TOP 5 Video Meeting & Online Conferencing Apps

THE ULTIMATE LIST OF TOP MEETING APPS FOR LIVE VIDEO MEETINGS, CO-WORKING, AND COLLABORATIONS

During quarantine (lock-down), many businesses have to switch to remote work, and it’s very challenging for business owners to maintain current work processes, power up productivity, keep all of the projects running smoothly and improve workflow. The same can be said about the education system — meetings are moving online and it’s no secret that online co-working is a must.

Top meeting apps and platforms came to rescue in this complicated situation. Due to COVID-19, many folks around the world and students are using collaborative mobile apps for online classes and sessions.

PRODUCTIVITY AT ONLINE WORKPLACE WITH BEST ONLINE MEETING APPS

Best meeting apps give remote teams the ability to be more productive and to achieve goals faster, increase problem-solving skills, and simplify the workplace experience.

Best meeting apps allow companies and classrooms to have audio and video interactions with a range of features like desktop sharing, whiteboards, webinars, chats. Also, they give faster access to knowledge, more comfort to co-workers, students, and teachers to share their ideas, visualize them in real-time. By using innovative technologies learning will be more fun, innovative, and engaging.

Why we’ve selected these 5 best online meeting apps and what’s going on in the market of collaborative mobile apps.

We’ve selected 5 top-rated communication mobile apps considering the below points:

• Whether the program is free or paid.
• There is support for video conferencing or just face-to-face conversations
• Data privacy 
• The number of members
• Limits of time
• Is it possible to record calls, share files
• Ratings in the online stores, reviews of users.

The top meeting apps we present here are competitive in the market, offer great functionality, affordable in terms of price, comfortable to work with big or small teams and allow us to keep up with the working or learning process effectively. 

Which mobile apps are most useful for students, teachers, and co-workers?

ZOOM

Before the epidemic, Zoom was one of the most popular video conferencing services. But it was mainly used by the business.

Because of the lock-down in various countries, Zoom joined even more and more companies, universities, schools, and even government institutions that switched to remote work. And after that millions of people, especially freelancers joined the platform who are now studying or just chatting with friends from home.

Zoom is easy to use and very intuitive for scheduling meetings. It has a clean and simple interface, and an easy-to-use user experience, and engages even school children. It offers meetings and chats with HD video, audio, Conference Rooms, and Workspaces to run video meetings, also an enterprise cloud phone system, video webinars. Zoom allows to host up to 100 participants for free. The time limit for the basic plan is only 40 minutes with three or more total participants.

It allows you to record your meetings locally or to the cloud, with searchable transcripts.  It’s no secret that  Zoom has security issues: for example “Zoombombing”, where you can encounter hate speech and other inappropriate content.

Researchers at Morphisec Labs have identified a Zoom app bug that could enable recording Zoom sessions and capture chat text without any of the meeting participants’ knowledge. These issues caused a big scandal around this app and Zoom had to acquire a security company aimed at end-to-end encryption.

Rating in App Store: 4.5, Google Play: 3.9. Zoom has 4 plans: Basic (free), Pro ($14.99/mo), Business ($19.99/mo), Enterprise ($19.99/mo) which are priced based on the included features and the total number of hosts.

Pros:

• affordable cost
• unlimited one-on-one meetings
• ability to share slides and content
• virtual backgrounds
• recording meeting to the cloud.

Cons:

• poor security
• strong internet capability is a must
• time limits.

Our rating: 9/10 stars.

GOOGLE MEET

The Hangouts Meet service is now called Google Meet. Any user with a Google account can create a video meeting on Google Meet.

The app has no anonymous access. Advanced features for video conferencing in Google Meet, such as the ability to gather a large number of participants (up to 250), as well as to conduct live broadcast and recording was available for free to G Suite users until September 30, 2020. Google Meet supports chats, group chats, audio calls, video calls, video conferencing, file sharing. It has the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive. This app is light, responsive, and loads fast. It’s a really good solution for small teams.

Google Meet’s Enterprise plan users can record meetings which you can save on the host’s Google Drive and in the Google Calendar event. After the meeting, a link is sent to the host via email. They can share that link with others. Meet doesn’t include some of the valuable features that other services offer like whiteboard tools and poll-and-survey options.

