Both of these platforms have gone through rapid development over the last few years leading to many features and fans on both sides. So how can one decide which is best? Let us first break down each platform and then compare them.
First, we will start with Zoom. Zoom is a leader in the video communications industry. They have taken on unified communications with their cloud like platform for video, audio conferencing, and webinars across all endpoints. Not to mention the chat and collaboration features.
Moving onto Teams. Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s all-encompassing workstream collaboration added onto unified communications platform. This combines meetings, chats, and file sharing with Office 365 application. This brings everyone together in a shared workplace.
At the highest-level, Microsoft Teams and Zoom both overlap in the way that they offer a set of services for video. Going deeper into the more nuanced features, UX, pricing, and integrations is how organizations can evaluate trade-offs and make the best decisions as to which platform is the effective fit.
When it comes to the amazing features, both Zoom and Teams enable screen sharing, online meetings, chats, file sharing, and calls. The difference between the two is Microsoft’s integration between Teams and Office 365. This enables Microsoft Teams to truly be a one-stop-shop for many organizations. This also allows for seamless collaboration, backups, and file search. However, going some way to balance out Microsoft’s Office365 integration, Zoom and Slack feature a wide-ranging partnership and set of technical integrations.
Zoom, as a company, is a much newer organization in comparison to Microsoft. Still, it manages to compete with its aggressive roadmap, and due to the fact that it doesn’t have to worry about managing a set of lifelong customers.
The user interface is truly where Zoom excels in the Microsoft Teams vs Zoom debate. Zoom users all rave over its simple interface and the ability to get end-users up and running with little to no training or IT support. Microsoft Teams poses a bigger challenge as users need to get up to speed on how to interact in different channels and Teams, incorporate file sharing, and all the other Office 365 applications baked into Teams.
Microsoft Teams and Zoom each offer a free version of the platform, with more advanced features offered with paid plans.
The free version of Microsoft Teams includes limited chat and collaboration, productivity apps and services, meetings and calls, and security. Two big pieces missing with the free version include administration tools or Microsoft support.
Zoom’s free version includes meetings that can host up to 100 participants (with a 40-minute limit on group meetings), unlimited 1:1 meetings, online support, as well as video and web conferencing features, group collaboration features, and security.
Microsoft’s Premium plan is slightly cheaper per user than Zoom’s comparable Pro plan, but for their enterprise plans, they are similarly priced.
Clearly, there is no obvious answer or winner – the final choice depends on your own organizational needs and requirements. In many cases, Microsoft Teams and Zoom combine to work well together, rather than forcing an either-or situation. In fact, we are increasingly seeing large enterprises choose to use both Teams and Zoom as a standard. Microsoft Teams is excellent for internal collaboration, whereas Zoom is often preferred for working externally. Because they integrate with each other, it is easy to create clear scenarios for users on which to use when.
