Google Meet Vs. Zoom: Which is Right For Your Team?

Google Meet has done excellent work in helping teams hold video calls and collaborate on projects. The software’s ability to let people use their Gmail accounts and leverage the Google workspace apps is fantastic. Yet, it’s still not the perfect video conferencing tool for all teams.

Zoom has robust meeting control, video recording, and captioning options, making it a potential video tool for your team. Zoom attracts project management leaders, supervisors, or auditors as it allows for multiple screen sharing from teammates.

In this post, I dissect Zoom and Google Meet features to help you select the right one for your team. In a nutshell, I’ll talk about the following:

• Zoom and Google Meet Similarities.
• Zoom vs. Google Meet, side-to-side features comparison.
• The verdict on which tool is ideal for what teams.

How Are Google Meet and Zoom Video Conferencing Apps Similar?

Google meet and Zoom shares some features. An examination of the software reveals that they both:

• Offer free plans with short meeting times ideal for roundup calls with teammates.
• Allow hosts to schedule meetings and send invitations to attendees.
• Allow participants to share their screens, windows, or tabs during video calls. But, one has diverse sharing options. More on this later.
• Let users apply background filters during calls.
• Allows teammates to send messages during and after video calls.
• Have high-end security measures to protect data from third parties.

Despite their similar uses, Zoom and Google Meet have significant differences that set them apart. We’ll examine how the primary features work and the apps’ pricing models.

Google Meet Vs. Zoom: Meeting Management

You’ll host video meetings with your team occasionally or often. One vital feature influencing your choice is the ability to manage sessions efficiently.

Zoom offers many ways to manage meetings before and after

By default, participants can share their screen, video, or other content on Zoom. Since they might override the freedom or accidentally share unintended information, you have various control measures to maintain order during meetings.

Here are the standard ways you can manage your zoom video meetings.

• Lock uninvited guests from entering the video session.
• Mute teammates or ask them to speak.
• Add participants to waiting rooms before admitting them to the meeting.
• Mute participants immediately after joining a meeting.
• Allow or restrict teammates from joining video sessions anyhow.
• Restrict participants from sharing their screens.
• Stop an attendee’s video from playing.
• Rename a teammate.
• Ask teammates to share their videos.

Google Meet provides numerous ways to control meetings and has polls for more productive sessions

Google meet has also done an excellent job of helping administrators and co-administrators control conferences in the following ways:

• Allow or restrict participants from sharing their screens.
• Allow users to ask questions during meetings by turning the Q&A on.
• Let users view or send messages. The host can restrict who to send chats to or not. However, hosts can send messages for participants to view.
• Restrict which participants can join a meeting.
• Allow participants to join the meeting anytime.
• Let users take part in polls or not during meetings.
• End the video for everyone after the meeting.
• Turn on or off meeting recording, transcription, or live streaming for all or some users.
• Allow or restrict users from changing their backgrounds.

Zoom Vs. Google Meet: Meeting Time and Participants

Google Meet and Zoom have limits on video lengths and participants’ numbers on free and paid plans.

You can hold Zoom meetings with as many people as you want, more than a day long

Zoom’s free account allows a maximum of 40 minutes of video sessions with less than 100 participants. You can hold conferences for up to 30 hours on all paid plans. The business and enterprise accounts allow up to 300 and 1000 attendees, respectively.

Google Meet’s paid plans have shorter video time and fewer participants

Meanwhile, Google Meet’s free account offers 60 minutes meeting length with up to 250 participants. Paid plans have up to 24 hours of video time, but the number of attendees varies. The starter plan allows 100 attendees, 150 for the standard account and 500 for business and enterprise.

Zoom Vs. Google Meet: Screen Sharing

Screen sharing capabilities significantly differ for both video conferencing software.

Zoom allows for multiple screen sharing from participants and content from a second camera

Zoom offers massive options for participants to share content from their screens during meetings, making it more appealing than Google Meet.

Zoom video attendees can share their desktop, entire screen, window, or presentation tab. Interestingly, there’s more to it. Zoom allows one or multiple participants to share their screens simultaneously during meetings.

Multiple screen sharing comes in handy when comparing projects from team members during supervision.

As the host, enable multiple screen sharing on the zoom website before or during the meetings. Here’s how to do that.

1. Log in to your zoom web portal or account.
2. On your far left, you’ll see multiple toolbar options for settings such as profile, meetings, webinar, phone, and personal contacts.

