What's Better, Google Meet or Skype?

During the pandemic, social distancing, remote working, and lockdown have raised the demand for video conferencing for business and personal users. Because of the COVID-19, most organizations are shifting to video meeting apps for voluntary actions. A robust video conferencing software offers several key features, including:

• Perfect user-experience
• User-friendly features
• HD video quality
• Hold long video calls & online meetings
• Continuous and reliable performance 

Similarly, Google Meet, Zoom, and Skype are some of the most well-known online video conferencing tools that provide a smooth user experience, uninterrupted workflow, and reliability.

Finding the best video conferencing app or system for your business can be tricky, but if you compare leading systems for features, pricing, and services, you'll be sure to get the best video communication features you need within your budget. Each of these tools has a fair share of perks over other apps, so comparing Zoom with Google Meet or looking at pricing and features comparisons for Skype and Zoom or even considering how Facetime compares with Zoom can help you ensure you choose the most valuable tools and systems for your company communications.

Google meet is user-friendly, simple-to-use software. It lets you easily connect with 100 people at a time and is particularly convenient when meeting with people across time zones. Google Meet is an advanced version of hangout created for holding video conferencing, file sharing, screen sharing, instant messaging, and other business applications like webinars. 

Google Meet also has other advanced features like recording and screen sharing options and joining a conference by phone. This cloud-based platform is an enterprise-grade video conferencing app that connects over 2 million users daily. Google Meeting is made to schedule virtual meetings amongst colleagues and team members. It has noteworthy features like conference room booking, calendar syncing, real-time captions, screen sharing, and many more. 

G Suite is a platform of many software that perform a massive range of operations to help businesses so that they don’t have to use standalone apps for individual tasks. Considering the diverse business application of G-Suite, it's relatively cheap. With G-Suite, you save money on a subscription, which usually costs a lot if somebody is interested in individual applications separately. Every plan in the G-Suite contains Google Meet.

Subscription Plans - Google Meet

There are normally 3 plans of G-Suite: 

1.     Basic Plan

2.     Business Plan

3.     Enterprise Plan.

We'll explain each plan comprehensively. Here are some details of what each plan offers to help you choose which platform is perfect for your business.

Basic Plan

The plan costs $6 per user per month. It offers a massive list of extra features, including Secure Team, messaging, Google Meet, Business email applications, shared calendars, slides presentation builder and spreadsheet, notes-sharing, website building, survey-designing programs, and employee-engagement applications. Up to 100 participants can join the meetings at Hangouts Meet, and 30GB of cloud storage space is offered to save recordings.

The Enterprise Plan

This plan costs $25 per user per month. Users get all basic features plus additional administration, security, and e-discovery tools. The maximum number of participants is 250. Users get an unlimited storage space for 5 users or 1 TB storage space for less than 5 users. Google provides customer support 24/7 via online chat, email, or phone call. Moreover, all G-Suite plans have a 14-day free trial.

Although Google Meet doesn’t offer all the advanced features existing in stand-alone video conference programs, it does offer the most basic features for successful virtual meetings. With Google Meet, users can use screen sharing options. 

Skype is a popular video conferencing app. It's one of the perfect solutions for online communication through voice or video chat. While the voice-over-internet protocol service and video conferencing service offered by Skype is normally oriented towards private users, there has been a recent launch of this app, particularly designed for businesses and known as Microsoft Skype for Business. Skype integrated Lync into its Enterprise communications platforms. Merged with a well-known user interface, it offers a massive range of services that better suit businesses and enterprises. It has very impressive video conferencing call functionalities.

1.    Ease of use

Skype is super easy to use for business as soon as you understand the myriad of features. You can choose stand-alone Microsoft Skype for a Business plan with a fee per year or sign up with business-grade Microsoft Office 365 packages after paying $99.99, including Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft office. 

