Zoom vs Google Meet: Which one is best for you?

The COVID-19 Pandemic has taught us to live in an online world. Since the Pandemic has started everyone is trying to stay connected to each other virtually through different digital platforms and tools. Organizations from different sectors are reliable on video conferencing tools to provide their services. Teachers are teaching, Organizations are conducting their meetings, many people are exploring new areas through video conferencing platforms.

There are various video conferencing platforms such as Skype, Cisco Webex, Zoom and, Google Meet. Zoom and Google Meet are the popular video conferencing tools that made our lives easier and helped people to stay connected securely from wherever they are. These video conferencing tools have helped many industries survive the pandemic.

Zoom and Google meet are amongst the popular video conferencing tools that helped people to work from home and children to continue their learning and studies from their home. These platforms allow arranging meetings and classes so various people connect at a time. Both Zoom and Google Meet offers similar features but have their pros and cons. You might find it complex to choose between both and you will probably be comparing zoom vs google meet.

Your choice depends on various factors such as no. of people and the time duration of the meeting. In this article, I have compared zoom vs google meet so that you can choose which one is best for you. Zoom vs Google Meet comparison below is based on different factors such as features, price, plans, security features, and their applications.

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Zoom

Zoom is a popular video conferencing tool that allows businesses and organizations to establish video connections with their team members to conduct meetings. It is a reliable cloud platform that allows users to share content through voice, video, or chat. Zoom is accessible from desktop, room systems, mobile devices, and telephones. Users can join the zoom meeting via any modern browser or from a mobile application.

Google Meet

Google Hangouts was rebranded as Google Meet in April 2020. It is a video conferencing tool that uses the same safety measures as Google does to secure the private information of its users. Google Meet allows its users to live stream meetings to  100,000 users. Guests can join the meeting from their phone via google meet and as well as from a desktop.

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Zoom vs Google Meet: Price and Plans

Both Zoom and Google Meet offers free and paid plans. You can choose your plan according to the needs of your organization and industry. Both tools offer plans for small-large organizations. Let’s see which video conferencing tool zoom or google meet offers features that you need and what is best for you.

Zoom vs Google Meet: Free Plans

If you are looking for a simple video chat for a normal video call with friends or family or for attending some social events both tools offer free plans. With the free plans both tools, offer enough features for your video chat.

Zoom with the free version offers you to host a meeting for up to 100 participants. It allows unlimited one-one video calling and has a time limit 0f 40 minutes for group meetings. Zoom offers some basic features in this plan like the virtual background but you will have to upgrade your plan for features like social streaming.

Google Meet on the other hand also has a free plan with the basic features. It allows you to host unlimited meetings for up to 100 participants. You can have a one-one meeting for up to 24 hours and a group meeting for more than 3 participants for 60 minutes. It offers some basic features in its free plans like live captioning, adjustable layouts, and screen sharing.

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Paid Plans

Zoom

Zoom offers many amazing features in the free plan but if you want more advanced features you’ll have to go for paid plans. Zoom offers three paid plans for small teams, small and med businesses, and large enterprises. Zoom is a cloud platform that is suitable for both personal and professional purposes.

The pro plan suitable for small teams costs ₹13,200 /year/license with which you can purchase up to 9 licenses per account. In this plan, you can host meetings for up to to 100 participants and have access to some advanced features. You can host group meetings for up to 30 hours, social media streaming, and 1 GB Cloud recording per license.

The Business plan is for small and medium businesses that cost ₹18,000 /year/license. This plan requires at least 10 licenses and you can host a meeting for up to 300 participants. You will have access to the features offered with the pro plan and additionally, you will get Single Sign-On, Recording Transcripts, Managed Domains, Company Branding, Optional add-on: India Audio – Premium Toll & Call Out.

The third paid plan zoom offers is for large enterprises which cost ₹21,600 /year/license and require at least 50 licenses. With this plan, you will have all the features from pro and business plans and some advanced features. You will get Host up to 500 Participants, Unlimited Cloud Storage, Dedicated Customer Success Manager, Recording Transcripts, Optional add-on: India Audio – Premium Toll & Call Out.

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Google Meet

If you want to host meetings for more participants and to access more advanced features of google meet, you’ll have to pay. Google Meet has two paid plans Google Workspace Essential and Google Workspace Enterprise.