3. Click settings on that list to open up a horizontal listing.

4. Under meetings, click “ in meeting(basic)” and scroll down to the screen sharing option.

5. Turn on screen sharing, and check the circle for “multiple participants can share simultaneously. Also, turn on all participants under ‘who can share.’ and click save.

Only one participant can share his screen at a time on Google Meet

While Google Meet also allows screen sharing, it offers more limited sharing options, as participants can only share their screen, window, or tab.
Google Meet restricts multiple screen sharing. If another user starts to share their screen, the screen of the one presenting pauses.

Zoom Vs. Google Meet: Captioning

Captions or subtitles allow participants to follow what others say. Subtitles also enable teammates with hearing impairment to understand what others are discussing.

Let’s look at how captioning contrasts between these apps.

Zoom offers many ways to generate subtitles, allowing you to choose the most suitable one

Zoom has plenty of captioning options over Google Meet. It provides manual and automatic captioning and can integrate with captioning software.

Zoom hosts can do manual captioning or assign a participant to write the subtitles after enabling closed captioning before or during the meeting.

You can also integrate captioning software with zoom to generate the subtitles. Zoom doesn’t stop there. It also provides automatic captioning or live transcription, which you can use on the website, app, or desktop.

Zoom meeting participants can view the closed captions by clicking the show captions icons after joining a meeting or webinar.

Google Meet offers only one method for captioning, limiting your choices

Although Google meet allows captioning, it offers fewer options than zoom. It only has automatic captioning. Users can view generated subtitles by turning on captions at the bottom of the screen.

Zoom Vs. Google Meet: Recording

If you want to record video sessions for future reference, the recording capabilities of these two apps deserve your attention. Zoom and Google meet hosts can save meetings just that one does it better.

Spoiler alert: Zoom takes the glory here!

Zoom has local and or cloud recording and storage on all plans

Zoom offers local and cloud video and audio recording for basic and paid accounts on their website, desktop, or mobile app. Local recording saves the video on the computer. You can store it on Google Drive or Dropbox or upload it on Youtube.

On the other hand, cloud recording stores audio and video content in the cloud for paid users. Zoom automatically records the video, which you can stream from the cloud or download to a computer. Cloud recording is more appealing as it doesn’t restrict content to capture during meetings.

For example, local recordings capture active speakers, shared screens, and gallery views separately, but cloud recording captures them as they are.

Google Meet only allows recording on some plans

Google meet allows recordings on the standard, plus, and enterprise accounts by turning on the record meeting option in the settings.

Google Meet team has more work to improve the recording feature as it has limited storage capabilities compared to competitors such as Zoom. Google Meet keeps recorded files in Google Drive after the meeting.

Both software allows users to share recorded files with third parties.

Zoom Vs. Google Meet: Integration and Collaboration With Teammates

Creating streamlined work processes for hybrid teams through integrating essential apps with a video platform is critical. When you connect useful apps, teammates can easily access and work on data, enhancing productivity and transparency in the workplace.

If we compare the integration capabilities of Google Meet and Zoom, Google Meet needs to catch up.

Zoom integrates with 50+ apps and has a whiteboard for collaboration with teammates

You can integrate up to 50 third-party applications and use them during video meetings and chats. Popular apps such as Asana, Zapier, Hubspot, Slack, and Miro are on zoom apps.

Zoom also provides virtual whiteboards where teammates can seamlessly collaborate on a project. You can create a whiteboard, add team members, and allow others to comment, edit, or add more information.

Any teammate can create a whiteboard from scratch or use the templates even when not on video calls.

The whiteboard creator can add collaborators, rename the whiteboard, create a duplicate, or share it with others.

Additionally, teammates can share or present the whiteboard project to executives. Whiteboard users can access the information on their android or ios phones, desktops, or zoom website.

Google Meet integrates with the Google workspace apps and has a live jam board for collaboration

Although Google Meet has integration and collaboration apps, they are more minimal and rigid than Zoom. I think Google Meet still needs some work in streamlining workflows. It only integrates with Google workspace apps such as drive, docs, dropbox, spreadsheets, calendar, and email.

Integrations with popular apps such as Zapier and asana are unavailable Google Meet website.

Instead of virtual whiteboards, Google meet has live jamboards where teammates can create and collaborate. Live jam boards are only started or opened during live meetings.

To use the jam board, participants must download the Google Meet app on their computers or phones.

