What Are the Best Google Meet (Hangouts) Alternatives?

Google Meet

This user-friendly and accessible web conferencing platform provides users with full-fledged telecommuting experience. Thanks to intuitive framework, anyone with a personal Google account can easily host browser-based events by sharing the uniquely generated Meeting ID via e-mail or private message. When holding a conference call, participants can share their screens, present slides, and jointly collaborate on documents.

Google Meet users can enrich their virtual communication experience by enabling such AI-driven features as background blur and live captions. This service offers basic online meeting tools, so it’s better suited for personal one-on-one sessions, small team coordinations, and e-learning. But for enterprise-grade collaboration and solving work tasks with numerous teammates, Google Meet technical capabilities may not be enough.

Downfalls:

• Google Meet doesn’t offer cross-platform user experience as video communication primarily occurs in a web browser, without installation of desktop client software. Therefore, its stability and proper functioning depend on browser performance, network bandwidth, speed and quality of internet connection.
• In Google Meet, the host’s account determines online meeting limits. Free users can organize point-to-point video chats for 24 hours, but 3+ group conferences cannot exceed 100 participants and 60-minute duration. Users participating in a group conference will receive a notification about the upcoming end of the conference at 55 minutes.
• Google's premium account versions lift these restrictions. In particular, Workspace Individual costs $8 per user/month and enables time-unlimited video conferences for up to 100 users. "Enterprise" plan lets you enjoy tracking of attendees and allows hosting meetings for up to 250 participants, however, the prices are only available on custom request. This could be profitable for small companies with only a few staff members, but it also might be frustrating for larger organizations, as they would need to maintain and pay for both Google Workplace and all their email communications, telephony, time- and productivity management tools separately.
• Google Meet doesn’t have a built-in instant messenger, as well as basic unified communications features, such as file sharing, private and group chats, address book, and meeting scheduler. This video conferencing service is inconvenient for daily work activities as users cannot see the presence statuses of their colleagues, whether they’re busy or even offline.
• With Google Meet, video-based teamwork is limited by a fairly modest collaboration toolset. Telecommuters can share their screens and facilitate decision-making with virtual whiteboard, that’s all for free. Thus, you can enrich remote workflows and get access to extra options by upgrading to Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) subscription plans. After switching to the paid tier, users can save meeting recordings to Google Drive and implement advanced collaboration tools such as polls and Q&A, hand raise, breakout rooms, attendance reports, and intelligent noise cancellation.
• When it comes to the security of video meetings, in-browser sessions may compromise privacy of intra-corporate communications. Plus, Google Meet is a cloud-based solution that stores user data on remote third-party media, which, unlike local counterparts, are susceptible to hacker attacks and information leakage. It is worth noting that cloud-based software hardly complies with the GDPR, which is crucial in modern business realities.
• Finally, Google Meet doesn’t provide native interoperability with existing conference room systems and AV endpoints. This option is only available after purchasing an external third-party gateway.