Managed IT Support Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom: The Conclusive Videoconferencing Battle
The COVID-19 pandemic forced employees to work from house, however the show needed to go on in some way. Overnight, videoconferencing platforms turned into the lifeline that held organizations together. Even as operations return to typical, videoconferencing service providers are pouring resources into their products.
The two main cooperation suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer videoconferencing abilities, but we would be remiss not to include one of the most popular videoconferencing apps in the market today-- Zoom.
At this moment, your service is nearly guaranteed to have a videoconferencing platform already. If not, or if you are aiming to change platforms, continue checking out below for a breakdown of features and choices that will assist you make your decision.
Are your meetings long or short? Are you primarily meeting 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 enjoy with the platform, you need to use Teams or Meet respectively. If you are not subscribed to either and merely need a standalone videoconferencing app, Zoom has a free variation that needs to solve most of your needs.
In the sections below, we will compare all three significant videoconferencing platforms based on various metrics you should consider prior to picking the ideal one for your company.
Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: Integration with your other apps/services
Before diving into the complete list of functions for each platform, it is essential to understand just how much you obtain from the totality of what you are paying for.
Teams and Meet are part of bigger productivity suites, whereas Zoom is a standalone item with all the videoconferencing-specific functions you might 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 membership just offers you videoconferencing capabilities. For less than Zoom Pro, the M365 Business Standard and Workspace Business memberships include a complete suite of business applications.
With Microsoft 365, you get a fully 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 biggest difference between Teams and its rivals is how centralized the suite is.
Teams leaps effortlessly from instantaneous messaging to video calls, with the capability to change back and forth in between them.
Google Meet is independent of Workspace's chat app, Google Chat. While users can make use of both Workspace apps concurrently, the separation of the two is a bit counterintuitive.
With M365 and Teams, all chats, taped meetings, and files are all housed in the same main place, making searchability far simpler.
With Meet and Zoom, you will need to look for conserved chats from old conferences, or in the case of Meet, head over to Google Chat.
This is also the case when dealing with collaborative files. Any files connected in a Teams chat will appear under its files tab at the top of the window, suggesting you do not need to lose time chasing them down when you require them.
Microsoft uses a lot more applications in their strategies than Google, however lots of go undetected.
For instance, Microsoft Sway permits you to rapidly get and trim a recorded Teams satisfying that you can then house locally within Teams itself.
In the event that somebody gets here late to a conference, or a staff member records the very same meeting and lets it run for hours after its conclusion, you can rapidly get the part of the meeting you need and wait.
This bypasses the storage that would be consumed by an hours-long video clip, along with the time it would require to upload, cut, and export said video from a video editing platform.
Additionally, all 3 platforms do have integrations with different other business applications, so make sure to look at compatibility with any apps you already use, and these platforms.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Features
Comparing Free Versions vs. Paid
Microsoft, Google, and Zoom have actually all adapted well to the demand for certain functions on their platforms, thus the majority of the same features overlap throughout plans for all three suites. This includes screen sharing, video recording, live captions, and everyone's favorite: custom-made backgrounds. As for some other functions, they vary across each company's offerings.
A table illustrating the various plans and features of Microsoft it services Teams vs. Google Meet vs. Zoom Audio Conferencing On-the-Go
While present across the board, dial-in abilities differ throughout strategies. Meet uses dial-in for free with any of their paid plans, among the biggest benefits that the platform has more than its competitors.Teams offers its dial-in ability for $4 extra per user, each month; while Zoom's dial-in is toll-based.
Both Teams and Meet offer internet-based PBX services that can replace your internal phones, while Zoom's toll-based setup is not practical.
Microsoft 365 Business Voice incorporates seamlessly with Teams, allowing workers to take organization 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 differs. Groups can 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 business or business strategies. 1080p can likewise be made it possible for by Zoom assistance 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 and get approximately 720p video.
Audio quality throughout platforms depends upon microphone and speaker quality, in addition to the quality of your web connection.
Rooms and Workspaces-- Breaking Things Down
Breakout rooms are basically meetings that run at the same time to the initial videoconference. These were especially required for virtual education, so teachers might break students out into different groups to discover.
There is a clear utility for breakout rooms in expert spaces, too. If a bigger team is satisfying about a job, breaking down tasks into smaller sized groups, breakout spaces could be a great service.
Both Teams and Zoom have breakout spaces belonging to their base platforms, throughout all strategies. These rooms are essentially conferences that are running simultaneously to the initial videoconference.
Meet allows breakout spaces through their basic and plus strategies, however not in the totally free or standard plans. Like the majority of Google functions on cheaper plans, you can add Google Chrome extensions, but this might be more of a headache than it is worth in the end.
Recently, Microsoft also presented Together Mode, which utilizes AI to put video individuals in different digital settings, together. While the utility is light, Together Mode could be a strong morale booster.
Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Privacy and Safety
To its credit, Zoom responded promptly to the "Zoom battle" of the early days of the pandemic, adding end-to-end file encryption and intensifying their privacy policy. Unfortunately, over 500,000 Zoom accounts were stolen and published for sale online quickly afterwards.
While Meet has actually not had any famous incidents of privacy breaches, Google has actually had a lot of privacy issues and a performance history of gathering data for use in advertising.
Microsoft has the very 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 involve a password aspect, two-factor authentication is a should if you desire a legitimate defense versus cybercriminals.
As a part of the wider M365 suite, all chats, notes, and files are secured and kept within OneNote and SharePoint, respectively.
In Addition, Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is readily available on its Business Premium and E5 plans, blocking potentially malicious material from being accessed by those in your company.
Microsoft also uses Data Loss Protection (DLP) to catch delicate data being shared (like social security numbers), and instantly block it from being sent out.
Together with eDiscovery and legal holds within channels, chats, and files, Teams guarantees you remain certified with all information storage regulations.
A graphic showing the course of information as it is secured from Microsoft Teams through Microsoft 365.
Google does provide eDiscovery in their Business and Enterprise strategies and DLP in their Enterprise plan only, however these are only limited to Drive and Gmail. From what we can see Meet has no particularly noted DLP abilities.Zoom does not use any of these features on its main platform.
In general, Zoom has responded well to its personal privacy difficulties, 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 solution. 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 helpful in 1-on-1 discussions where sensitive info may be shared, and it will be available on Teams quickly according to Microsoft.
The videoconferencing company has less to fret about due to the fact that they are a single-purpose app, dealing entirely with videoconferencing, and not the storage of files, talks, and other information like Microsoft or Google.
Based on track record alone, Microsoft stands well above the others in terms of security.
Because your data is all stored in a single area, Teams and its security functions take your productivity hub and turns it into your company's own data stronghold. This 2nd level of protection and privacy makes it the most safe, in our experience.
Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: The Verdict
The majority of videoconferencing platforms have similar features, your service's exact needs must figure out whether you select Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom.
For base-level features at a cost effective price, it is hard to beat Zoom, who is focused exclusively on videoconferencing. For the most value, Teams ties your entire business together in one space, with the very best possible features and security available.
If you are trying to find an all-in-one cooperation center that keeps all your communication in one space, we highly advise Microsoft Teams.
IT Support Guys has leveraged the power of Microsoft 365 because 2008 when it was still called Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and we have continued our collaboration until today day.