Managed IT Support Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom: The Conclusive Videoconferencing Battle

Managed IT Support Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Zoom: The Conclusive Videoconferencing Fight

The COVID-19 pandemic forced staff members to work from house, but the program had to go on somehow. Overnight, videoconferencing platforms developed into the lifeline that held organizations together. Even as operations go back to normal, videoconferencing providers are putting resources into their products.

The two primary collaboration suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer videoconferencing capabilities, however we would be remiss not to include one of the most popular videoconferencing apps in the market today-- Zoom.

At this point, your business is practically ensured to have a videoconferencing platform currently. If not, or if you are aiming to alter platforms, continue reading below for a breakdown of features and choices that will help you make your choice.

Are your conferences long or short? Are you mainly meeting internally or with leads and clients? Will you be hosting webinars?

It goes without stating, if your business is already registered for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and you enjoy with the platform, you must use Teams or Meet respectively. If you are not subscribed to either and just need a standalone videoconferencing app, Zoom has a free variation that ought to solve the majority of your needs.

In the areas listed below, we will compare all 3 major videoconferencing platforms based upon various metrics you ought to consider prior to choosing the best one for your company.

Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: Integration with your other apps/services

Prior to diving into the complete list of features for each platform, it is necessary to comprehend how much you get from the totality of what you are spending for.

Teams and Meet become part of bigger performance suites, whereas Zoom is a standalone product with all the videoconferencing-specific features you might require. While Teams and Meet can be procured independently, they are best bundled with their larger suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

Case in point, a Zoom Pro membership only offers you videoconferencing abilities. For less than Zoom Pro, the M365 Business Standard and Workspace Business memberships consist of a complete suite of service applications.

With Microsoft 365, you get a fully integrated experience with desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. The greatest selling point of Microsoft is how quickly the apps work with each other, and the most significant difference in between Teams and its competitors is how centralized the suite is.

Teams jumps flawlessly from immediate messaging to video calls, with the capability to change back and forth in between them.

Meanwhile, Google Meet is independent of Workspace's chat app, Google Chat. While users can make use of both Workspace apps simultaneously, the separation of the 2 is a bit counterproductive.

With M365 and Teams, all chats, taped meetings, and files are all housed in the very same main place, making searchability far easier.

With Meet and Zoom, you will have to seek out conserved chats from old conferences, or in the case of Meet, head over to Google Chat.

This is also the case when dealing with collective files. Any files attached in a Teams chat will appear under its files tab at the top of the window, meaning you don't need to lose time chasing them down when you need them.

Microsoft provides a lot more applications in their strategies than Google, however numerous go undetected.

Microsoft Sway enables you to quickly get and trim a tape-recorded Teams meeting that you can then house locally within Teams itself.

In the case that somebody 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 quickly get the part of the conference you require and save it.

This bypasses the storage that would be consumed by an hours-long video clip, as well as the time it would take to publish, cut, and export stated video from a video modifying platform.

Additionally, all three platforms do have combinations with various other business applications, so make certain to examine compatibility with any apps you currently use, and these platforms.

Groups vs Meet vs Zoom: Features

image

Comparing Free Versions vs. Paid

Microsoft, Google, and Zoom have actually all adjusted well to the demand for certain features on their platforms, hence most of the same features overlap across 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 functions, they differ across each company's offerings.

A table illustrating the various 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 uses dial-in free of charge with any of their paid strategies, one of the greatest advantages that the platform has over its competitors.

Groups provides its dial-in ability for $4 extra per user, per month; 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 useful.

Microsoft 365 Business Voice integrates seamlessly with Teams, allowing staff members to take service on the go, all with complete connection.

Video Quality-- Who Supports the Best?

Since the time of this post, each platform displays video in HD, however the quality varies. Groups can 1080p video at 30 frames per 2nd if you have 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth.

Zoom likewise has 1080p video, however it is restricted to the platform's company or enterprise strategies. 1080p can also be enabled 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 and receive as much as 720p video.

Audio quality across platforms depends on microphone and speaker quality, as well as the quality of your internet connection.

Spaces and Workspaces-- Breaking Things Down

Breakout spaces are essentially meetings that run all at once to the original videoconference. These were particularly essential for virtual education, so teachers might break trainees out into separate groups to find out.

There is a clear energy for breakout rooms in expert areas, too. If a bigger group is fulfilling about a task, breaking down jobs into smaller sized groups, breakout spaces might be an excellent service.

Both Teams and Zoom have actually breakout rooms belonging to their base platforms, throughout all strategies. These spaces are essentially conferences that are running at the same time to the initial videoconference.

Meet permits breakout rooms through their basic and plus strategies, but not in the complimentary or fundamental strategies. Like many Google functions on less expensive plans, you can add Google Chrome extensions, but this might be more of a headache than it is worth in the end.

Recently, Microsoft likewise presented Together Mode, which uses AI to position video individuals in different 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 quickly to the "Zoom battle" of the early days of the pandemic, adding end-to-end file encryption and intensifying their privacy policy. Over 500,000 Zoom accounts were stolen and published for sale online soon afterwards.

While Meet has actually not had any popular events of privacy breaches, Google has had plenty of privacy issues and a track record of gathering information for usage in marketing.

Microsoft has the very best track record of security and they also have the most transparent privacy policy.

All three platforms support two-factor authentication. Considering that 99% of cybersecurity attacks involve a password aspect, two-factor authentication is a need to if you desire a genuine defense against cybercriminals.

As a part of the wider M365 suite, all chats, notes, and files are encrypted and saved within OneNote and SharePoint, respectively.

Furthermore, Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is available on its Business Premium and E5 strategies, obstructing possibly malicious material from being accessed by those in your business.

Microsoft likewise uses Data Loss Protection (DLP) to capture delicate information being shared (like social security numbers), and instantly obstruct it from being sent out.

Together with eDiscovery and legal holds within channels, chats, and files, Teams guarantees you remain compliant with all data storage policies.

A graphic revealing 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 just, but these are only limited to Drive and Gmail. From what we can see Meet has actually no particularly noted DLP capabilities.

Zoom does not provide any of these features on its primary platform.

Overall, Zoom has actually 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 a response to a problem than a total service. It is unlikely that E2EE secures most users from more than encryption in transit and at rest, like with Teams and Meet.

E2EE is most beneficial in 1-on-1 discussions where sensitive info might be shared, and it will be readily available on Teams soon according to Microsoft.

The videoconferencing business has less to stress over due to the fact that they are a single-purpose app, dealing solely with videoconferencing, and not the storage of files, chats, and other info like Microsoft or Google.

Based upon reputation alone, Microsoft stands well above the others in regards to security.

Due to the fact that your information is all kept in a single area, Teams and its security features take your performance hub and turns it into your business's own data stronghold. This 2nd level of security and personal privacy makes it the most safe, in our experience.

Teams vs Meet vs Zoom: The Verdict

Though the majority of videoconferencing platforms have similar features, your service's exact requirements ought to figure out whether you choose Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom.

For base-level features at an affordable cost, it is difficult to beat Zoom, who is focused exclusively on videoconferencing. For the most bang for your buck, Teams ties your whole business together in one area, with the on site support best possible functions and security readily available.

If you are searching for an all-in-one partnership center that keeps all your interaction in one space, we extremely recommend Microsoft Teams.

IT Support Guys has actually leveraged the power of Microsoft 365 because 2008 when it was still called Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and we have actually continued our partnership till the present day.

image