Business
5 'Free' Zoom Alternatives that Break the 40-minute Barrier By DOUG AAMOTH
To get started, you visit its site and start a meeting instantly with a unique URL that gets generated for you right at the top of the main page. Share the URL with up to 100 other people and, boom, you’re in. Meetings are encrypted end-to-end, video is HD quality, you can remote control others’ desktops, and there are integrations with Google, Microsoft, and Slack.
IF YOU’RE USING the free version of Zoom and MICROSOFT TEAMS: 60 you’re not a huge fan of meetings to begin with, MINUTES FOR UP TO 100 PEOPLE, PLUS CHAT the 40-minute meeting limit could arguably be AND STORAGE seen as a feature. If you’ve got a small But sometimes you’ve just got to meet for longer than two-thirds of an hour, right? And if you’re company and you need looking for free Zoom alternatives that are more want to do a bit more than just hold meetings, the free generous, have we got a list for you. version of Microsoft Teams RINGCENTRAL VIDEO: is a must-have. UNLIMITED FOR Yes, video meetings are limited to only an hour 100 PEOPLE, PLUS and you can’t record them, but you get a pretty RECORDING fully-featured collaboration suite on the side that Probably best known for lets you instant message members of your team, its business phone systems, store and share up to 5 GB of files per person, RingCentral also offers a and access web versions of Word, Excel, and dynamite free video meeting PowerPoint. service called RingCentral Plus, if you haven’t used Teams’ excellent Video. The free version is perhaps confusingly called Together mode, you haven’t lived. RingCentral Video Pro, but once you see the list of features, the whole “Pro” thing kind of makes sense: you can host meetings of unlimited length with up to 100 participants, and you get 10 hours of cloud recordings that can be retained for seven days. Meeting video is captured in HD, you can use virtual backgrounds, and there’s closed captioning and a whole bunch of other useful features. If you’re looking for the ultimate free Zoom alternative, this is the one. JITSI MEET: OPENSOURCE, UNLIMITED FOR 100 PEOPLE, NO ACCOUNTS REQUIRED The easiest-to-use free Zoom alternative on this list is also the least well-known one: Jitsi Meet. 20
May-June 2022
GOOGLE MEET: 60 MINUTES FOR UP TO 100 PEOPLE, PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE Chances are, everyone on your team has a Google account. If that’s the case, the free version of Google Meet will get everyone connected in no time. You can also invite external participants should someone not have a Google account, so that’s a plus. Video quality is excellent, as are the tablet and mobile apps, and you get screen sharing and live captions—but no recording in the free version. And while group meetings can only last up to an hour, if you’re a real micromanager, you can hold one-on-one meetings of unlimited length (shudder). To be fair, the free version of Zoom
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