2.    Subscription

Every user can get a subscription by paying $2 per month. Skype Business subscription allows you to host video chat for free through skype meetings. You can download the mobile app to use skype through the phone. Microsoft Skype for Business also offers web-based Skype and Skype Translator programs. The entry-level plan of skype costs $5 per user per month. Users get access to only group IM and can have audio calls and video calls with other users. This plan also allows access to Microsoft office products only when online with 1 TB storage space for recordings. The premium version plan costs $12.5 per user per month. It's the most updated plan as it caters to desktop sharing, HD video calls, video or audio recording. 

3.     Scheduled Meetings

With the premium plan, users can schedule meetings through Microsoft Outlook, and participants can join meetings from the web browser. The desktops of attendees can be controlled in a lobby area before starting a meeting, and it also offers a completely installed version of all Microsoft Office apps. 

Skype for Business Server 2020 serves as a complete VOIP platform that allows Enterprise VoIP features such as call forwarding and dial-in audio conferencing. The office 365 business premium plan of skype has a 30-day free trial and has many programs for users, one of which is Microsoft Skype for Businesses. 

Skype's basic program offers users much longer voice calls or video meetings. Instead of capping at one hour, users can hold a single meeting for up to 4 hours. This feature makes skype better than Google Meet. Apart from audio calls and video calls, it also offers low-cost international calls to a regular number; the users only require an annual subscription or a prepaid account to get started. You won't be charged if you're talking to a person who also uses Skype. 

Google Meet has some drawbacks. For example, with the free account of Google Meet will be limited to a 60-minutes meeting with up to 100 attendees. To get access to the complete functions of Google Meet, you have to buy its premium version. While on the other side, Skype only allows 50 participants at a time on a call. For extra features and functionality, subscriptions and add-ons can be utilized.

Google Meet is ideal for big companies where security is the main concern. It offers superior encryption as compared to Skype. It always has encrypted data in transit by default, sticking to the IETF security standard for Secure Real-time transport protocol and Datagram Transport Layer Security. Google Meet creates a unique encryption key for every individual and every meeting. 

You don't need to download Google Meet on the desktop; you can easily use it online. Still, having a Google account is a must to get started. 

Google Meet is compatible with Mac, Windows, IOS, and Android. Google Meet has various levels of plans according to the services you want. The premium plan allows you to hold a video conference with 250 people.

In a recent update from Google, it was stated that its enterprise video calling app, Hangouts Meet, will work and connect with competing apps such as Microsoft Skype for Business. Google Meet in Skype allows you to frame up a collaboration space easily and invite skype and non-skype contacts. Participants can then join meetings easily by following a link for Zoom meetings or WebEx meetings. Now users will get a meeting link and add Skype contacts.

Google Meet also offers access to HD video feeds. You can access Google Meet through mobile apps for Android and IOS devices. The mobile interface of Google Meet allows participants to see the guest/ president in the meeting. You can use camera/audio on/off tabs. You can invite people from your Google Calendar on the phone. Enterprise users of Google Meet can record meetings and save those recordings on the Google Calendar event or Google Drive. Users will get a link to the recordings through email to share them. The Enterprise plan of G-Suite allows users to enable live stream viewing for up to 100,000 viewers.

With the help of Google Calendar, you can be a meeting organizer or create an event by using the emails of the attendees and pasting them in the meeting link. Google Meet doesn't offer any free plan. Users can't have access to luxury features such as whiteboard tools. However, compared to other video conferencing services, three key features of Google Meet are enough to scale up a business: video chat features, mobile conference, and integration with multiple Google apps.

You must purchase a G Suite account if you're seeking a premium service. It offers various membership models, which you can pick as per your business demands. Google's paid plan is impressive as it offers extra drive storage and other noteworthy G-suite features. Skype only charges when a user calls on a landline or mobile device. Text/ message/video is free and charges only $3.53 per month for unlimited calls to any mobile phone or landline. 

Google Meet is ideal for businesses in any category that often host virtual meetings, manage sales teams or work from home policy. This is the best solution for large organizations that want an inexpensive platform. Skype works best when you want software for personal use. Security features are good enough, but reliability is not ideal. At times, because of a bad connection, the call gets cut off, or quality drops down.