Zoom or Google meet- Which is better?

Zoom Vs Google meet-

Zoom and google meet, it's difficult to say which is better, so let's understand what is the constraint that differentiates both the application.

When it comes to video calling nowadays Zoom has become the most popular option out there.

But now that Google has announced that Google Meet is available for free, I think it's time to dive in and see how it compares to Zoom and which one of these video calling services you may want to use.

Now Google has been doing video calling for as long as Zoom has. Both had their initial products launch in 2013,

however, Zoom has historically been focused on business conferencing for education and businesses, competing with other vendors like Cisco's WebEx and Blue jeans. Google's first video called the product was Hangouts and that was mainly focused on the consumer market to compete with Skype.

Over the years Google has debuted additional communication products like Google Duo and then finally Google Meet in 2017 which targeted Google's G Suite enterprise clients

Fast-forward to just a few months ago and it seems like Zoom took over the world in a matter of days when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Why did that happen you may ask?

Well out of all of the video calling services out there, Zoom's is by far the easiest to use when trying to get into a meeting you just download an app put in a code and you're in the meeting.

Of course, led to an infamous issue that got its name Zoom bombing were people who typically were not originally invited to a meeting would get access to the code come into the meeting and would stream inappropriate videos on famous people Zoom calls zoom has since added some security features to prevent this.

Zoom bombing explain-

Millions of people are locked inside the use of video conferencing apps like zoom has sky-rocketed bringing with it zoom bombing the practice of uninvited users crashing into otherwise private online conversations zoom has soared to 200million daily users from 10 million.

In less than 3 months the platform which was originally intended as a business-oriented teleconferencing tool rapidly became a global video hangout and saw multiple reports of strangers gaining access to an invite or meeting number generated by the platform.

one such zoom bomb happened to Neil Albrecht.

The executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission in Wisconsin during a video conference to find a solution on late absentee ballots, unknown hackers took over displaying religious video disturbing pictures, we own the meeting the privacy issues snowballed into even bigger cybersecurity concerns.

Security researchers have found bugs and codes user data sharing with Facebook lack of end-to-end encryption and routing of some traffic through China researchers say that most zoom bombing incidents.

That could have been avoided if meeting hosts had taken simple steps like requiring a password to join the chat zoom has since updated its software and given hosts more security options.

The San Jose based company has brought in top industry figures to further improve security but also had to admit that it misled customers by saying conversations were encrypted from end to end before the incidents.

While Zoom calls are dead easy to use and free they don't last forever and if you've used a free Zoom account you've likely already run into that 40-minute time limit for a Zoom meeting.

If you try to dial into a Zoom meeting through a telephone line that can have an additional cost this is one of the major differences between google meet and zoom, Google Meet has a time limit cap of 60 minutes for up to 100 participants.

However, now through September that cap has been lifted to 24 hours per meeting.

Major difference between both the Application-

Another huge difference between these two platforms is that with Google Meet you have to have a Google account and with the zoom, you do not have to have a Zoom account to join a meeting, you just download an app put in a code and you're in the meeting.

Now while zoom does have an app for the computer you can use Zoom just in a browser as well though quite a few features are missing from the web client like gallery view recording a meeting scheduling.

A one-time or recurring meeting pulls live-streaming share and annotate a whiteboard and all chat contact and setting menu toggles.

Google meet works in any modern browser on a computer like Chrome, Firefox, Edge and safari there's no app to download format on computers and it's well-integrated now with Gmail as well as Google Calendar.

When you create an invite on Google Calendar it just takes you one click to add a Google Meet invite link.

So that's a little bit about the big differences between these two platforms.

User Experience & User Interface-

Now let's take a look at the user experience and user interface of Google Meet and Zoom and how they compare.

When you go to meet google.com you see a pretty simple screen you can immediately start meeting or enter a meeting code to join an existing meeting.

You also have the option on the right-hand side to schedule a meeting when you fire up the zoom app on desktop you're presented with a simple layout a button to start a new meeting schedule an upcoming meeting join an existing meeting and share screen.

When you start a meeting on Zoom you're presented with a simple user interface on the left side of the bottom bar, you have controls to turn on and off your video and microphone you now have a security button that when clicked gives you quick actions that you can take to make your meeting more secure.

Those are like enabling a waiting room where people who want to join your meeting will wait until you approve them to enter the meeting.

You can also toggle on and off whether or not you want to allow your participants to be able to share their screen chat rename themselves or unmute themselves.

There are buttons to see the participants open up the chat and know that you can send individual chat messages to specific in a Zoom call as well as send messages out to the entire group on the call which is pretty cool.

Here we also have a button to record the meeting as well as add reactions you can change the meeting view up at the top right-hand corner when you have multiple participants in your meeting with gallery view being the most popular and the view that makes Zoom look like Zoom.

Now to gets the cool Zoom background replacement feature on a Mac click on Zoom us preferences and then virtual background here you'll be able to create a virtual background or use your own photo as a background.

Those are just some of the main popular features of Zoom there are of course a lot of other settings and preferences you can enable with zoom.

About Google Meet-

Let's take a look at Google Meet when you click to start a meeting it brings you to a holding screen where you can double-check that your hair is good and then decide whether or not you want to keep your camera and mic on before you enter the meeting.

When you click into the meeting, you'll see that fewer options are presented to you than in Zoom the bottom left-hand corner shows you the meeting details which you can expand Center on the bottom bar or the buttons to turn on and off your mic and camera as well as end the call.

Here you can also click the people icon in the top right-hand corner to see all of the participants in the meeting and you can also access the chat in this area of the UI as well.

You can send messages and links to all participants of your call but do note you cannot send messages to individual call participants.

In the right corner of the bottom bar you'll see a captions button when you enable this Google will automatically do a live translation of whatever is said in the meeting which is something that Zoom currently cannot do.

Though they do have a closed caption feature where somebody can type in closed captions for something like a webinar.

Next feature is present now, it will allow you to share your current screen and if you're on a Mac when you do this you'll need to click on the smaller version of your screen in the window that pops up and then click share for your screen to be shared.

Google does have a gallery view now that rival Zoom's that you can change to when you have multiple people on the call to change the view click on the three dots in the bottom bar and hit change the layout.

When a certain number of people join the call the three dots menu also links to settings where you can change your audio and visual settings for google meet.

Conclusion-

Well come to the conclusion, I've used both of these platforms on and off for over the past year.

Now so with this if would conclude then my answer will be, it depends I'd say go use google meet if you just need a simple video calling solution because it works pretty well it's got basic features you don't have to download an app for it as long as everybody has a Google account it’s going to work well for your situation.

The biggest plus right now for using Google Meet is there is a no 40-minute time limit the time limit per meeting is 24 hours now keep in mind that the time limit will reduce to 60minutes come September 2020.

Now if you need a video calling solution that has more advanced features like live-streaming or background replacement then I'd say yes you want to use Zoom. It's the solution everybody has heard of and it works well.