2020, A year that will always be remembered cause you know CORONA VIRUS. With much of the world under shelter orders, many businesses have mandated their employees work from home. Some companies like Twitter even go far and work at home for a lifetime. This has suddenly made videoconferencing apps essential.
With more and more students attending virtual classrooms and employees working from home, you might be wondering what the best way is to communicate with your colleagues, teachers, and classmates. Thanks to today’s technology and web-based tools, there are many choices for communicating online, assuring that you can learn and work from home efficiently.
If we talked about five years ago, the video conferencing app means Skype. Then, it was the household name for almost every business because it was FREE. But in 2020 and 2023, When it comes to video conferencing, there is only one app that almost everyone is using: ZOOM.
Google Meet is also becoming a popular video conferencing, adding roughly 30 lakh daily users. Initially released, it was not FREE but based on the circumstances, it made it for Free and Premium plans.
To get a better user experience with these video conferencing apps, monitor and camera size and quality matter. If you are video calling from the top best monitors or high-quality laptops, then the quality of these apps is amazing.
You will clearly understand the difference between Google Meet and Zoom on these laptops or desktops.
To understand the difference between the two most used video conferencing apps, let’s know which tools offer which features, their advantages, and the difference between Google Meet and Zoom.
What is Google Meet
Google Meet is a video-communication service from Google Workspace. Meet supports your team stays securely connected with video conferencing installed on Google’s solid and secure global infrastructure. Google meet is incorporated with Google Workspace, Google Workspace Essentials, and G Suite for Education.
Is it safe to use Google Meet in 2023?
Yes, it is. Google Meet video meetings are encrypted in transit, and their collection of default-on anti-abuse measures keeps your meetings safe. Set yourself up for a meeting and share a link with your colleagues, clients, or roommates. You don’t need to consider whether your clients, customers, or teammates have the right accounts or plugins.
Features of Google Meet
- You can share your screen, change your background and layout, share text, images, or documents, and mute the participants.
- If you’re a G Suite subscriber, which will cost you around $6 per month per user, you get access to more premium features, like meeting recordings, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers, and 250 cool call participants.
- Customizable backgrounds.
- Intelligent noise cancellation
- Meet reports extension
- Polling Native mobile apps
- Q&A channel
- Live streaming in-domain
- Meeting recording saved to Google Drive
- The US or international dial-in phone numbers
Advantages of Google Meet
- Creating a meeting with Google meet is very easy. You need a Google account, and I don’t think any user in this world does not have a Google account(Of course, because of its Gmail or Youtube service).
- Invite people by sharing a link, and your friend at work will connect with you with one click.
- It is built on Google’s Infrastructure, considered one of the best globally, plus it’s highly secure.
- It is suitable for small, private quick meetings and gatherings.
What is Zoom
A zoom is a cloud-based software (SaaS) service that offers Meetings and Webinars and provides collective services like content sharing and video conferencing tools. You do not need a Zoom account to attend a Zoom meeting; you need the host to have an account to enable the scheduling of meetings.
Is it safe to use Zoom in 2023?
For your client meeting, Zoom is safe, and they are constantly implementing new security protocols to secure the user’s privacy and data. However, if you’re working with state security departments, state affairs, corporate secrets, or revealing personal health information to a patient, Zoom should not be your choice; otherwise, it is outstanding.
Features of Zoom
- Breakout room
- Camera control
- Invitation languages
- Virtual backgrounds
- Remote support
Advantages of Zoom
- Zoom video conference app is perfect for large meetings, especially if your meeting is 8-15 hours long. Zoom is an enterprise-grade, large-scale video-calling service with tons of features (not an exaggeration), and it has a free plan.
- Zoom is easy to set up, use, and manage. Very little knowledge is required.
- Modern communications for your dispersed team.
- You can connect to Zoom via desktop clients, browsers, conference rooms & mobile devices.
- Zoom is the best value and returns on investment.
