8 Best Virtual Meeting Platforms Software

Dr. Ankit Sharma, PhD

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Best Virtual Meeting Platforms

Video conferencing or virtual meetings can change the way the work of employees when they are remote or working from home. Face-to-face communication is vital, even if you can’t meet in person. With the Best Virtual Meeting Platforms, your teams can work together or with customers & clients efficiently, regardless of location.

Since video conferencing performs relatively better than audio-only meetings for communication, it’s wise to invest in a good video conferencing setup for your team. Considering the recent trend, we have seen a rise in work-from-home culture. Participants attend a meeting from the comfort of their couches. Also, helps to organize a meeting when participants are spread across the country or the world.

Best Virtual Meeting Platforms

1. Zoom

Best Virtual Meeting Platforms

Zoom is a very popular & one of the Best Virtual Meeting Platforms famous for being user-friendly. You can invite anyone to a Zoom meeting with a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), even if that person does not have a Zoom account. Once team members click on the provided URL, they can immediately join a virtual room with the rest of the team.

Registered users can organize meetings with up to 100 people using the free version of Zoom’s software. Packed with fun features like breakout rooms, Zoom is perfect for hosting meetings, games & activities in a virtual space.

2. BlueJeans Virtual Meetings

BlueJeans Virtual Meetings has been a strong candidate in the video conferencing software market for quite some time now, & its quality has improved remarkably since Verizon acquired the company. Though BlueJeans’ browser-based client lacks a few features, its potent dedicated apps are available for almost every platform, counting Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, & Windows.

That wide platform support is enough to make BlueJeans a must-have for many businesses, especially if they organize many video meetings or webinars with customers, contractors, or partners whose technology adoption may not match theirs. For that and many other reasons, BlueJeans reigns as one of the Best Online Meeting Platforms.

3. Google Meet

Best Virtual Meeting Platforms

In many ways, Google Meet is a technical sensation, being one of the first services to deliver a full-featured video conferencing experience that functions entirely within a web browser. Google has progressively improved Meet with new features & improvements over the years.

But it can be hard to recommend Google Meet as a first choice if you are looking for a standalone video conferencing solution because of Zoom Meetings & other similar platforms. Though, if your organization has already standardized Gmail & the other apps included with Google services, Google Meet may be all you need for video calls & meetings.

4. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams, the business messaging & video conferencing software from Microsoft, is like some supermarkets’ self-service sections. If you know how it works, you can quickly make your way through it.

If you are a customer with little or no experience, it could take a while to find the right aisle, & shelf where you will finally grab a nondescript box & hope it contains the thing you need. Everything is in its place as long as you know where to find it.

Similarly, Microsoft Teams is systematic & hyper-compartmentalized but can be frustrating to navigate. You may have to search a little to find a conversation. Every time you create a new Team within this platform, the number of places you may have to go to find information or answer a question significantly increases.

Microsoft Teams has some powerful features, numerous tools, & numerous places to hold conversations with colleagues, but you may have to search for a long time to find them.

5. Skype

Acquired by Microsoft in 2011, Skype was the primary & household name for video calls. However, because of consumer complaints and the emergence of various other options, Skype is no longer the only or primary choice for virtual meetings.

Skype is trying to make a comeback with video conferencing, making it the ideal time to return to the familiar software with its signature ringtone.

The app now offers meetings for up to 50 participants by a generated URL. No registration or download is needed. The free version of Skype works pretty well for small teams with fewer than 10 team members. It is a good platform if you are looking for a simple way to video chat from your computer, phone, or tablet & have smaller group meetings or one-to-one conversations.

6. Webex by Cisco

Webex is one of the oldest video conferencing software players, founded in 1995 & acquired by Cisco in 2007. That sets it apart from some of the newer, general-purpose video conferencing solutions, like Zoom Meetings. Although Webex can work in that capacity, it’s firmly incorporated with Cisco’s entire ecosystem of conferencing tools & hardware, including this video conference technology.

Buying into that vision may cost you, but what Cisco offers is still all-inclusive & convincing enough that it earned the trust of so many small & midsized organizations as their video conferencing solution.

7. Intermedia AnyMeeting

Intermedia AnyMeeting was another by-product from Intermedia’s other telecommunications products when demand for a separate video conferencing software service started. The result is a wholesome service with excellent features like a whiteboard, automatic transcription, & many useful, integrated apps.

AnyMeeting is one of the market’s most robust and feature-rich tools. Intermedia offers two entry-level pricing slabs for AnyMeeting, but more is likely to be needed for even the tiniest of businesses. For instance, the free Starter slab limits conference participants to four people only. The Lite slab raises this to 10 participants.

8. Zoho Meeting

Zoho Meeting’s latest version shows a significant upgrade to Zoho’s video conferencing software, which is just one of the many parts that creates the wider Zoho ecosystem. Current Zoho customers should consider Meetings, particularly in light of recent upgrades that offer a redesigned user interface, which brings the service more in line with the current competition.

Regrettably, some shortcomings still leave it lagging behind the competition. For instance, it doesn’t have AI-powered automatic transcription & video recording. If you want those features, you must look elsewhere.

What Equipment Do You Need for Video Conferencing?

Apart from the Best Virtual Meeting Platforms, another thing to consider is the hardware you need to support it. Luckily, almost every modern laptop, tablet, & smartphone is equipped with an integrated microphone & a good webcam; the front camera of phones can act like a webcam.

Some laptops, like the Apple MacBook Pro, HP Spectre x360, Microsoft Surface & many more, come with high-quality 1080p webcams; the same goes for many high-end mobile devices. Desktop PCs need some additional hardware.

If you are looking for improved clarity of sound or video, you need the best microphones & high-end webcams. Some business monitors also come equipped with built-in video conferencing features.

FAQ

Q: Are these platforms free?

A: In free tire, you will find some basic functionality with provision for smaller groups. To have more you need to buy it.

Q: How to choose one of the Best Virtual Meeting Platforms?

A: Determine your purpose first & the size of your team. Some platforms allow to add enough number of participants in a video conference, and some do not.

Q: Apart from basic video conferencing, what kind of features can I expect from these?

A: Depending on the platform, you can expect several features like whiteboard tools, share desktop features, video & audio recording, transcription, social media integration & many more.

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