TOP 5 Video Meeting & Online Conferencing Apps

12 min read

The ultimate list of mobile 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.

Collaborative mobile 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

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

Conferencing and collaborative mobile 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.

Best co-working and video meeting apps list 2020

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

We’ve selected 5 top rated communication mobile apps considering listed 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.

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 them millions of people, specially 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 the easy-to-use user experience engaged even school children. It offers meetings and chats with HD video, audio, Conference Rooms and Workspaces to run video meetings, also enterprise cloud phone system, video webinars. Zoom allows to host up to 100 participants for free. The basic plan has a 40 minutes time limit on meetings with three or more total participants.

It allows to record your meetings locally or to the cloud, with searchable transcripts. It’s no secret that Zoom has security issues: for example “Zoombombing”, which is a new type of online harassment in which hate speech, pornography or other inappropriate content is suddenly flashed by disrupting a video call on Zoom.

Researchers at Morphisec Labs have identified a Zoom app bug that could enable to record 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 security company, aims for 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, will be 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. Recordings are automatically saved to the host’s Google Drive and in the Google Calendar event. After the meeting, the host receives a link to the recording via an email, which they can share 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 app 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, use 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. VOIP applications are banned because they provide unlicensed Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) service, which is against the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority’s (TRA) law. 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. iOS and iPadOS Feature Availability you can find here.

Pros:

high security
use effects to become an Animoji
no necessary 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 which will help visualize your ideas during 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 searchable archive: gives access past session recordings in an easy to search archive.

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 are registered from the USA, European countries, especially from Spain, France, Germany, as well as from India. LiveBoard is free to download, but has in-app purchases, gives 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. 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 as well. 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, and choosing reliable video conferencing tools now seem 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.