Google Meet vs. Zoom in 2023
Google Meet and Zoom allow you to take video meetings and record them later; they differ significantly in scale. Anyone with a Google account can create a video conference, invite up to 100 participants, and meet for up to 60 minutes per meeting for free. Zoom also offers free personal meeting and host up to 100 participants, 40-minute maximum group meetings, and unlimited 1 to 1 session.
Google Meet and Zoom look the same because both services make large-scale video conferencing easy. But there’s a lot more going on underneath. Here’s what you need to know to choose the right one for you or your company.
Google Meet vs. Zoom: Premium Pricing
Google Meet pricing in 2023
Google Meet operates on three tiers.
- Free: which we have already seen.
- Google Workspace Essentials: USD 8 per active user/month*
- Google Workspace Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing
Zoom pricing in 2023
Zoom operates on four tiers.
- Basic: It is used for personal meetings, and it is free.
- Pro: $14.99 / per host / per month
- Business: $19.99 / per host / per month
- Enterprise: $19.99 / per host / per month
Google Meet vs. Zoom: Meeting Time, Participants limit
We already discussed the pricing for both apps. Now, let’s talk about Meeting time and participants limit, which is a second stand-out point in choosing which platform you need to use.
Google Meet is free, and Zoom is also free for starters. Zoom provides 1:1 meetings for free with unlimited hours, which is very cool. Both applications offer free versions of their apps with limitations.
Google Meet pro plan provides a meeting length of 300 hours, with 150 participants maximum.
Google Meet enterprise plan provides a meeting length of 300 hours, with 250 participants maximum.
Zoom Pro plan provides 1-to-1 meetings, unlimited meetings, and unlimited group meeting duration.
Zoom Business plan provides 10 or more host accounts with 1 to 1 meeting unlimited, several meetings unlimited, and group meeting duration unlimited.
Google Meet vs. Zoom: Availability
Zoom and Google Meet are available on Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile platforms. You can access both apps from the chrome browser. Although, there is a plugin available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. It is effortless to join and schedule the meeting on Google Meet and Zoom.
Google Meet vs. Zoom: User Interface
Zoom is recommended for its Gallery view that displays up to 49 participants on a single screen.
But recently, Google Meet impersonated that interface by enabling an expanded tiled layout that simultaneously shows up to 16 participants.
Google Meet vs. Zoom: Recording
Google Meet doesn’t allow the recording of virtual meetings for free users. However, you can record meetings seamlessly if you’re a paid G Suite Enterprise or G Suite Enterprise for Education editions.
Google Meet vs. Zoom: Security
Google Meet supports multiple 2-step verification security features for user accounts and coheres to IETF security standards for Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP). Meet also generates a unique encryption key that only exists as long as the meeting runs and is transmitted in an encrypted and secured RPC (Remote Procedure Call) when the meeting is set up.
Zoom uses the AES 256-bit GCM encryption standard that is touted to be enabled. If we compare Google Meet with Zoom, then Zoom is less secure. But again, they are constantly improving their security the next day. Zoombombing is the act of using Zoom’s screen-sharing feature to display violent or pornographic imagery in a meeting, which can be an issue.
Google Meet vs. Zoom: Complete Comparison Overview
| Google Meet | Zoom | |
| Maximum meeting length | 300 hours | 24 hours |
| Maximum meeting participants | 250 | 1,000 |
| Number of meetings | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Free version available | Yes | Yes |
| Join from the browser | Yes | Yes |
| Native Mobile apps | Yes | Yes |
| Preferable | It is helpful in small, quick meetups | It is excellent in medium to large meetups. |
| Save recording | It can be saved in Google Drive. | It can be saved in the Zoom cloud. |
| Intelligent noise cancellation | Yes | Yes |
| Encryption in transit and at rest |
Yes | Yes |
| Customer support | 24 x 7 | 24 x 7 |
Bottom line
Zoom is the clear choice for enterprise-size companies thanks to its high-participant support and deep business features. But Google Meet is also a choice for small to medium teams working on small projects without special skills to operate business software.
Pranav Shah is a Cloud Engineer and completed his masters degree from MIT University.