Managed IT Support Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom: The Conclusive Videoconferencing Fight
The COVID-19 pandemic required employees to work from home, however the program had to go on in some way. Overnight, videoconferencing platforms turned into the lifeline that held businesses together. Even as operations return to regular, videoconferencing service providers are pouring resources into their products.
The two main partnership suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer videoconferencing capabilities, but we would be remiss not to consist of one of the most popular videoconferencing apps in the market today-- Zoom.
At this moment, your service is nearly guaranteed to have a videoconferencing platform already. If not, or if you are wanting to change platforms, continue checking out below for a breakdown of functions and choices that will assist you make your choice.
Are your meetings long or short? Are you mostly meeting internally or with leads and customers? Will you be hosting webinars?
It goes without stating, if your company is currently subscribed to Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and you enjoy with the platform, you ought to utilize Teams or Meet respectively. If you are not registered for either and merely need a standalone videoconferencing app, Zoom has a complimentary variation that ought to fix the majority of your needs.
In the areas below, we will compare all three major videoconferencing platforms based upon numerous metrics you ought to consider prior to choosing the right one for your service.
Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: Integration with your other apps/services
Before diving into the complete list of features for each platform, it is important to comprehend how much you obtain from the totality of what you are spending for.
Groups and Meet are part of larger performance suites, whereas Zoom is a standalone product with all the videoconferencing-specific functions you may need. While Teams and Meet can be acquired 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 abilities. For less than Zoom Pro, the M365 Business Standard and Workspace Business subscriptions include a complete suite of service applications.
With Microsoft 365, you get a fully integrated experience with desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. The biggest selling point of Microsoft is how quickly the apps deal with each other, and the most significant distinction between Teams and its competitors is how centralized the suite is.
Teams leaps perfectly from instant messaging to video calls, with the capability to change backward and forward in between them.
On The Other Hand, Google Meet is independent of Workspace's chat app, Google Chat. While users can make use of both Workspace apps all at once, the separation of the two is a bit counterproductive.
With M365 and Teams, all chats, recorded meetings, and files are all housed in the same central place, making searchability far much easier.
With Meet and Zoom, you will need to look for conserved chats from old conferences, or in the case of Meet, head over to Google Chat.
This is also the case when working on collective files. Any files attached in a Teams chat will appear under its files tab at the top of the window, implying you don't need to lose time chasing them down when you need them.
Microsoft offers even more applications in their plans than Google, however numerous go unnoticed.
For instance, Microsoft Sway permits you to rapidly grab and cut a recorded Teams meeting that you can then house locally within Teams itself.
In the case that somebody shows up late to a conference, or an employee records the same meeting and lets it run for hours after its conclusion, you can rapidly get the part of the conference you require and wait.
This bypasses the storage that would be eaten up by an hours-long video, in addition to the time it would require to submit, trim, and export stated video from a video editing platform.
Additionally, all 3 platforms do have combinations with various other business applications, so be sure to examine compatibility with any apps you currently use, and these platforms.
Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: Features
Comparing Free Versions vs. Paid
Microsoft, Google, and Zoom have all adapted well to the demand for specific features on their platforms, hence most of the very same features overlap throughout prepare for all 3 suites. This consists of screen sharing, video recording, live captions, and everybody's favorite: custom backgrounds. When it comes to some other features, they vary throughout each business's offerings.
A table depicting the various plans and features of Microsoft Teams vs. Google Meet vs. Zoom Audio Conferencing On-the-Go
While present throughout the board, dial-in abilities vary across strategies. Meet provides dial-in for free with any of their paid strategies, one of the greatest advantages that the platform has over its competitors.
Teams uses its dial-in capability for $4 extra per user, monthly; while Zoom's dial-in is toll-based.
Both Teams and Meet deal internet-based PBX options that can replace your internal phones, while Zoom's toll-based setup is not practical.
Microsoft 365 Business Voice incorporates flawlessly with Teams, permitting employees to take company on the go, all with complete continuity.
Video Quality-- Who Supports the very best?
