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Microsoft Teams vs Skype: What are the differences?
Introduction
Microsoft Teams and Skype are both popular communication platforms that offer various features for individuals and businesses to connect and collaborate. While they share some similarities, there are key differences between the two.
Integration with other Microsoft products: Microsoft Teams is a part of the Microsoft 365 suite, which means it seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft tools such as Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive. On the other hand, Skype does not have the same level of integration, limiting its collaboration capabilities and file-sharing capabilities.
Focus on teamwork and collaboration: Microsoft Teams is specifically designed for teams and group collaboration, providing features such as team channels, document collaboration, and integrated project management tools. Skype, on the other hand, is more focused on one-on-one communication, making it more suitable for individual and personal use.
Meeting capabilities: While both Microsoft Teams and Skype offer video and audio calling features, Microsoft Teams takes it a step further by providing more advanced meeting capabilities. Teams allows users to schedule and join meetings, share screens, record meetings, and even host large-scale, interactive webinars. Skype, on the other hand, offers basic video and audio calling features without the added meeting functionalities.
File collaboration: Microsoft Teams provides a robust file collaboration feature that allows team members to co-author documents in real-time, leave comments, and track changes. Skype, on the other hand, lacks these collaboration features, making it less suitable for document collaboration and teamwork.
Channel-based communication: Microsoft Teams organizes conversations into channels, allowing team members to keep their discussions focused and organized. This makes it easier to find and access relevant information within a specific channel. Skype, on the other hand, does not have this channel-based communication structure, making it harder to track conversations and find specific information.
Third-party app integrations: Microsoft Teams offers a wide range of third-party app integrations, allowing users to connect their favorite apps directly to the platform. This enables users to streamline their workflows, access important information, and perform various tasks without leaving the Teams environment. Skype, however, has limited third-party app integrations, limiting its capabilities to extend beyond its native features.
In summary, Microsoft Teams differentiates itself from Skype by offering better integration with other Microsoft products, a stronger focus on teamwork and collaboration, advanced meeting capabilities, robust file collaboration features, channel-based communication, and a wider range of third-party app integrations.
Hi, I am helping teachers in my kid's schools to set up distance learning and wanted to see what is better between Webex, Zoom, and Skype (although only putting this one in as most parents probably have it). The children are 8-9, so they won't be using it on their own and the parents have no experience using Webex or Zoom.
The main use will be for the teacher to explain what they will be covering in the week and enable some social interaction between the kids.
I need to be easy to use for about 20-25 people.
Thanks for your advice, Lisa
I consider Skype dead. Even Microsoft strongly neglected it. Webex is more corporate-oriented. So for your use case, I recommend Zoom. It is easy to set up, and the quality is very good. Zoom became such a household name that the average person heard about it. Moreover, any person probably has friends who may have used it. So it will be easier for people to get some community help.
From my experiences I feel like Zoom is a pretty intuitive program to teach kids, however Skype might be more common amongst them already.
I am a big fan of Microsoft Teams.
They all do the same pretty much but Teams I find the bells and whistles are easier to find, like custom backgrounds... creating groups for topic discussions that remain there until you want to change/edit or delete. Easy to share files.
We've been using Zoom for about a half a year and it's stability is unbeatable. We have all-hands on Fridays with 100+ participants. The free tier can easily handle the requirements, the only limitation is that max meeting length is 40 minutes. After that you can immediately restart the meeting, but the pro option is also very affordable. It also features screen sharing and whiteboard sharing out of the box. I also appreciate that it's not mandatory to register an account to attend a meeting.
Hi, Lisa,
I haven't used Skype in a long time. I have I lot of experience with Zoom and Webex. Both for me are very good tools, especially if you have money to pay for (to unlock more features, like more people in a video conference - Zoom).
Nowadays, I've used more Webex with my undergraduate students, I'm using the free account. Cloud recording is a features very useful, especially while using the free account (thanks Cisco!). Webex has control features very useful (e.g., mute, raise hand etc).
Kind regards,
we were using slack and at the same time we had a subscription with office 365. after a while we hit the slack free limitation quota. and it got annoying. the search ability was useless in free tier. and more annoying whenever you search, it opens a webpage and doesn't do it in the app.
on mobile there were many cases that I didn't get notification of important discussions. rooms was the way to separate a talk. but it become tedious. each time for a new subject that you wanted to discuss, you needed to add all the team members into a new room. and after a while the room goes silent. you will end up with a tons of not-in-use rooms that you don't want to clean up them for history purposes. also the slack UI for sub discussion is very stupid. if someone forget to check the checkbox to post the subdiscussion in the main discussion thread, other team members even won't notice such discussion is in progress.
we was paying for office 365 and thought why not give the teams a shot. we won't be in worth situation than we are. we moved to teams and we loved it instantly, we had a separate tab aggregated all the files upload. we could reply on other talk. no need of creating a new room. this way room belongs to a team and not a certain topic. our sub discussion was visible to the whole team. enjoyed integration with azure and unlimited history. the best part was integration with outlook. it was a full suit solution. our stats become busy on outlook meeting events. we get weekly analyse. we didn't need to host our wiki seperated. we've created wiki per team. the communication was much more fun.
Pros of Microsoft Teams
- Work well with the rest of Office 365 work flow28
- Mobile friendly23
- Free19
- Great integrations12
- Well-thought Design11
- Channels10
- Easy setup8
- Unlimited users6
- Strong search and data archiving5
- Multi domain switching support4
- Easy to integrate with4
- Same interface on multiple platforms3
- Web interface3
- Great voice quality2
Pros of Skype
- 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
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Cons of Microsoft Teams
- 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
Cons of Skype
- 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
