Online Meeting App: Google Meet vs Zoom Compared

Online meeting or conference video apps, The Free Video Conference App and Google Meet vs Zoom compared. The two leading Online learning meeting or conference video software.

In this post, we compared free Google Meet (Google Premium Video Meeting) conference App vs Zoom video conference App. We also listed other alternatives to Google Meet and Zoom video conferencing software/ apps on mobile and PC for people that are attending virtual classrooms and working from home. This post will be of help to you who might be wondering the best way to communicate with your colleagues, teachers, students and classmates.

With more and more people attending virtual classrooms and working from home, video conferencing and video conferencing app has become the way out. They are web-based tools, there are plenty of options for communicating online, ensuring that you can learn and work from home with ease.

Google Meet has become a popular video conferencing solution, adding millions of users every day. The platform, earlier known as Google Hangouts Meet, was initially known amongst large-scale organisations, enterprise customers, and establishments such as schools. However, with the spread of the coronavirus outbreak that has pushed a large number of people to start working from home, Google Meet has emerged as a household name. However, Google Meet is now available for free to everyone. This is undoubtedly a move to make things difficult for Zoom, an app that has attracted the masses, thanks to its free (limited) availability.

Google Meet and Zoom are strong competitor over each other and they have many good video conferencing features. However, they have many similarities. Recently, School Software Pro, a school management software in Nigeria allows Google Meet or/and Zoom integration. What this means, your school, college or university can fully go for online learning or visual classroom with your school management software 

Read: School Management Software with Google Meet or Zoom for e-learning

Google Meet and Zoom Pricing

Google Meet (Google Premium Video Meeting) conference App is now available for free to everyone. Google also has plan to make G Suite Essentials free through Sept. 30, 2020. Zoom has a free and paid plan. The free plan is with a limited feature and assess.

Google Meet and Zoom Platforms Availability

Google Meet and Zoom video conferencing app are available on desktops and laptops, both are available for mobile devices based on Android and iOS.

Google Meet is assessable directly on your browser, no installation is required. You just need to visit meet.google.com to host a meeting. Similarly, you can participate in a scheduled meeting by visiting its link in your eligible browser.

This isn’t the case with Zoom as it doesn’t allow you to host a meeting through a browser. Nevertheless, you can join a meeting via your browser. There are also plugins for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox that you can use to schedule your meeting.

Google Meet vs Zoom Meeting Time & Participants limit

Google Meet is free to everyone for one hour while Zoom has a free version for 40 mins limit on group meetings. Google also has plan to make G Suite Essentials free through Sept. 30, 2020. G Suite Essentials to get advanced Meet features plus Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides designed for business. Zoom, on the other hand, provides a 40 minutes limit on group meetings under its free option.

On the part of participants limit, both Google Meet and Zoom let you host up to 100 participants for each of your virtual meetings.

Google Meet vs Zoom: Security

Security is one of the key aspects that make Google Meet significantly different from Zoom. Zoom has also lately been in the limelight for security concerns and even recently released Zoom 5.0 to address some of them. To give some perspective, Google Meet supports multiple 2-step verification options for user accounts and adheres to IETF security standards for Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP). Google Meet also generates a unique encryption key that only exists as long as the meeting runs and is transmitted in an encrypted and secured RPC (remote procedure call) when the meeting is set up. In contrast, Zoom uses the AES 256-bit GCM encryption standard that is touted to be enabled across all accounts by May 30.

Decrypt.co wrote how over 500,000 Zoom users’ accounts are being sold on the dark web. Hackers used data from previous credential stuffing attacks. Recently, thousands of Zoom video call recordings were also leaked.

Read: Online Student Information Management System

Google Meet vs Zoom: Interface

Zoom is popular for its Gallery view that displays up to 49 participants on a single screen. However, Google Meet recently mimicked that interface by enabling an expanded tiled layout that simultaneously shows up to 16 participants at once. Google also recently added a low-light mode that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to adjust video on the basis of lighting conditions. The feature is initially limited to mobile users, though.