As of the time of this post, each platform shows video in HD, but the quality differs. Teams is capable of 1080p video at 30 frames per second if you have 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth.
Zoom likewise has 1080p video, but it is limited to the platform's organization or enterprise plans. 1080p can also be allowed by Zoom assistance in particular cases. Zoom's 1080p performance needs 1.8 brisbane it support 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 get up to 720p video.
Audio quality across platforms depends upon microphone and speaker quality, along with the quality of your web connection.
Rooms and Workspaces-- Breaking Things Down
Breakout rooms are basically conferences that run all at once to the initial videoconference. These were particularly required for virtual education, so teachers might break students out into different groups to discover.
There is a clear energy for breakout spaces in professional spaces, too. If a larger team is meeting about a project, breaking down jobs into smaller groups, breakout rooms could be a great service.
Both Teams and Zoom have breakout spaces belonging to their base platforms, throughout all plans. These spaces are essentially meetings that are running concurrently to the initial videoconference.
Meet enables breakout spaces through their standard and plus plans, but not in the totally free or fundamental strategies. Like the majority of Google functions on more affordable plans, you can add Google Chrome extensions, but this could be more of a headache than it is worth in the end.
Just recently, Microsoft likewise presented Together Mode, which utilizes AI to place video participants in different digital settings, together. While the energy is light, Together Mode could be a solid spirits booster.
Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: Privacy and Safety
To its credit, Zoom reacted quickly to the "Zoom bombing" of the early days of the pandemic, adding end-to-end encryption and beefing up their privacy policy. Unfortunately, over 500,000 Zoom accounts were taken and posted for sale online quickly thereafter.
While Meet has actually not had any famous incidents of privacy breaches, Google has actually had a lot of privacy concerns and a track record of gathering data for usage in advertising.
Microsoft has the best performance history of security and they likewise have the most transparent personal privacy policy.
All 3 platforms support two-factor authentication. Considering that 99% of cybersecurity attacks include a password aspect, two-factor authentication is a need to if you want a legitimate defense against cybercriminals.
As a part of the broader M365 suite, all chats, notes, and files are encrypted and kept within OneNote and SharePoint, respectively.
Furthermore, Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is readily available on its Business Premium and E5 strategies, blocking possibly harmful content from being accessed by those in your business.
Microsoft also uses Data Loss Protection (DLP) to catch sensitive information being shared (like social security numbers), and automatically block it from being sent.
In addition to eDiscovery and legal holds within channels, chats, and files, Teams ensures you remain certified with all data storage regulations.
A graphic showing the path of info as it is secured from Microsoft Teams through Microsoft 365.
Google does use eDiscovery in their Business and Enterprise strategies and DLP in their Enterprise strategy only, however these are just restricted to Drive and Gmail. From what we can see Meet has no particularly listed DLP abilities.Zoom does not offer any of these features on its main platform.
Overall, Zoom has reacted well to its privacy difficulties, however the modifications are largely cosmetic.
End-to-end file encryption (E2EE) is excellent to have, but its addition was more of a reaction to an issue than a total service. It is not likely that E2EE protects 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 discussions where sensitive info may be shared, and it will be readily available on Teams quickly according to Microsoft.
The videoconferencing company has less to worry about since they are a single-purpose app, dealing solely with videoconferencing, and not the storage of files, chats, and other details like Microsoft or Google.
Based on reputation alone, Microsoft stands well above the others in regards to security.
Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: The Verdict
Though many videoconferencing platforms have similar features, your business's precise requirements need to identify whether you select Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom.
For base-level features at a budget-friendly rate, it is difficult to beat Zoom, who is focused entirely on videoconferencing. For the most bang for your buck, Teams ties your entire company together in one space, with the very best possible features and security offered.
If you are trying to find an all-in-one partnership center that keeps all your interaction in one space, we extremely recommend Microsoft Teams.
IT Support Guys has leveraged the power of Microsoft 365 given that 2008 when it was still called Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and we have actually continued our partnership up until today day.