconferencing providers are putting resources into their products.
The two main partnership suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace deal videoconferencing capabilities, however we would be remiss not to include one of the most popular videoconferencing apps in the market today-- Zoom.
At this moment, your company is nearly guaranteed to have a videoconferencing platform already. If not, or if you are looking to change platforms, continue reading listed below for a breakdown of features and alternatives that will help you make your choice.
Are your meetings long or short? Are you primarily fulfilling internally or with leads and customers? Will you be hosting webinars?
It goes without saying, if your business is already registered for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and you enjoy with the platform, you need to use Teams or Meet respectively. If you are not registered for either and simply require a standalone videoconferencing app, Zoom has a free version that ought to solve the majority of your requirements.
In the sections below, we will compare all three major videoconferencing platforms based upon different metrics you ought to think about prior to picking the best one for your service.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Integration with your other apps/services
Prior to diving into the complete list of functions for each platform, it is essential to comprehend how much you get from the entirety of what you are spending for.
Teams and Meet belong to bigger performance suites, whereas Zoom is a standalone item with all the videoconferencing-specific features you might need. While Teams and Meet can be obtained independently, they are best bundled with their larger suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Case in point, a Zoom Pro membership only offers you videoconferencing capabilities. For less than Zoom Pro, the M365 Business Standard and Workspace Business subscriptions consist of a full suite of business applications.
With Microsoft 365, you get a totally integrated experience with desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. The most significant selling point of Microsoft is how quickly the apps deal with each other, and the most significant difference between Teams and its competitors is how centralized the suite is.
Teams jumps effortlessly from instant messaging to video calls, with the capability to change backward and forward in between them.
Google Meet is independent of Workspace's chat app, Google Chat. While users can make use of both Workspace apps concurrently, the separation of the 2 is a bit counterintuitive.
With M365 and Teams, all chats, taped conferences, and files are all housed in the same central area, making searchability far easier.
With Meet and Zoom, you will have to look for conserved chats from old meetings, or in the case of Meet, head over to Google Chat.
This is also the case when working on collective files. Any files connected in a Teams chat will appear under its files tab at the top of the window, meaning you do not need to lose time chasing them down when you require them.
Microsoft provides a lot more applications in their strategies than Google, though many go unnoticed.
Microsoft Sway enables you to quickly get and trim a tape-recorded Teams fulfilling that you can then house locally within Teams itself.
In the event that somebody arrives late to a meeting, or a worker records the exact same meeting and lets it run for hours after its conclusion, you can quickly grab the part of the meeting you require and wait.
This bypasses the storage that would be consumed by an hours-long video, as well as the time it would require to submit, trim, and export stated video from a video editing platform.
Additionally, all three platforms do have integrations with various other company applications, so make sure to check on compatibility with any apps you already utilize, and these platforms.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Features
Comparing Free Versions vs. Paid
Microsoft, Google, and Zoom have actually all adjusted well to the demand for certain features on their platforms, thus the majority of the same features overlap throughout plans for all 3 suites. This consists of screen sharing, video recording, live captions, and everybody's favorite: custom-made backgrounds. As for some other features, they vary across each company's offerings.
A table portraying the different plans and features of Microsoft Teams vs. Google Meet vs. Zoom Audio Conferencing On-the-Go
While present across the board, dial-in abilities differ across strategies. Meet provides dial-in for free with any of their paid strategies, among the most significant benefits that the platform has over its rivals.Teams provides its dial-in capability for $4 extra per user, per month; while Zoom's dial-in is toll-based.
Both Teams and Meet deal internet-based PBX services that can change your internal phones, while Zoom's toll-based setup is not useful.
Microsoft 365 Business Voice integrates effortlessly with Teams, permitting staff members to take company on the go, all with complete connection.
Video Quality-- Who Supports the very best?
Since the time of this post, each platform displays video in HD, but the quality varies. Teams can 1080p video at 30 frames per second if you have 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth.
