People love these two video conferencing applications for their reasons. The number of users for the individual app is gradually increasing during the ongoing pandemic. Thanks to these video conferencing applications, we’re still able to work from home without any issue. Let’s compare these two conferencing apps, concerning their convenience and accuracy.
What is Google Meet?
Google Meet (previously known as Google Hangouts) is a free video meeting service from Google. At first, it was only used by the G Suite enterprise customers. Now, everyone uses Google Meet for the comfort it offers. Further, it supports HD video streaming. You can schedule video meetings effortlessly. Just sign in with your Google account to use Google Meet.
You can host a meeting or share the links with your colleagues to join the meeting. There are so many features to it including, sharing screen, turn-on live captions, and many more. The best thing about this app is it offers end-to-end encryption on all calls.
What is Zoom?
Zoom is a video-conference-calling platform. You don’t need to pay for using this application. Just sign up to use it. Host meetings with up to 100 participants counting yourself (40 minutes for a meeting). To add more people, switch to the Zoom Pro paid plan.
Amongst the three plans, you can choose any as per your requirement. The “large scale” add-on allows you to expand the meeting with up to 500 to 1000 participants. The app works in browsers, desktop clients, conference rooms, and mobile devices.
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Zoom vs Google Meet
1) Limitations on Meeting Time and Number of Participants
If you don’t have a G Suite account and using the app with your Google account, then you can host a meeting of up to 100 participants. For G Suite subscribers, the limitation is set up to 250 participants.
GOOGLE MEET
| Plan Name | Cost | Participant Limit | Meeting Duration |
| Free | $0 | 100 | 60 Minutes |
| G Suite Essentials | $10 USD per active user/month* | 150 | 300 Hrs |
| G Suite Enterprise Essentials | $20 USD per active user/month* | 250 | 300 Hrs |
When it comes to Zoom, then you expect it to allow 100 participants per meeting. If this limit is too less for your company or organization, switch to its pro version. There are three premium plans available namely, Zoom Meetings Pro (allows up to 100 participants, expandable), Zoom Meetings Business (300 participants limit), and lastly, Zoom Meetings Enterprises (limit is set up to 1000 participants). Zoom’s (free version) meeting time limitation is 40 minutes while Google Meet is 1 hour.
ZOOM
| Plan Name | Cost | Participant Limit | Meeting Duration |
| Basic | Free | 100 | 40 Minutes |
| Pro | $14.99/month | 100 | 24 Hrs |
| Business | $19.99/month | 300 | 24 Hrs |
| Enterprise | $19.99/month | 500 | 24 Hrs |
If you opt for the premium version, then Google Meet would offer a better value with a time limitation of 300 hours.
Zoom is meant for larger meetings while Google Meet is for smaller meetings. If you run a small business, choose a simple service like Google Meet having a much better time limit compared to Zoom (free version).
2) Availability across Different Platforms
In the past, video conferencing was only available on desktops. Unlike earlier, these apps are accessed from smartphones, tablets, and desktops as well. Furthermore, these app features share screening. Giving presentations can be effortless with this.
You can download the app on any device and use it. Sign in with your Google account and, you’re good to go.
3)Screen Sharing
While giving a presentation in offices, you would be sharing crucial documents, presentations, and spreadsheets with the help of a projector. However, this is not possible when holding a virtual meeting. This feature allows you to share your screen with the participants. The presenter can share relevant documents with the participants.
4) Security Features
When it comes to security, then Google Meet is considered the best. The calls on Google Meet are encrypted. There were some severe security problems with Zoom. Users reported data theft and security breaches.
They are trying to fix the issue. Recently, two-factor authentication was added as a security option. Regardless of all these issues, both of these video conferencing apps excel in some areas. Choose the one that fits your need.
5) Recording Meetings
Zoom (free version) allows the users to record the meetings on their hard drive and, Zoom Premium will record and save the meeting locally or in the cloud. We all know that Zoom has three premium plans. The Zoom Enterprise plan offers unlimited cloud storage.
When we talk about Google Meet, it allows recording to the G Suite members only. The recording is not available in the free version.
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6) Interface of These Two Apps
Zoom and Google Meet are the most popular conferencing applications.
Google Meet’s interface is simple. You can host, join or schedule a meeting. In all honesty, we can say that Google Meet has a clear interface making it trouble-free to use. The app has more users on phones than desktops. So, they have freshly added a new feature, low lighting mode.
Zoom has an intuitive and clean interface. You can easily participate in a meeting with the link provided.
7) Data Usage
Data usage can be a concern for most users if they’re joining the meeting through cellular data. High-speed internet connectivity is a must as it consumes a lot of data.
GOOGLE MEET
| Average bandwidth per participant | ||
| Meeting type | Outbound | Inbound |
| HD Video | 3.2 Mbps | 1.8 Mbps |
| Audio only | 12 Kbps | 18 Kbps |
| Ideal bandwidth per participant | ||
| Meeting type | Outbound | Inbound |
| 2-person HD video meetings | 3.2 Mbps | 2.6 Mbps |
| Group video meetings | 3.2 Mbps | 3.2 Mbps |
The good thing about Google Meet is you can adjust the call quality to save data. Google Meet is most efficient when it comes to data usage.
ZOOM
Data Usage in One-on-One Call:
| Quality | Download | Upload | Total |
| High | 270MB per hour | 270MB per hour | 540MB per hour |
| 720p | 540MB per hour | 540MB per hour | 1.08GB per hour |
| 1080p | 810MB per hour | 810MB per hour | 1.62GB per hour |
Data Usage in Group Call:
| Quality | Download | Upload | Total |
| High | 450MB per hour | 360MB per hour | 810MB per hour |
| 720p | 675MB per hour | 675MB per hour | 1.35GB per hour |
| 1080p | 1.2GB per hour | 1.2GB per hour | 2.4GB per hour |
8) Integration/Encryption
Integrations are another essential deciding factor. Both the app allows amazing integrations throughout various mobile devices as well as desktop. As far as encryption is concerned, Google Meet requires two-step verification to proceed further.
Google Meet comes with SRTP (Secure Real-Tome Transport Protocol) as well as DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security). Zoom on the other hand introduced AES 256-bit encryption in June 2020. So, as far as privacy is concerned, both of the platforms offer pretty tight security.
Wrapping Up
These two apps are affordable and reliable when it comes to video conferencing. You can compare the plans and opt for any as per your requirement. Now, this goes without saying, both of them comes with their own sets of advantage and disadvantages. So, in the end, it all comes down to you, which platform you want to stick within the long run?