What is Google Meet and what are its top alternatives?
Google Meet is a video conferencing tool developed by Google, allowing users to have virtual meetings with colleagues or friends. Key features include the ability to schedule and join meetings directly through Google Calendar, share screens, and record meetings for later viewing. The platform also integrates with other Google Workspace apps for seamless collaboration. However, Google Meet has limitations such as a participant limit of 100 for the basic plan, limited customizations, and occasional connectivity issues.
- Zoom: Zoom is a popular video conferencing tool known for its high-quality video and audio, virtual backgrounds, and breakout rooms for group discussions. Pros include a large participant limit, ease of use, and cross-platform compatibility. Cons include security concerns and a time limit on free accounts.
- Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams offers video conferencing, instant messaging, and file sharing capabilities with integration with other Microsoft Office applications. Pros include seamless collaboration within the Microsoft ecosystem, while cons may include a complex user interface for beginners.
- Cisco Webex: Cisco Webex provides video conferencing, webinars, and screen sharing features. Key features include whiteboarding and AI transcription. Pros include high-quality video and audio, while cons may include limited free features compared to competitors.
- Skype: Skype is a well-known video calling software that offers instant messaging, video calls, and voice calls. Pros include ease of use and cross-platform compatibility, while cons may include limited features for large group calls.
- GoToMeeting: GoToMeeting offers video conferencing and screen sharing with features like drawing tools and meeting recording. Pros include scalable pricing plans and ease of use, while cons may include limited integrations with other apps.
- BlueJeans: BlueJeans is a video conferencing platform with features like breakout rooms, recording, and meeting analytics. Pros include high-quality audio and video, while cons may include occasional connectivity issues.
- Whereby: Whereby is a simple video conferencing tool that requires no downloads for participants. Pros include ease of use and customization options, while cons may include limited free features compared to other platforms.
- Jitsi Meet: Jitsi Meet is an open-source video conferencing tool with features like end-to-end encryption and screen sharing. Pros include security and privacy, while cons may include fewer advanced features compared to commercial options.
- Discord: Discord is a messaging platform that also offers video and voice calls for groups. Pros include a focus on community building and integration with gaming, while cons may include limited professional features for business meetings.
- BigBlueButton: BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing system designed for online learning with features like whiteboard, breakout rooms, and polling. Pros include integration with learning management systems, while cons may include a learning curve for new users.
Top Alternatives to Google Meet
- Hangouts
It is a communication platform which includes messaging, video chat, and VOIP features. ...
- Zoom
Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and cross platform group chat into one easy-to-use platform. Our solution offers the best video, audio, and screen-sharing experience across Zoom Rooms, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and H.323/SIP room systems. ...
- Skype
Skype’s text, voice and video make it simple to share experiences with the people that matter to you, wherever they are. ...
- Webex
Collaborate with colleagues across your organization, or halfway across the planet. Meet online and share files, information, and expertise. Collaborate from wherever you are with Webex mobile apps for IPhone, iPad, Android, or Blackberry. If you can get online, you can work together. ...
- GoToMeeting
It is an online meeting, desktop sharing, and video conferencing software package that enables the user to meet with other computer users, customers, clients or colleagues via the Internet in real time. ...
- Duo
Duo is a next-generation package manager that blends the best ideas from Component, Browserify and Go to make organizing and writing front-end code quick and painless. ...
- Microsoft Teams
See content and chat history anytime, including team chats with Skype that are visible to the whole team. Private group chats are available for smaller group conversations. ...
- Slack
Imagine all your team communication in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. That’s Slack. All your messages. All your files. And everything from Twitter, Dropbox, Google Docs, Asana, Trello, GitHub and dozens of other services. All together. ...
Google Meet alternatives & related posts
- Free4
related Hangouts posts
- Web conferencing made easy25
- Remote control option16
- Draw on screen13
- Very reliable12
- In-meeting chat is pretty good11
- Free9
- Pair programming sessions with shared controls9
- Easy to share meeting links/invites8
- Good Sound Quality7
- Cloud recordings for meetings6
- Great mobile app5
- Virtual backgrounds4
- Recording Feature4
- Other people use it4
- User Friendly actions4
- Reactions (emoticons)2
- Auto reconnecting2
- Chrome extension is great to easily create meetings2
- While sharing screen, you can still see your video2
- Mute all participants at once2
- When ending the videocall, everybody gets kicked2
- Different options for blocking chat2
- Easily share video with audio1
- /zoom on Slack1
- Registration form1
- Meant for business and education1
- Zoom0
- Limited time if you are a basic member20
- Limited Storage14
- Hate how sharing your screen defaults to Full Screen11
- Quality isn't great (Free)10
- No cursor highlight on screenshare.9
- Potential security flaws8
- Onboarding process for new users is not intuitive7
- Virtual background quality isn't good5
- Security5
- Editing can be improved4
- Doesn't handle switching audio sources well4
- The native calendar is buggy4
- Dashboard can be improved4
- Pornographic material displayed3
- Any body can get in it3
- Not many emojis3
- Past chat history is not saved3
- Recording Feature3
- En In reality,the chat in the meet not is excelent,noo3
- Zoom lags a lot3
related Zoom posts
Using Screenhero via Slack was getting to be pretty horrible. Video and sound quality was often times pretty bad and worst of all the service just wasn't reliable. We all had high hopes when the acquisition went through but ultimately, the product just didn't live up to expectations. We ended up trying Zoom after I had heard about it from some friends at other companies. We noticed the video/sound quality was better, and more importantly it was super reliable. The Slack integration was awesome (just type /zoom and it starts a call)
You can schedule recurring calls which is helpful. There's a G Suite (Google Calendar) integration which lets you add a Zoom call (w/dial in info + link to web/mobile) with the click of a button.