Zoom likewise has 1080p video, but it is restricted to the platform's company or enterprise plans. 1080p can also be made it possible for by Zoom assistance in particular cases. Zoom's 1080p performance requires 1.8 Mbps of bandwidth for 1-on-1 calls and 2.5 Mbps on group calls.
Meet will default to 360p video, but it can send out and receive approximately 720p video.
Audio quality across platforms depends on microphone and speaker quality, in addition to the quality of your web connection.
Rooms and Workspaces-- Breaking Things Down
Breakout rooms are basically meetings that run simultaneously to the original videoconference. These were particularly necessary for virtual education, so teachers could break students out into different groups to find out.
There is a clear utility for breakout rooms in professional areas, too. If a bigger team is meeting about a job, breaking down jobs into smaller groups, breakout rooms might be a fantastic service.
Both Teams and Zoom have breakout spaces belonging to their base platforms, throughout all plans. These rooms are basically conferences that are running simultaneously to the initial videoconference.
Meet enables breakout rooms through their basic and plus plans, however not in the complimentary or fundamental strategies. Nevertheless, like the majority of Google functions on cheaper strategies, you can include Google Chrome extensions, but this might be more of a headache than it deserves in the end.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Privacy and Safety
To its credit, Zoom reacted swiftly to the "Zoom bombing" of the early days of the pandemic, adding end-to-end file encryption and beefing up their privacy policy. Over 500,000 Zoom accounts were stolen and posted for sale online soon afterwards.
While Meet has actually not had any popular events of privacy breaches, Google has had a lot of personal privacy concerns and a performance history of collecting information for usage in marketing.
Microsoft has the very best performance history of security and they likewise have the most transparent privacy policy.
All 3 platforms support two-factor authentication. Considering that 99% of cybersecurity attacks involve a password aspect, two-factor authentication is a need to if you desire a genuine defense versus cybercriminals.
As a part of the larger M365 suite, all chats, notes, and files are secured and kept within OneNote and SharePoint, respectively.
Additionally, Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is available on its Business Premium and E5 strategies, blocking potentially malicious material from being accessed by those in your business.
Microsoft also uses Data Loss Protection (DLP) to capture sensitive information being shared (like social security numbers), and automatically obstruct it from being sent out.
Along with eDiscovery and legal holds within channels, chats, and files, Teams ensures you remain compliant with all data storage guidelines.
A graphic showing the course of details as it is encrypted from Microsoft Teams through Microsoft 365.
Google does provide eDiscovery in their Business and Enterprise strategies and DLP in their Enterprise plan just, however these are only restricted to Drive and Gmail. From what we can see Meet has actually no particularly noted DLP abilities.Zoom does not provide any of these functions on its main platform.
Overall, Zoom has actually reacted well to its privacy challenges, but the modifications are mostly cosmetic.
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is excellent to have, but its addition was more of a response to an issue than a complete service. It is not likely that E2EE safeguards most users from more than file encryption in transit and at rest, like with Teams and Meet.
E2EE is most beneficial in 1-on-1 conversations where delicate info may be shared, and it will be available on Teams soon according to Microsoft.
The videoconferencing business has less to worry about due to the fact that they are a single-purpose app, dealing exclusively with videoconferencing, and not the storage of files, chats, and other info like Microsoft or Google.
Based upon track record alone, Microsoft stands well above the others in regards to security.
Due to the fact that your data is all stored in a single space, Teams and its security features take your productivity hub and turns it into your business's own information fortress. This second level of protection and privacy makes it the best, in our experience.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: The Verdict
Though the majority of videoconferencing platforms have comparable functions, your business's on site support precise needs ought to determine whether you select Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom.
For base-level functions at an economical price, it is tough to beat Zoom, who is focused entirely on videoconferencing. For the most value, Teams ties your entire company together in one area, with the best possible features and security readily available.
If you are looking for an all-in-one partnership center that keeps all your communication in one area, we extremely advise Microsoft Teams.
IT Support Guys has actually leveraged the power of Microsoft 365 given that 2008 when it was still called Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and we have continued our collaboration until the present day.