Managed IT Support Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom: The Definitive Videoconferencing Fight
The COVID-19 pandemic required employees to work from home, but the program needed to go on somehow. Overnight, videoconferencing platforms became the lifeline that held organizations together. Even as operations go back to regular, videoconferencing suppliers are pouring resources into their products.
The two primary partnership suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer videoconferencing capabilities, however we would be remiss not to consist of among the most popular videoconferencing apps in the market today– Zoom.
At this point, your organization is nearly ensured to have a videoconferencing platform currently. If not, or if you are wanting to change platforms, continue reading listed below for a breakdown of functions and choices 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 saying, if your company is currently registered for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and you are happy with the platform, you must utilize Teams or Meet respectively. If you are not subscribed to either and simply need a standalone videoconferencing app, Zoom has a complimentary version that must fix the majority of your requirements.
In the sections listed below, we will compare all three major videoconferencing platforms based upon various metrics you need to think about before choosing the ideal one for your company.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Integration with your other apps/services
Prior to diving into the complete list of functions for each platform, it is necessary to understand just how much you receive from the totality of what you are paying for.
Teams and Meet are part of bigger productivity suites, whereas Zoom is a standalone product with all the videoconferencing-specific functions you may need. While Teams and Meet can be procured independently, they are best bundled with their bigger suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Case in point, a Zoom Pro membership just offers you videoconferencing abilities. For less than Zoom Pro, the M365 Business Standard and Workspace Business subscriptions include a full suite of company applications.
With Microsoft 365, you get a completely integrated experience with desktop variations 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 between Teams and its competitors is how centralized the suite is.
Teams leaps perfectly from instantaneous messaging to video calls, with the ability to switch back and forth between them.
Google Meet is independent of Workspace’s chat app, Google Chat. While users can make use of both Workspace apps at the same time, the separation of the two is a bit counterintuitive.
With M365 and Teams, all chats, tape-recorded conferences, and files are all housed in the exact same main area, making searchability far much easier.
With Meet and Zoom, you will need to seek out saved chats from old conferences, or in the case of Meet, head over to Google Chat.
This is likewise 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 lose time chasing them down when you require them.
Microsoft provides even more applications in their plans than Google, however lots of go undetected.
For example, Microsoft Sway permits you to rapidly get and cut a taped Teams fulfilling that you can then house in your area within Teams itself.
In the case that somebody shows up late to a meeting, or a staff member records the same conference 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 clip, along with the time it would require to publish, trim, and export said video from a video modifying platform.
Furthermore, all 3 platforms do have integrations with different other organization applications, so make sure to check on 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 certain functions on their platforms, therefore most of the exact same functions overlap across plans for all 3 suites. This includes screen sharing, video recording, live captions, and everybody’s favorite: customized backgrounds. As for some other features, they differ throughout each company’s offerings.
A table depicting the different strategies and functions of Microsoft Teams vs. Google Meet vs. Zoom Audio Conferencing On-the-Go
While present throughout the board, dial-in abilities vary throughout plans. Meet provides dial-in for free with any of their paid plans, one of the biggest advantages that the platform has over its competitors.
Teams provides its dial-in capability for $4 extra per user, monthly; while Zoom’s dial-in is toll-based.
Both Teams and Meet offer internet-based PBX solutions that can change your internal phones, while Zoom’s toll-based setup is not practical.
Microsoft 365 Business Voice integrates seamlessly with Teams, enabling employees to take business on the go, all with complete connection.
Video Quality– Who Supports the very best?
As of the time of this post, each platform shows video in HD, however the quality differs. Groups is capable of 1080p video at 30 frames per 2nd if you have 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth.
Zoom also has 1080p video, but it is limited to the platform’s organization or business strategies. 1080p can likewise be allowed 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, but it can send out and get approximately 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 essentially conferences that run simultaneously to the original videoconference. These were particularly necessary for virtual education, so instructors might break trainees out into different groups to find out.
There is a clear energy for breakout rooms in expert areas, too. If a bigger group is satisfying about a task, breaking down jobs into smaller sized groups, breakout spaces might be a great service.
Both Teams and Zoom have breakout rooms belonging to their base platforms, throughout all plans. These rooms are basically conferences that are running concurrently to the original videoconference.
Meet enables breakout spaces through their standard and plus plans, but not in the complimentary or fundamental strategies. Like the majority of Google functions on more affordable 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 presented Together Mode, which uses AI to place video participants in various digital settings, together. While the utility is light, Together Mode might be a strong spirits booster.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Privacy and Safety
To its credit, Zoom reacted promptly to the “Zoom bombing” of the early days of the pandemic, adding end-to-end file encryption and beefing up their personal privacy policy. Over 500,000 Zoom accounts were stolen and posted for sale online soon afterwards.
While Meet has not had any well-known events of personal privacy breaches, Google has had plenty of personal privacy issues and a performance history of collecting information for use in advertising.
Microsoft has the very best performance history of security and they also have the most transparent privacy policy.
All three platforms support two-factor authentication. Thinking about that 99% of cybersecurity attacks include a password aspect, two-factor authentication is a should if you desire a genuine defense versus cybercriminals.
As a part of the broader M365 suite, all chats, notes, and files are encrypted and saved within OneNote and SharePoint, respectively.
Additionally, 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 company.
Microsoft also utilizes Data Loss Protection (DLP) to capture delicate data being shared (like social security numbers), and immediately obstruct it from being sent.
Along with eDiscovery and legal holds within channels, talks, and files, Teams ensures you remain certified with all data storage guidelines.
A graphic revealing the path of details as it is encrypted from Microsoft Teams through Microsoft 365.
Google does use eDiscovery in their managed it service gold coast Business and Enterprise plans and DLP in their Enterprise strategy just, but these are only restricted 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 main platform.
In general, Zoom has actually reacted well to its personal privacy challenges, but the modifications are mostly cosmetic.
End-to-end file encryption (E2EE) is terrific to have, but its addition was more of an action to a problem than a complete option. It is unlikely that E2EE protects most users from more than file encryption
