Google Meet Vs. Zoom: Which One is a Better Option?

 Google Meet and Zoom are two of the most popular video conferencing apps available today. In a time when Covid-19 pandemic has forced employees and students inside their homes, these two apps are proving invaluable in attending online classes and business conferences. It becomes confusing for many people to choose between these two wonderful apps. This article aims to throw light on the pros and cons of both these apps (free versions) to let you choose the app that better suits your requirements.

Limitation on meet timing

At present, Google Meet has a huge meet time limit of 24 hours though they are planning to cut it short to just 1 hour from 1^st of October. If you are thinking of using Zoom, you will be disappointed to know that it allows a meet time of 40 minutes. This means if your sessions are going to be long, you would need to stop and start a new session which could be very irritating. 

Number of participants 

You can choose either of the two video conferencing apps if you are planning to hold a conference involving up to 100 participants. You can see up to 49 people at a time on your screen if you are making use of Zoom. In case of Google Meet, you are allowed to see only up to 16 people. If quantity is more important, you should choose Zoom.

Security aspect of the meeting

There is no company in the world to challenge Google on the aspects of security and privacy. There have been cases where Zoom meets have been hacked. With Google Meet, you can be sure of your privacy and security. Google allows IDs having 25 characters only. No one can join a meet less than 15 minutes prior to the start of a meet. This means Google gives a very small time window to hackers to try and break in. Also, calls in Google Meet are encrypted but this is not the case with Zoom calls. 

Features allowed 

Both Google and Zoom reserve wide range of features for paid subscribers. However, they provide basic features to free customers. You get live streaming, call recording, presentation, and captions with Google Meet. The most striking features of Zoom are virtual backgrounds, annotation tools, screen sharing, and touch up your appearance. The advantage lies with Google Meet as it can be integrated with other Google products. For example, you can start a video conference right inside Gmail. 

Both Meet and Zoom allow meets on not just desktops and laptops but also tabs and smartphones running on Android and iOS. You can start Google Meet inside browser but this is not possible with Zoom. Zoom has gained popularity these days because of its Gallery mode where faces of up to 49 participants can be seen at any point of time. Zoom allows recording of virtual meetings whereas this is not possible with Meet unless you are a paid subscriber. 

In the end, it can be said that both Google Meet and Zoom have their own pros and cons. You can try out both to see which one suits your requirements in a better manner.