Meeting recordings (video and audio) are really nice, you get recordings stored in the cloud on the higher tier plans. One of our engineers, Jerome, actually built a cool little Slack integration using the Slack API and Zoom API so that every time a recording is processed, a link gets posted to the "event-recordings" channel. The iOS app is great too!
#WebAndVideoConferencing #videochat
Server side
We decided to use Python for our backend because it is one of the industry standard languages for data analysis and machine learning. It also has a lot of support due to its large user base.
Web Server: We chose Flask because we want to keep our machine learning / data analysis and the web server in the same language. Flask is easy to use and we all have experience with it. Postman will be used for creating and testing APIs due to its convenience.
Machine Learning: We decided to go with PyTorch for machine learning since it is one of the most popular libraries. It is also known to have an easier learning curve than other popular libraries such as Tensorflow. This is important because our team lacks ML experience and learning the tool as fast as possible would increase productivity.
Data Analysis: Some common Python libraries will be used to analyze our data. These include NumPy, Pandas , and matplotlib. These tools combined will help us learn the properties and characteristics of our data. Jupyter notebook will be used to help organize the data analysis process, and improve the code readability.
Client side
UI: We decided to use React for the UI because it helps organize the data and variables of the application into components, making it very convenient to maintain our dashboard. Since React is one of the most popular front end frameworks right now, there will be a lot of support for it as well as a lot of potential new hires that are familiar with the framework. CSS 3 and HTML5 will be used for the basic styling and structure of the web app, as they are the most widely used front end languages.
State Management: We decided to use Redux to manage the state of the application since it works naturally to React. Our team also already has experience working with Redux which gave it a slight edge over the other state management libraries.
Data Visualization: We decided to use the React-based library Victory to visualize the data. They have very user friendly documentation on their official website which we find easy to learn from.
Cache
- Caching: We decided between Redis and memcached because they are two of the most popular open-source cache engines. We ultimately decided to use Redis to improve our web app performance mainly due to the extra functionalities it provides such as fine-tuning cache contents and durability.
Database
- Database: We decided to use a NoSQL database over a relational database because of its flexibility from not having a predefined schema. The user behavior analytics has to be flexible since the data we plan to store may change frequently. We decided on MongoDB because it is lightweight and we can easily host the database with MongoDB Atlas . Everyone on our team also has experience working with MongoDB.
Infrastructure
- Deployment: We decided to use Heroku over AWS, Azure, Google Cloud because it is free. Although there are advantages to the other cloud services, Heroku makes the most sense to our team because our primary goal is to build an MVP.
Other Tools
Communication Slack will be used as the primary source of communication. It provides all the features needed for basic discussions. In terms of more interactive meetings, Zoom will be used for its video calls and screen sharing capabilities.
Source Control The project will be stored on GitHub and all code changes will be done though pull requests. This will help us keep the codebase clean and make it easy to revert changes when we need to.
- Free, widespread258
- Desktop and mobile apps147
- Because i have to :(110
- Low cost international calling57
- Good for international calls56
- Best call quality anywhere, generally10
- Beautiful emojis5
- Chat bots4
- Translator2
- Skype for business integration with Outlook2
- United kingdom1
- Not the Best, but get the job done1
- Really high CPU utilization during video/screenshare5
- Not always reliable3
- Outdated UI3
- Birthday notifications are annoying3
- The worst indicator noises of any app ever3
- Finding/adding people isn't easy2
related Skype posts
Uploadcare is mostly remote team and we're using video conferencing all the time both for internal team meetings and for external sales, support, interview, etc. calls. I think we've tried every solution there is on the market before we've decided to stop with Zoom.
Tools just plainly don't work (Skype), are painful to install for external participants (Webex and other "enterprise" solutions) can't properly handle 10+ participants calls (Google Hangouts Chat).
Zoom just works. It has all required features and even handles bad connections very graciously. One of the best tool decisions we've ever made :)
I use Slack because it offers the best experience, even on the free tier (which we're still using). As a comparison, I have had in depth experience with HipChat, Stride, Skype, Google Chat (the new service), Google Hangouts (the old service). For self hosted, Mattermost is open source and claims to support most Slack integrations, but I have not extensively investigated this claim.
- Secure5
- Good branding - Cisco3
- High Quality3
- Easy to Use3
- Horrible voice quality, voice gaps, drops1
related Webex posts
Uploadcare is mostly remote team and we're using video conferencing all the time both for internal team meetings and for external sales, support, interview, etc. calls. I think we've tried every solution there is on the market before we've decided to stop with Zoom.
