Google Meet VS Zoom : Which Video Conferencing Platform Is The Best?

Google Meet and Zoom are the two most popular apps for video conferencing during this pandemic, as the majority of the world’s population is working from home. Zoom is a Chinese app, while Google Meet is by Google. So, which one is the better platform? Let’s take a look at both the apps individually:

Google Meet

This is a featured program available to all the people having a G Suite account. This app lets you connect with people via audio and video through your phone’s Meet app or your computer’s browser. Launching a meeting is relatively easy, and the invites are sent through the mail. You can invite people that are in your Gmail contact list or can directly add people through Meet. 

This app gives you a unique meeting ID that you can use many times. You can also hold multiple meetings at the same time. Unlike Zoom, Meet doesn’t require an additional add-on. But the dashboard is a little complicated when compared to Zooms. Take a look at Facebook’s Messenger’s new Room feature which also adds some similar benefits. 

This app lets you share documents and images through the chat of your meeting room. You can also share your screen in the meeting for others to see which is helpful when showing presentations or videos. Access to Google Meet is free. Personal accounts can conduct 1 hour of video conferences with multiple people. But to record and store meetings, you would need a G-Suite account, and the basic package starts at $6 per user per month and also lets you host gatherings with 100 people. The G-Suite Business and Enterprise package enables you to invite 150 and 250 participants, respectively.

Zoom

Zoom is one of the most downloaded apps right now. This platform is straightforward to use, and the quality of both audio and video is quite good. You can also add the Chrome and Outlook plugin to make it easier for you to launch a meeting or invite people to the meeting without having to close the app. This app is compatible with all types of operating systems as well as all smartphones. You can access Zoom either as a participant or a host. In Zoom, you can share your screen during a meeting for presentations, and it also lets you create breakout rooms for specific collaborations. 

There can be more than one host in a single session, and they can control almost anything during a meeting such as muting or un-muting a participant or inviting others to join the meeting. You can share videos, images and documents through the chat. Zoom is handy if a part of your group needs to share a monitor. Zoom is one of the video conferencing apps that work on Linux. Though Zoom is easy to use, the app opens a new window by default for the meeting room. This makes it complicated if you have a setup of many monitors. 

Zoom is generally free of cost, but you are capped to only 40 minutes each meeting. In the free version, up to 100 people can join in a single session, but it doesn’t let you record and store the meetings for later use. It also doesn’t allow call-in participants. Zoom Pro charges $14 per month and allows the session to continue for as long as they want. You are also given 1GB of cloud storage to record videos, but space fills up fairly quickly, and you need to buy additional storage.

Final Verdict

Ultimately, both Zoom and Google Meet are almost the same in terms of features and tools available. But Google Meet is the better platform if you have participants that need to call in rather than join via video because no additional fee is charged. Google Meet is cost-effective. But make sure to learn about security considerations while doing video meetings. There are several fraudulent happening in this age, and it is our responsibility to stay alert.

Zoom is the better option for setting up meetings in a conference room because it integrates conferencing equipment which allows a large number of participants to join a meeting. 

ZOOM: BEST FOR LARGE CONFERENCES

GOOGLE MEET: BEST FOR QUICK MEETINGS

Let us know which video conferencing platform you are using, and why?