Google Workspace essential costs $8 per active user/month which allows you to host unlimited meetings for up to 150 participants. The time limit for the meetings is 24 hours.

You will get access to the basic features along with additional features. You will get advanced features such as dial-in phone numbers, meeting recording saved to google drive, hand raise, Breakout rooms, attendance reports, poles, and Q&A. 24/7 online support and community forum.

Google Workspace Enterprise offers more additional features along with the features offered in both free and workspace essential plans. The price of the Google Workspace Enterprise essential plan is not available to know price you’ll have to contact sales.

This plan offers unlimited meetings for up to 250 participants. Google Workspace Enterprise offers additional features such as intelligent noise cancellation and the option of live streaming to social channels directly for a maximum of 100,000 viewers.

Now, when you know the pricing and plans of both the tools, let’s see what are some basic features that zoom and google meet offer for their users so you can compare zoom vs google meet features to know which is better for you.

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Features of Zoom

Virtual Background

Zoom allows its users to set an image or a video as a virtual background during the meeting. Virtual Backgrounds allows users to make it appear that they are joining the meeting from a different location by hiding what is behind them.

You can set virtual background in the app Go to settings > Virtual Background.

Multi-screen sharing

The multi-share feature of zoom allows the participants of the meeting to share multiple screens simultaneously. The host of the meeting allows participants to share their screen simultaneously. This feature is helpful when you want to see compare some documents from two or more participants.

Any participant can start sharing their screen while the other participant is already sharing using a desktop. There is a dual monitor option where a participant can see two recently shared screens while participants using a single monitor or an app can only see the most recently shared screen.

Participants using mobile apps cannot begin sharing while someone is already sharing their screen.

Personal Meeting Room

Zoom offers you a personal meeting room that is reserved for you. Zoom provides you a Personal Meeting ID which gives you access to your meeting room. Using PMI (Personal Meeting ID ) use can host instant meetings or schedule a meeting.

It is suggested to use the personal meeting room for regular meetings because it is accessible from the same ID. People having your PMI can join the meeting at any time when it is in use. You can always use a Personal meeting ID for instant meetings.

Calendar Integration

You can integrate your calendar services such as Google, Office 365, and Exchange to Zoom. By integrating your calendar with the zoom you can schedule your meetings. You can integrate your calendar with a third-party calendar that allows you to sync meetings and webinars to your Zoom desktop client.

You can schedule, edit and delete the meeting on both Zoom desktop client and third-party calendar.

Recording

You can record the zoom meetings and upload them on a web portal or platforms like youtube. This feature is helpful for students taking online classes at zoom as they get a recording of the class and use them to learn at their own pace.

Waiting Room

Enabling the waiting room feature the host of the meeting have a privilege to control when a participant can join the meeting. The host can allow participants one-by-one to join the meeting or make participants wait in the waiting room and admit all to the meeting at once. The host can move any participant to the meeting during the meeting.

Touch up my appearance

When you are not camera ready, you can use the touch-up my appearance feature of zoom to get that airbrushed look. This filter helps you to look better and improve your appearance during a meeting or video call.

Host Controls

The host of the meeting can create a co-host when working with another colleague. They have access to desktop sharing and can also hand –over controls to one another.

 Features of Google Meet

Live captioning during meetings

Google Meet offers a feature of live captioning during the meeting using google’s speech-to-text technology. This feature helps participants to read the text of what someone is saying. The live captioning feature is helpful for the deaf or those having hearing-impairment.

Now, Google Meet offers live captioning in four other different languages French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Video and Audio preview screen

This feature allows you to adjust your camera and mic before joining the meeting. You can check your appearance on the camera before entering the meeting and also see who has already joined the meeting.

Host controls

For education accounts, the host of the meeting has more controls, than the students. As a host of the meeting, you can mute and remove the participants of the meeting. Host have access to enable or disable the quick access.

By enabling the quick excess anyone can join the meeting without permission and when the quick access is disabled, the student has to ask for permission for entering the meeting. Quick Access is enabled by default for the meet.

You can also disable screen sharing and google meet chat for the student.

Screen Sharing

Participants of the meeting can share their screen to show presentations, documents, or a tab. When you present your screen while someone has already sharing then the presentation of the other participant is paused.

For education accounts, the host can prevent screen sharing from students.

Messaging

To make meetings more engaging and interactive you can chat with other participants. You can send links, files, and messages by clicking on the chat icon during the meeting.

