Managed IT Support Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom: The Definitive Videoconferencing Fight
The COVID-19 pandemic forced workers to work from home, but the program needed to go on somehow. Overnight, videoconferencing platforms turned into the lifeline that held businesses together. Even as operations go back to normal, videoconferencing companies are pouring resources into their items.
The 2 main collaboration suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer videoconferencing capabilities, however we would be remiss not to consist of one of the most popular videoconferencing apps in the market today-- Zoom.
At this point, your organization is almost ensured to have a videoconferencing platform currently. If not, or if you are wanting to alter platforms, continue checking out listed below for a breakdown of features and choices that will assist you make your choice.
Are your meetings long or short? Are you mainly meeting internally or with leads and customers? Will you be hosting webinars?
It goes without saying, if your company is currently registered for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and you more than happy with the platform, you need to use Teams or Meet respectively. If you are not registered for either and merely require a standalone videoconferencing app, Zoom has a free variation that should resolve the majority of your needs.
In the areas below, we will compare all three major videoconferencing platforms based upon different metrics you should think about before picking the best one for your organization.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Integration with your other apps/services
Before diving into the full list of functions for each platform, it is essential to understand how much you receive from the entirety of what you are spending for.
Groups and Meet belong to larger productivity suites, whereas Zoom is a standalone product with all the videoconferencing-specific features you may need. While Teams and Meet can be acquired independently, they are best bundled with their bigger suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Case in point, a Zoom Pro subscription just provides you videoconferencing abilities. For less than Zoom Pro, the M365 Business Standard and Workspace Business subscriptions consist of a complete suite of service applications.
With Microsoft 365, you get a totally incorporated experience with desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. The greatest selling point of Microsoft is how easily the apps work with each other, and the greatest distinction in between Teams and its competitors is how centralized the suite is.
Teams jumps flawlessly from instant messaging to video calls, with the ability to switch back and forth in between them.
Meanwhile, 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 two is a bit counterproductive.
With M365 and Teams, all chats, taped conferences, and files are all housed in the exact same central location, making searchability far simpler.
With Meet and Zoom, you will have to seek out remote computer access saved chats from old meetings, or when it comes to 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, suggesting you don't need to waste time chasing them down when you need them.
Microsoft offers even more applications in their plans than Google, however lots of go undetected.
Microsoft Sway permits you to rapidly get 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 conference, or an employee records the very same conference and lets it run for hours after its conclusion, you can rapidly get the part of the conference you need and wait.
This bypasses the storage that would be consumed by an hours-long video clip, as well as the time it would require to publish, cut, and export said video from a video editing platform.
In addition, all 3 platforms do have integrations with different other business applications, so be sure to check on compatibility with any apps you currently utilize, 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 particular features on their platforms, hence the majority of the exact same features overlap throughout prepare for all three suites. This consists of screen sharing, video recording, live captions, and everybody's favorite: customized backgrounds. When it comes to some other features, they vary across each company's offerings.
A table portraying the various strategies 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 plans. Meet provides dial-in for free with any of their paid plans, one of the biggest benefits that the platform has over its competitors.Groups offers its dial-in capability for $4 additional 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 useful.
Microsoft 365 Business Voice integrates perfectly with Teams, allowing staff members to take company on the go, all with complete continuity.
Video Quality-- Who Supports the very best?
Since the time of this post, each platform shows video in HD, however the quality differs. Groups 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 business or business strategies. 1080p can also be enabled by Zoom assistance in certain 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 get as much as 720p video.
Audio quality across platforms depends on microphone and speaker quality, in addition to the quality of your web connection.
Spaces and Workspaces-- Breaking Things Down
Breakout spaces are basically meetings that run at the same time to the original videoconference. These were especially needed for virtual education, so teachers could break students out into separate groups to discover.
There is a clear utility for breakout rooms in expert spaces, too. If a bigger group is meeting about a project, breaking down tasks into smaller groups, breakout rooms might be a terrific solution.
Both Teams and Zoom have actually breakout rooms native to their base platforms, throughout all strategies. These spaces are essentially meetings that are running concurrently to the original videoconference.
Meet enables breakout rooms through their basic and plus plans, however not in the free or standard strategies. Like many Google functions on cheaper plans, you can add Google Chrome extensions, however this could be more of a headache than it is worth in the end.
Just recently, Microsoft also rolled out Together Mode, which utilizes AI to put video individuals in various digital settings, together. While the utility is light, Together Mode might be a strong spirits booster.
Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: Privacy and Safety
To its credit, Zoom responded swiftly 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 published for sale online quickly thereafter.
While Meet has not had any well-known occurrences of personal privacy breaches, Google has had lots of personal privacy concerns and a track record of collecting information for use in advertising.
Microsoft has the best performance history 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 must if you want a legitimate defense against cybercriminals.
As a part of the larger M365 suite, all chats, notes, and files are encrypted and saved within OneNote and SharePoint, respectively.
In Addition, Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is available on its Business Premium and E5 strategies, obstructing possibly malicious content from being accessed by those in your company.
Microsoft likewise utilizes Data Loss Protection (DLP) to catch sensitive information being shared (like social security numbers), and instantly block it from being sent.
In addition to eDiscovery and legal holds within channels, talks, and files, Teams guarantees you remain compliant with all data storage policies.
A graphic showing the course of info as it is secured from Microsoft Teams through Microsoft 365.
Google does provide eDiscovery in their Business and Enterprise plans and DLP in their Enterprise plan only, but these are just limited to Drive and Gmail. From what we can see Meet has actually no particularly listed DLP capabilities.Zoom does not use any of these functions on its primary platform.
In general, Zoom has responded well to its personal privacy challenges, but the changes 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 solution. It is not likely that E2EE protects most users from more than encryption in transit and at rest, like with Teams and Meet.
The videoconferencing business has less to fret about due to the fact that they are a single-purpose app, dealing solely with videoconferencing, and not the storage of files, talks, and other info like Microsoft or Google.
Based upon track record alone, Microsoft stands well above the others in regards to security.
Since your information is all stored in a single area, Teams and its security features take your efficiency hub and turns it into your business's own information fortress. This 2nd level of security and personal privacy makes it the most safe, in our experience.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: The Verdict
The majority of videoconferencing platforms have comparable features, your organization's precise needs should figure out whether you select Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom.
For base-level features at an affordable cost, it is hard to beat Zoom, who is focused solely on videoconferencing. For the most value, Teams ties your entire business together in one space, with the best possible functions and security available.
If you are trying to find an all-in-one collaboration center that keeps all your communication in one area, we extremely advise Microsoft Teams.
IT Support Guys has leveraged the power of Microsoft 365 considering that 2008 when it was still called Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and we have actually continued our partnership up until the present day.