Zoom vs … ?

In the sudden age of all Zoom everything, where is the competition?

In the sudden age of Zoom everything, where is the competition?

It is very curious to see the herd movement, as everyone is migrating to Zoom.

I already knew and used it for a few years; it was never my favorite. With a simple, intuitive, and extremely old-fashioned interface, Zoom can deliver what it promises.

Zoom

The two best features of Zoom:
- Recording
- You do not need an account to participate in a video conference.

But why did the herd move to Zoom? Where are the competitors, and why are they losing space to Zoom?

Skype

The oldest of all, and once the darling of everyone, is Skype. You must be under 20 years old if you don't remember or never used it.

Skype has gone through and still undergoes many profound transformations since its acquisition by Microsoft. In my opinion, Microsoft made a mistake several times with the product, which greatly affected the credibility of Skype.

Skype remains an incredible tool to use; it is stable, consumes little data bandwidth, and maintains reasonable audio and video quality.

Where does Skype lose? Let’s start the annoying mission of creating a Microsoft account to use it. That’s right; without a Microsoft account, you won’t be able to use Skype.

The second negative point is that it does not record the call in the free version. In the business version (Microsoft Teams), you have the option to record calls, the quality is excellent, and the storage is simple and easy to find afterward.

Hangout or Meets

Hangouts or Meets are the same thing and are not at the same time. Google Hangouts is available for free to all Gmail and Gsuite accounts, and Meet is only for Gsuite accounts.

Hangouts, simple to use, you don’t need to install any apps on your computer. The video and audio quality is sufficient for short meetings (maximum 30 minutes). The most annoying part is having to create your Gmail account to use Hangouts. Hangouts are one of the simplest on the market and are right there with your Gmail email.

The Meet is a Hangouts with steroids, the audio and video quality are superior, you have the option to record the call (Enterprise). As a Gsuite user, I love Meet. It’s integrated with my calendar, email, and everything else that Gsuite offers in terms of service and product. Unfortunately, the limitation is for your guests who do not have a Gsuite or Gmail account. It’s a pain in the X$@& having to ask your customer to have a Gmail account to talk to you at Meet.

Slack

The darling of all tech companies. With infinite integrations, bots and Slack functionalities have not yet reached an acceptable level for their audio and video connections. This moment could be a great leap of growth and dominance for Slack in the market if it made the necessary improvements for audio and video conferences.

Whereby

My preferred alternative solution, the old Appear, that today is called Whereby. It is a simple and elegant solution for video calls, with screen sharing and chat rooms.

One of the best things about Whereby is not having to create an account, log in to enter a videoconference room, just have a link, and click. The web version is incredible, but the App still needs some adjustments. The limitation is in the number of users in each room; the free account allows up to 4 people.

Conclusion

There are many other solutions, but those are the ones that are the easiest to set up and start with.

If you are a freelance or startup, you should have more than one solution. You never know how difficult it will be for your client to use a video conferencing tool.