Tools just plainly don't work (Skype), are painful to install for external participants (Webex and other "enterprise" solutions) can't properly handle 10+ participants calls (Google Hangouts Chat).
Zoom just works. It has all required features and even handles bad connections very graciously. One of the best tool decisions we've ever made :)
I am looking for the best video conferencing software corporate license. Kindly advise on pricing as well as features between Amazon Chime and Webex, which one to choose. What is the best choice for a corporate license?
- More control over participant’s webcams and chat2
- Lock the meeting room1
- Display 25 camera at a time1
related GoToMeeting posts
- Lean and efficient1
related Duo posts
- Work well with the rest of Office 365 work flow28
- Mobile friendly24
- Free19
- Great integrations12
- Well-thought Design12
- Channels10
- Easy setup8
- Unlimited users6
- Strong search and data archiving5
- Easy to integrate with5
- Multi domain switching support4
- Web interface3
- Same interface on multiple platforms3
- Great voice quality2
- Confusing UI17
- Bad performance on init and after quite a use12
- Bad Usermanagement10
- No desktop client (only fat and slow electron app)6
- Can't see all members in a video meeting6
- Unable to Mute users5
- No Markdown Support5
- You don't really own your messages4
- MIssing public channels4
- Forced WYSIWYG4
- Stubborn, unused friendly3
- Challenging Onboarding3
- No linux support3
- Audio support problems1
related Microsoft Teams posts
Looking for the pros and cons for a tool we can use best for cross-team collaboration (software development). Has anyone compared Google Hangouts Chat with Microsoft Teams? What were the advantages of either??
We use Microsoft Teams as our primary workplace collaboration tool. It enables our team to work remotely and still collaborate on projects - with integration to JIRA and Confluence, the tool enables us to create War Rooms when problems occur and also provides information-sharing capabilities. Replaced HipChat.
- Easy to integrate with1.2K
- Excellent interface on multiple platforms876
- Free849
- Mobile friendly694
- People really enjoy using it690
- Great integrations331
- Flexible notification preferences315
- Unlimited users198
- Strong search and data archiving184
- Multi domain switching support155
- Easy to use82
- Beautiful40
- Hubot support27
- Unread/read control22
- Slackbot21
- Permalink for each messages19
- Text snippet with highlighting17
- Quote message easily15
- Per-room notification14
- Awesome integration support13
- Star for each message / attached files12
- IRC gateway12
- Good communication within a team11
- Dropbox Integration11
- Slick, search is great10
- Jira Integration10
- New Relic Integration9
- Great communication tool8
- Combine All Services Quickly8
- Asana Integration8
- This tool understands developers7
- XMPP gateway7
- Google Drive Integration7
- Awesomeness7
- Replaces email6
- Twitter Integration6
- Google Docs Integration6
- BitBucket integration6
- Jenkins Integration5
- GREAT Customer Support / Quick Response to Feedback5
- Guest and Restricted user control5
- Clean UI4
- Excellent multi platform internal communication tool4
- GitHub integration4
- Mention list view4
- Gathers all my communications in one place4
- Perfect implementation of chat + integrations3
- Easy3
- Easy to add a reaction3
- Timely while non intrusive3
- Great on-boarding3
- Threaded chat3
- Visual Studio Integration3
- Easy to start working with3
- Android app3
- Simplicity2
- Message Actions2
- It's basically an improved (although closed) IRC2
- So much better than email2
- Eases collaboration for geographically dispersed teams2
- Great interface2
- Great Channel Customization2
- Markdown2
- Intuitive, easy to use, great integrations2
- Great Support Team1
- Watch1
- Multi work-space support1
- Flexible and Accessible1
- Better User Experience1
- Archive Importing1
- Travis CI integration1
- It's the coolest IM ever1
- Community1
- Great API1
- Easy remote communication1
- Get less busy1
- API1
- Zapier integration1
- Targetprocess integration1
- Finally with terrible "threading"—I miss Flowdock1
- Complete with plenty of Electron BLOAT1
- I was 666 star :D1
- Dev communication Made Easy1
- Integrates with just about everything1
- Very customizable1
- Platforms0
- Easy to useL0
- Can be distracting depending on how you use it13
- Requires some management for large teams6
- Limit messages history6
- Too expensive5
- You don't really own your messages5
- Too many notifications by default4
related Slack posts
Sentry has been essential to our development approach. Nobody likes errors or apps that crash. We use Sentry heavily during Node.js and React development. Our developers are able to see error reports, crashes, user's browsers, and more, all in one place. Sentry also seamlessly integrates with Asana, Slack, and GitHub.
Last time we shared there information about our decision about using YouTrack over Jira actually we found much better solution that our team have loved. Linear is a minimalistic issue tracker that integrates well with Sentry, GitHub, Slack and Figma which are our basic tools. I would like to recommend checking out Linear as a potential alternative to "heavy" issue trackers, maybe at enterprises that may not work but when we're a startup that works awesome!