Rating in App Store: 1.6, Google Play: 3.8. To support you during this crisis, Google has opened free access to advanced opportunities for video conferencing in the Google Meet service to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers.

Pros:

• totally free
• a large number of participants
• syncs well with other products of Google.

Cons:

• sound quality and sound features aren’t the best
• some capabilities are available only to G Suite customers
• poor functionality.

Our rating: 9/10 stars.

FACETIME

This is one of the top meeting apps and is available only on the App Store. It’s Apple’s built-in video and voice-calling app.

Via FaceTime you can reach contacts using your phone number or Apple ID, make video and audio calls, connect with up to 32 people at once. It works over Wi-Fi (iPhone 4 or later) and cellular (iPhone 4s or later) networks. Apple uses end-to-end encryption to protect data during connection. This eliminates the possibility that someone will crack your call and get access to your data. FaceTime is a user-friendly app and has an engaging design. It allows place stickers and effects to become Animoji. You can create Favorites for quick access to key people in the Phone app.

FaceTime is available only for iOS users, and not in every country. For example, it’s banned in UAE because they provide VOIP service. FaceTime is also banned in some other Middle Eastern countries like Qatar and Jordan, for the same reason. Saudi Arabia removed a ban two years ago.

Pros:

• security is high
• can become an Animoji
• you don’t need to download an app
• totally free.

Cons:

• requires to use a specific type of device
• not available for all countries.

Our rating: 8/10 stars.

LIVEBOARD

This application will make the teaching process easier, and our staff consider this is one of the best solutions among applications for educational institutions

LiveBoard is a multi-platform collaborative whiteboard application that will help visualize your ideas during an online co-working process. Over 100 000 teachers, professors, tutors, instructors, and other educators already use it. You can record your live session, review them later and share via social media. Also, you’re able to save your past lessons on the cloud for easy access from anywhere. It has a searchable archive: gives access to past session recordings.

LiveBoard remembers all the changes made, it is possible to go back and forth to find the necessary change.

The application has one more advantage: it provides a Palm Rejection function for free. This means that it is possible to rest your hand on the tablet while working and take the necessary picture without leaving unwanted “traces”.

Rating in App Store: 4.8, Google Play: 3.9. Most users of the app are from the USA, European countries, as well as from India. LiveBoard is free to download, but has in-app purchases, gives a one-week free trial, also offers 4 plans: Classroom ($5/mo), Online Tutoring ($10/mo), Online Tutoring Pro ($30/mo), and School ($99/mo).

Pros:

• real-time drawing and whiteboard sharing
• creations sharing via social media
• unlimited board space
• unlimited Groups
• cloud storage.

Cons:

• doesn’t support copy-paste functionality
• sometimes the app crashes when the board opened.

Our rating: 9/10 stars.

MESSENGER ROOMS

Recently, Facebook has announced a new service for online communication – Messenger Rooms. It is designed for video conferencing, which has become especially popular in the period of isolation and lock-down.

This is Facebook’s response to Zoom and other collaborative mobile apps which have moved forward while Facebook was being busy with other tasks. Messenger Rooms can host video chats with up to 50 people. To connect, it will be enough just to follow the link of the conference creator. A Facebook account is not required for joining the meetup.

There are no time limits for online meetups and they can be created both through Facebook and Messenger. You can also share the room in your Facebook News Feed, Groups, and Events. Users will be able to apply “masks” and use various effects during calls. Also, you can keep your room open for connecting at least all day, expecting someone to join. Room calls are not end-to-end encrypted, but Facebook says it does not view or listen to calls. This one is good for hanging out with friends and family, but not for co-working or learning. You can’t record, save or download your calls.

Rating in App Store: 4.3, Google Play: 4.2

Pros:

• AR abilities
• no time limits.

Cons:

• low amount of members
• poor functionality
• Facebook data privacy is unreliable.

Our rating: 9/10 stars.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot, work and education processes can’t be the same anymore. It’s time to invest in collaborative tools, mobile apps, web hosting companies, and choosing reliable video conferencing tools now seems to be very important. There are plenty of apps for online co-working, but these apps stand out above all with their functionality. Now you can choose the one that suits you or your business depends on your individual needs and priorities.

Frequently Asked Questions