The primary difference between zoom whiteboards and Google Jamboards is you can use Zoom whiteboards everywhere in team chats and during meetings. On the other hand, Google Meet jamboards are only available during live sessions on computers, phones, or tablets.

Zoom Vs. Google Meet: Security

Zoom and Google Meet have enhanced security before and during live meetings.

Zoom has fantastic security and data encryption methods

Zoom has the following security measures.

• Zoom waiting rooms- Hosts can direct attendees to a waiting room before admitting them to the meeting.
• Passcodes and URLS- Only users with the passcode or URL can join the meeting, ensuring third parties cannot see or record video or audio in encrypted sessions. The host invites attendees through link sharing.
• Advanced chat encryption secures sent messages, ensuring only intended recipients can read them.
• Cloud-recorded data encryption with passcode prompts when one wants to open or stream cloud content.
• Hosts can remove unwelcomed visitors in video meetings.

Google Meet has superb security and data encryption

Google meet has advanced its security by using similar features to Zoom. Such measures include end-to-end data encryption and using passwords or codes to join meetings. Google Meets allows only people with a Google account to join a session.

Google Meet also has a feature that restricts people from entering too early to filter unauthorized users.

Zoom Vs. Google Meet: Pricing

The last feature that can help you determine the ideal video conferencing tool that is perfect for your team is their pricing plans. While zoom and Google Meet offer free accounts, they have paid accounts with extra capabilities you’ll need to increase efficacy in video sessions.

Below, I break down Zoom and Google Meet paid accounts to help you choose a suitable one for your team.

Zoom’s paid plans are pricier but offer more functionalities for the best video experience

Zoom has three premium accounts.

• Pro plan priced at $149/year/user- Allows up to 30 hours per meeting, 100 participants, three whiteboards, team chat, mail and calendar, 5 GB cloud storage, and integration with essential apps.
• Business plan, priced at 199/year/user- Allows for up to 30 hours of meeting time, 300 participants, unlimited whiteboard, calendar, and mail on client account, team chat, 5 GB cloud storage, premium integration, and collaboration apps, SSO, and managed domains.
• Enterprise plan, custom price- Allows for up to 30 hours of meeting time, 1000 participants, unlimited whiteboard and cloud storage, team chat, calendar and mail on client account, translated captions, rooms and webinars, workspace reservations, SSO, managed domains, and full-featured PBX phone.

Google Meet’s paid plans are cheaper, but you’ll have to get a higher account to access better features for efficient video sessions

Google Meet’s premium features are available on Google workspace. Additional apps with the paid workspace include sheets, jam board, slides, docs, drive, meet, calendar, forms, sites, and Gmail.

Below are Google workspace plans and what you can do with the Premium google meet account.

• The business starter, priced at $6/month/user- Accepts up to 100 attendees per meeting and offers 30GB of storage per user.
• Business Standard, priced at $12/month/user- Allows up to 150 participants, recordings, and 2 TB storage per user.
• Business Plus, priced at $18/month/user- Allows up to 500 participants, recordings, attendance tracking, 5 TB storage per user, enhanced security, and management control.
• Enterprise plan, custom price- Accepts up to 500 participant video meetings, recordings, attendance tracking, noise cancellation, in-domain live streaming, unlimited storage, advanced security, management, and compliance control.

Google Meet Vs. Zoom: Which is Right For Your Team?

Both video platforms are fantastic and offer excellent video meeting experiences. Choosing the ideal tool for your team comes down to which software best serves your meeting needs, which are unique to every organization.

Carefully examine your conferencing needs, and match them to the software that provides the most functionalities and reasonable pricing.

I recommend Google Meet for small businesses with fewer staff or teammates. Google meets pricing, and the paid features will serve your team well, allowing you to seamlessly collaborate, chat, and catch up with teammates.

On the other hand, Zoom is robust and thus ideal for enterprises. It integrates with many apps and tools, making collaboration and workflow more efficient for large teams.

Zoom also provides more control over video recording, storage, whiteboard collaboration, and multiple screen sharing from participants, making it ideal for enterprises.

Hold Your Video Meetings on Zoom Today

Zoom and Google are excellent video conferencing software for all teams. As a team leader, choose a suitable tool that meets all your video-meeting requirements, such as video recording and storage, captioning, and enhanced security.

If you haven’t started using Zoom, sign up for a free account today and deliver happiness to your team through well-managed video sessions.