The spread of Covid-19 imposed several exceptional conditions on each and everyone’s life. There was a tremendous shift in how companies carry out their various daily activities. Social distancing and isolation of suspected Coronavirus cases forced several corporations to adopt a hybrid work method with flexible working conditions, enabling several employees to work remotely.
Remote employees need an effective tool to collaborate properly with those working from the company, or other laborers working from different locations. Virtual meetings became a necessity during the past two years. The two most popular options of virtual meetings are Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
Each of these technologies has its own advantages and disadvantages. Several organizations started depending on either Zoom or Microsoft Teams according to the capabilities of each platform, its benefits, pricing, and how suitable it is to the company’s needs and requirements.
The question remains; which is better, Zoom or Microsoft Teams? If a colleague of yours wants to have the best virtual meeting, what would you recommend? In this article, we would be highlighting the merits and the flaws of Microsoft Teams vs Zoom.
Both platforms, Microsoft Teams and Zoom, have several major common features. They provide virtual video conferencing, chat, and file and screen sharing, and many more functions.
The main advantage of Microsoft Teams in terms of features is that it integrates Office 365 stack. This provides different organizations with all that they need in one place. In order to compete with Microsoft Teams, Zoom has a distinctive collaboration with Slack offering a wide range of technical abilities and advantages.
The most distinctive feature of Zoom, according to numerous users’ experiences, is the user interface. Zoom is extremely easy to use and requires no special hardware or specific training to carry out the highest quality of virtual conferences.
Many users, on the other hand, find it harder to use Microsoft Teams. Users need to quickly move between various channels and applications to fully benefit from the features Microsoft Teams offers. However, Teams provides a wider range of usages and conferencing scenarios.
Thus, users need to think if they prefer easier access and user interface, or do they require more options and choices in terms of virtual meetings and video conferences.
Microsoft teams enjoy the same system of data security used in Microsoft 365. Access protection includes two types of authentications. The first is the single sign-on and the second is the highest level of data encryption. Teams is also equipped with Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection that guarantees the best standards of data security. Another great advantage of Microsoft Teams is that Microsoft does not sell or share the personal data of users to any third-party organization. All these technologies make Microsoft Teams better in terms of data protection. This is the reason why several international organizations and multinationals prefer it.
On the contrary, Zoom has actually had some issues related to data protection since its anticipation. The company later announced that the security of data represents their top priority at the time being. Nevertheless, Zoom needs to exert many efforts and inject large volumes of investments to regain confidence in its platform.
While both platforms offer free versions, they have several limitations in terms of storage capacity and features. Organizations, therefore, tend to depend on paid plans.
Teams is included in the bundles of Microsoft 365 and users pay for the whole suite of services. The price of the basic plan is 5 dollars per user per month, while the price of the enterprise plan, which includes more features, functions, and advantages, is 57 dollars per user per month.
Regarding Zoom, there is the free version, but virtual conferences only last for 40 minutes, in addition to several other limitations. The prices of paid plans range from around 15 to 19 dollars depending on the benefits and options of each plan.
