Managed IT Support Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom: The Definitive Videoconferencing Fight
The COVID-19 pandemic forced staff members to work from house, but the show needed to go on in some way. Overnight, videoconferencing platforms became the lifeline that held businesses together. Even as operations go back to normal, videoconferencing service providers are pouring resources into their products.
The 2 main cooperation suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace deal videoconferencing capabilities, but we would be remiss not to consist of among the most popular videoconferencing apps in the market today-- Zoom.
At this point, your business is almost guaranteed to have a videoconferencing platform currently. If not, or if you are looking to alter platforms, continue checking out below for a breakdown of functions and options that will help you make your choice.
Are your conferences long or short? Are you mostly satisfying internally or with leads and clients? Will you be hosting webinars?
It goes without stating, if your business is currently registered for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and you are happy with the platform, you ought to use Teams or Meet respectively. If you are not registered for either and simply need a standalone videoconferencing app, Zoom has a complimentary version that needs to fix the majority of your needs.
In the sections listed below, we will compare all three significant videoconferencing platforms based on different metrics you need to think about prior to choosing the right one for your company.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Integration with your other apps/services
Prior to diving into the complete list of features for each platform, it is essential to comprehend just how much you get from the entirety of what you are paying for.
Groups and Meet belong to bigger performance suites, whereas Zoom is a standalone product with all the videoconferencing-specific features you might require. While Teams and Meet can be procured individually, they are best bundled with their larger suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Case in point, a Zoom Pro membership just gives you videoconferencing abilities. For less than Zoom Pro, the M365 Business Standard and Workspace Business memberships consist of a complete suite of company applications.
With Microsoft 365, you get a totally incorporated experience with desktop variations of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. The biggest selling point of Microsoft is how easily the apps work with each other, and the most significant difference between Teams and its rivals is how centralized the suite is.
Groups leaps perfectly from instant messaging to video calls, with the capability to switch back and forth between them.
Google Meet is independent of Workspace's chat app, Google Chat. While users can use both Workspace apps at the same time, the separation of the 2 is a bit counterproductive.
With M365 and Teams, all chats, recorded meetings, and files are all housed in the exact same main location, making searchability far simpler.
With Meet and Zoom, you will have to seek out saved chats from old conferences, or in the case of Meet, head over to Google Chat.
This is also the case when working on collaborative files. Any files attached in a Teams chat will appear under its files tab at the top of the window, meaning you do not have to waste time chasing them down when you need them.
Microsoft offers even more applications in their strategies than Google, however numerous go unnoticed.
For example, Microsoft Sway allows you to quickly grab and trim a tape-recorded Teams satisfying that you can then house in your area within Teams itself.
In the case that someone gets here late to a meeting, or an employee records the very same conference and lets it run for hours after its conclusion, you can quickly get the part of the meeting you require and save it.
This bypasses the storage that would be consumed by an hours-long video clip, as well as the time it would take to upload, trim, and export said video from a video editing platform.
Furthermore, all 3 platforms do have integrations with different other company applications, so make sure to look at 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 particular features on their platforms, thus most of the same functions overlap across 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 business's offerings.
A table portraying the various plans and functions of Microsoft Teams vs. Google Meet vs. Zoom Audio Conferencing On-the-Go
While present across the board, dial-in capabilities vary across plans. Meet provides dial-in totally free with any of their paid strategies, one of the biggest advantages that the platform has more than its competitors.Groups offers 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, allowing employees to take service on the go, all with complete continuity.
Video Quality-- Who Supports the 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 also has 1080p video, however it is limited to the platform's company or enterprise strategies. 1080p can likewise be enabled by Zoom support in specific cases. Zoom's 1080p functionality needs 1.8 Mbps of bandwidth for 1-on-1 calls and 2.5 Mbps on group calls.
Meet will default to 360p video, however it can send out and receive approximately 720p video.
Audio quality throughout platforms depends upon microphone and speaker quality, along with the quality of your web connection.
Spaces and Workspaces-- Breaking Things Down
Breakout rooms are essentially conferences that run simultaneously to the initial videoconference. These were especially necessary for virtual education, so instructors could break trainees out into different groups to find out.
There is a clear energy for breakout rooms in expert spaces, too. If a bigger team is fulfilling about a job, breaking down tasks into smaller sized groups, breakout spaces might be a terrific solution.
Both Teams and Zoom have breakout spaces belonging to their base platforms, across all plans. These rooms are essentially conferences that are running all at once to the original videoconference.
Meet allows breakout spaces through their basic and plus plans, however not in the totally free or standard plans. Like the majority of Google functions on more affordable strategies, you can include Google Chrome extensions, however this might be more of a headache than it is worth in the end.
Recently, Microsoft also rolled out Together Mode, which utilizes AI to place video participants in various digital settings, together. While the energy is light, Together Mode could be a strong spirits booster.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Privacy and Safety
To its credit, Zoom responded quickly to the "Zoom battle" of the early days of the pandemic, adding end-to-end encryption and beefing up their personal privacy policy. Over 500,000 Zoom accounts were stolen and published for sale online quickly afterwards.
While Meet has not had any famous events of privacy breaches, Google has had lots of privacy issues and a performance history of collecting data for use in marketing.
Microsoft has the best track record of security and they likewise have the most transparent privacy policy.
All 3 platforms support two-factor authentication. Thinking about that 99% of cybersecurity attacks include a password component, two-factor authentication is a should if you desire a legitimate defense against cybercriminals.
As a part of the broader M365 suite, all chats, notes, and files are secured and kept within OneNote and SharePoint, respectively.
Furthermore, Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is readily available on its Business Premium and E5 strategies, obstructing potentially malicious content from being accessed by those it service gold coast in your company.
Microsoft also utilizes Data Loss Protection (DLP) to catch sensitive information being shared (like social security numbers), and instantly obstruct it from being sent.
Together with eDiscovery and legal holds within channels, chats, and files, Teams guarantees you remain compliant with all information storage regulations.
A graphic revealing the course of information as it is encrypted from Microsoft Teams through Microsoft 365.
Google does use eDiscovery in their Business and Enterprise plans 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 use any of these features on its primary platform.
In general, Zoom has actually responded well to its privacy challenges, but the changes are largely cosmetic.
End-to-end file encryption (E2EE) is great to have, however its addition was more of an action to a problem than a total option. It is unlikely 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 available on Teams quickly according to Microsoft.
The videoconferencing business has less to stress over since they are a single-purpose app, dealing entirely with videoconferencing, and not the storage of files, chats, and other info like Microsoft or Google.
Based on reputation alone, Microsoft stands well above the others in terms of security.
Since your data is all saved in a single area, Teams and its security features take your performance hub and turns it into your business's own data fortress. This second level of security and personal privacy makes it the safest, in our experience.
Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: The Verdict
A lot of videoconferencing platforms have similar features, your business's exact needs ought to figure out whether you choose Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom.
For base-level functions at a budget friendly price, it is tough 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 best possible features and security readily available.
If you are trying to find an all-in-one collaboration hub that keeps all your interaction in one space, we highly advise Microsoft Teams.
IT Support Guys has leveraged the power of Microsoft 365 since 2008 when it was still called Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and we have actually continued our collaboration till today day.