Integration with Google and Microsoft apps

Google Meet allows participants to join meeting via Gmail or Calendar. Microsoft users can see their meetings on Microsoft outlook Calendar.

Zoom vs Google Meet: Features Compared

Zoom vs Google Meet: Security

Security is the first concern when we communicate with web-based tools. One must be aware of the security features of the tool you are using to communicate using the internet. You need to be sure that you are secure while using the video conferencing tools. Both Zoom and Google Meet offer strong security features for their users.

You must have heard about the lack of some security features in zoom at the beginning of the pandemic. There were various security issues in the zoom, end-to-end encryption and zoom bombing were among them. Zoom bombing occurs when some third-party join your meeting and end-to-end encryption is important to protect the information you shared during your meetings or video calls.

Zoom has resolved its security issues successfully. Now, zoom has added end-to-end encryption to its security features and has also added various security features to its list.

Now, let’s compare zoom vs google Meet on basis of their security features. Here are the security features that Zoom and Google Meet offers.

Zoom vs Google Meet: app

In these times when we are hooked to our smartphones, it is a must to have video conferencing apps on our phones to access these tools faster. Zoom and Google Meet both offer high-quality apps for a better user experience and it makes it easy to communicate through apps on your smartphones.

Zoom App

Zoom App has an effective and basic layout. The User Interface of the Zoom app is well- built which makes it easier to navigate through different panels. Just after downloading you can see the join meeting tab. You can join the meeting without signing in just by entering the meeting ID or by invitation link. After signing in at the homepage you will find four panels Meet & Chat tab which you need to attend the meeting. You will find New Meeting, Join, Share Screen, and you can even schedule a meeting by clicking the schedule tab.

The other three tabs you will find on the home page are Meetings, Contact, Settings. Under the meeting tab, you will find your ID and calendar for your scheduled meetings. You can start the meeting or send an invitation to the meeting. Zoom app also allows you to add contacts so you can find people through contacts and start chatting.

Once your meeting has started the host of the meeting has control and can mute the participants. It also gives you the option to turn-off video without disturbing your audio. Zoom app also allows you to change your username.

Google Meet App

You can sign in via your Gmail account to Google meet app. Google Meet app is easy to use. After signing in you will find two options at the homepage and they are New Meeting and Join with a code tab so you can directly join or start the meeting.

The New Meeting tab gives you options to get a meeting link to share and invite participants, start an instant meeting, or schedule your meeting in google calendar.

Both the app offers a good user experience that makes it easy to communicate through video conference. Comparing Zoom vs Google Meet app, the layout of zoom is a bit more well-built than Google meet which makes it easier and convenient for users to use, navigate and take actions instantly. Zoom app offers more features than the Google Meet app.

Zoom vs Google Meet: Which one is a better option for your business?

Both Zoom and Google Meet offers excellent features and are among the popular video conferencing tools. Zoom vs Google which is best for your business and team depends upon the features you want for your meetings.

Zoom offers more features than Google Meet. Features of zoom like multi-screen sharing, hand raise, waiting room, virtual background are excellent features for your meetings to be more interactive while google meets on the other hand offers features like live captioning, noise cancellation and, saving recordings to the drive are important features for the team having people with hearing impairment, these features will make a meeting more interactive for such people.

If you want to host meetings for more than 250 people then you will have to choose Zoom as Google Meet does not offer any plans in which you can host meetings for more than 250 people. On the other hand, Zoom offers a plan for large enterprises in which you can host meetings for up to 500 participants.

So, whether to choose Zoom or Google meet for your business depends on the size of your team and the features you want for your meetings.

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Conclusion on Zoom vs Google meet

In this article, we compared zoom vs google meet on different factors such as features, price and, plans. Zoom and Google meet both offer really good features that make it easy to communicate and through video conferencing. To compare and choose what is best for you from zoom vs google meet depends on the priority of the features you want to explore during your video conference.

If you want features, Zoom is the right choice for you. Zoom offers more features than Google Meet that can give you a high-quality video conferencing experience.  Zoom is suitable for both personal and professional and professional meeting purposes.

If you want simplicity then you want Google Meet. Google Meet may offer fewer features than zoom but offers an excellent user experience. You can enjoy a simple video chat with your friends just with your Google account. Google meet also offers features like live captioning which might be important for your team.