Google Meet vs Zoom: Screen sharing

Both Google Meet and Zoom provide the ability to share your screen with attendees of your virtual meeting. You can also enable real-time captions to understand what other participants

Google Meet vs Zoom: Recording

Both Google Meet and Zoom allows you to record meetings in MP4 (video) and M4A (audio) formats that you can store locally on your system.

Google Meet vs Zoom: A roundup

Features	Google Meet	Zoom
Availability	Web, Android, iOS	macOS, Windows, Android, iOS
Number of meetings	unlimited	unlimited
Direct Web access	Yes	No
Participants limit	100	100
Meeting time limit	60 minutes (unlimited until Sept. 30)	40 minutes
Multiple participants on single screen	Yes	Yes
Screen sharing	Yes	Yes
Recording support	No	Yes (on paid plan)

For schools that need online learning platform that will work with their School Management Software, they have solution with School Software Pro. An e-Learning Student Information System and School Management Software (All-in-One) in Nigeria

Other Alternatives to Zoom App for Video Meeting/ Conferencing while working from Home

Zoom gained a huge traction in a short span of time as several people are working from home due to the coronavirus outbreak. The video conference app pulled in more than 200 million daily active users in a month resently — significantly up from a maximum of 10 million users previously. However, despite its skyrocketing growth, Zoom has been under fire over security concerns. From schools and officials to various governments, people have been asked to refrain from using the app. The Indian government also recently warned its officials about the Zoom. Also, some of its users have alleged that the app sends data to third parties located in China.

That being said, its key features such as being able to video-conference with up to 100 people for free (up to 500 participants in paid plans) and recording support make the Zoom app a great solution for virtual meetings. The app is also available across platforms and can enable video calling through mobile devices. But if you don’t trust Zoom and are look for capable alternatives, you’re in the right place.

Here, we are listing top five free alternatives to the Zoom app to help with your video calling needs.

Cisco Webex Meetings

Cisco is offering free access to its Webex Meetings in all countries where it is available to support the work from home needs during the coronavirus outbreak. Despite being available as free, you’ll get all enterprise features including unlimited usage with no time restrictions, support for up to 100 participants, and a toll dial-in in addition to Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) capabilities. All you need is to sign up on the Cisco Webex portal to get started with the Webex Meetings. Overall, the experience that’s been offered by Cisco is nowhere limited when comparing with Zoom.

Skype Meet Now

For users who don’t to go with an highly enterprise-focussed solution like Cisco Webex, Microsoft recently brought Skype Meet Now that serves as an alternative to Zoom. It works without requiring an account and supports up to 50 participants — all for free. You’ll also get features such as the ability to record calls, blur background before entering the call, and screen sharing. Moreover, you just need to visit the dedicated webpage to begin with Skype Meet.

Microsoft Teams

If you don’t want a solution just to make video calls, you can look at Microsoft Teams. It is also available for free during the pandemic. The free version brings unlimited chat and search, group and one-on-one audio and video calling, and 10GB of team file storage along with 2GB of personal file storage per person. If you already have an Office 365 account, you’ll get real-time collaboration with Office apps for Web, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Discord

Discord has also emerged as a strong alternative to Zoom, thanks to its video conferencing capabilities that let you connect with up to 50 participants at once. The platform is popular amongst gamers, though you can use it as a tool to communicate with your office team or some friends. You can also download its mobile app to connect with your contacts using your smartphone. There are also features to share your screen or perform voice calls. Just like other free alternatives to Zoom, Discord provides video conferencing at no cost. You just need to sign up on the Discord site or through its app to get started with your virtual conferences.

Google Hangouts

If you don’t want to use Discord for any reason, you can opt for Google Hangouts, which is also a decent, free alternative to Zoom. You can make video calls with up to 10 participants or chat with up to 150 participants at once. Google also lets you host video calls or talk with your colleagues through text messages using a mobile device. Further, being a Google product, Hangouts just needs your Gmail account to let you get started. If you are open to pay, you’ll be able to increase the limit for video calls to up to 25 participants as well.