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

The COVID-19 pandemic required staff members to work from home, however the program had to go on somehow. Overnight, videoconferencing platforms developed into the it services lifeline that held services together. Even as operations return to regular, videoconferencing suppliers are pouring resources into their products.

The two main collaboration suites, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace deal videoconferencing capabilities, but we would be remiss not to consist of among the most popular videoconferencing apps in the market today-- Zoom.

At this moment, your organization is practically ensured to have a videoconferencing platform currently. If not, or if you are seeking to change platforms, continue reading below for a breakdown of features and alternatives that will assist you make your choice.

Are your conferences long or short? Are you primarily 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 must utilize Teams or Meet respectively. If you are not registered for either and simply need a standalone videoconferencing app, Zoom has a free version that needs to solve most of your needs.

In the sections below, we will compare all three major videoconferencing platforms based upon numerous metrics you must consider prior to picking the best one for your business.

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

Before diving into the complete list of functions for each platform, it is important to comprehend just how much you get from the entirety of what you are spending for.

Teams and Meet belong to bigger efficiency suites, whereas Zoom is a standalone item with all the videoconferencing-specific features you might need. While Teams and Meet can be obtained individually, 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 memberships consist of a full suite of service 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 quickly the apps work with each other, and the greatest distinction in between Teams and its competitors is how centralized the suite is.

Groups jumps seamlessly from instantaneous messaging to video calls, with the ability to change backward and forward between them.

Meanwhile, Google Meet is independent of Workspace's chat app, Google Chat. While users can use both Workspace apps concurrently, 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 same main location, making searchability far much 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 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 need to waste time chasing them down when you require them.

Microsoft provides much more applications in their plans than Google, though many go unnoticed.

Microsoft Sway allows you to quickly grab and cut a tape-recorded Teams fulfilling that you can then house in your area within Teams itself.

In the event that somebody gets here late to a conference, or a worker records the same conference and lets it run for hours after its conclusion, you can quickly get the part of the conference you need and wait.

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

Additionally, all 3 platforms do have integrations with different other business applications, so be sure to check on compatibility with any apps you already 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 need for certain features on their platforms, hence most of the exact same functions overlap throughout plans for all 3 suites. This includes screen sharing, video recording, live captions, and everyone's favorite: custom backgrounds. When it comes to some other functions, they vary across each company's offerings.

A table portraying 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 across strategies. Meet provides dial-in for free with any of their paid strategies, one of the greatest benefits that the platform has over its rivals.

Groups uses its dial-in capability for $4 additional per user, each month; while Zoom's dial-in is toll-based.

Both Teams and Meet deal internet-based PBX solutions that can change your in-house phones, while Zoom's toll-based setup is not practical.

Microsoft 365 Business Voice incorporates perfectly with Teams, allowing workers to take organization on the go, all with full connection.

Video Quality-- Who Supports the Best?

Since the time of this post, each platform displays video in HD, however the quality varies. Teams 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 organization or enterprise strategies. 1080p can likewise be made it possible for by Zoom support in particular 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 and get approximately 720p video.

Audio quality across platforms depends on microphone and speaker quality, in addition to the quality of your internet connection.

Spaces and Workspaces-- Breaking Things Down

Breakout rooms are basically meetings that run at the same time to the initial videoconference. These were particularly essential for virtual education, so instructors might break students out into different groups to find out.

There is a clear utility for breakout spaces in professional areas, too. If a bigger group is fulfilling about a project, breaking down tasks into smaller sized groups, breakout spaces could be a terrific solution.

Both Teams and Zoom have actually breakout rooms belonging to their base platforms, throughout all plans. These spaces are essentially meetings that are running concurrently to the initial videoconference.

Meet allows breakout spaces through their basic and plus plans, however not in the free or basic strategies. Like a lot of Google functions on less expensive plans, you can add Google Chrome extensions, but this could be more of a headache than it is worth in the end.

Recently, Microsoft likewise presented Together Mode, which uses AI to place video participants in numerous digital settings, together. While the energy is light, Together Mode might be a solid spirits booster.

Groups 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 encryption and boosting their personal privacy policy. Over 500,000 Zoom accounts were taken and posted for sale online soon thereafter.

While Meet has not had any famous events of privacy breaches, Google has actually had lots of personal privacy concerns and a track record of gathering information for usage in advertising.

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

All three platforms support two-factor authentication. Thinking about that 99% of cybersecurity attacks involve a password aspect, two-factor authentication is a must if you desire a legitimate defense against cybercriminals.

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

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

Microsoft also utilizes Data Loss Protection (DLP) to catch sensitive information 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 ensures you remain certified with all data storage guidelines.

A graphic revealing the course of information as it is encrypted from Microsoft Teams through Microsoft 365.

Google does offer eDiscovery in their Business and Enterprise plans and DLP in their Enterprise plan just, however these are only restricted to Drive and Gmail. From what we can see Meet has no particularly noted DLP abilities.

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

Overall, Zoom has responded well to its personal privacy difficulties, but the changes are mainly cosmetic.

End-to-end file encryption (E2EE) is excellent to have, but its addition was more of a response to a problem than a complete service. It is not likely that E2EE safeguards most users from more than file encryption in transit and at rest, like with Teams and Meet.

E2EE