Google Meet vs. Zoom - Which is Better

When it comes to video calling .

Nowadays , Zoom has become the most popular option out there .

But now that Google has announced that Google Meet is available for free .

I think it's time to dive in and see how it actually compares to Zoom and which one of these video calling services you may want to use .

Now , Google has actually been doing video calling for as long as Zoom has both had their initial products launched in 2013 .

However , Zoom has historically been focused on on business conferencing for education and businesses competing with other vendors like Cisco's Webex and blue jeans .

Google's first video call product was hangouts and that was mainly focused on the consumer market to compete with Skype .

Over the years , Google has debuted additional communication products like Google Duo and then finally , Google Meet in 2017 , which targeted Google's G suite enterprise clients fast forward to just a few months ago and it seems like Zoom took over the world in a matter of days when the COVID-19 pandemic hit .

Why did that happen ?

You may ask well , out of all of the video calling services out there .

Zoom's is by far the easiest to use when actually trying to get into a meeting , you just download an app put in a code and bam you're in the meeting .

Now , this of course led to an infamous issue that got its own name .

Zoom bombing where people who typically were not originally invited to a meeting would get access to the code come into the meeting and would stream inappropriate videos on famous people's Zoom calls .

Zoom has since added some security features to prevent this .

While Zoom calls are dead easy to use and free , they don't last forever .

And if you've used a free Zoom account , you've likely already run into that 40 minute time limit for a Zoom meeting .

Also , if you tried to dial in to a Zoom meeting through a telephone line that can have an additional cost .

This is one of the major differences between Google Meet and Zoom .

Google Meet has a time limit cap of 60 minutes for up to 100 participants .

However , now through September , that cap has been lifted up to 24 hours per meeting .

Another huge difference between these two platforms is that with Google Meet , you have to have a Google account and with Zoom , you do not have to have a Zoom account to join a meeting .

You just download an app put in a code and bam you're in the meeting .

Now , while Zoom does have an app for the computer , you can use Zoom just in a browser as well .

Though there are quite a few features missing from the web client , like gallery view , recording a meeting , scheduling , a one time or recurring meeting , polls , live streaming , share and annotate a whiteboard and all chat , contact and setting menu toggles .

Google Meat works in any modern browser on a computer like chrome , Firefox edge and Safari .

There's no app to download for Meat on computers and it's well integrated now with gmail as well as Google calendar .

When you create an invite on Google calendar , it just takes you one click to add a Google meet invite link .

All right .

So that's a little bit about the big differences between these two platforms .

Now , let's take a look at the user experience and user interface of Google Meet and Zoom and how they compare when you go to meet dot google dot com .

You see a pretty simple screen .

You can immediately start a meeting or enter a meeting code to join an existing meeting .

You also have the option on the right hand side to schedule a meeting .

When you fire up the Zoom app on desktop , you're presented with a simple layout , a button to start a new meeting schedule , an upcoming meeting , join an existing meeting and share screen .

When you start a meeting on Zoom , you're presented with a simple user interface on the left side of the bottom bar , you have controls to turn on and off your video and microphone .

You now have a security button that when clicked gives you quick actions that you can take to make your meeting more secure , like enabling a waiting room where people who want to join your meeting will wait until you approve them to enter the meeting .

You can also toggle on and off whether or not you want to allow your partici to be able to share their screen chat , rename themselves or unmute themselves from there .

There are buttons to see the participants open up the chat and know that you can send individual chat messages to specific people in a Zoom call as well as send messages out to the entire group on the call , which is pretty cool .

You also have a button to record the meeting as well as add reactions .

You can change the meeting view up at the top right hand corner when you have multiple participants in your meeting with gallery view being the most popular and the view that makes Zoom look like Zoom .

Now to get to the cool Zoom background replacement feature on a Mac , click on zoom dot us preferences and then virtual background here , you'll be able to create a virtual background or use your own photo as a background .

And those are just some of the main popular features of Zoom .

There are of course a lot of other settings and preferences you can enable with .

Now let's take a look at Google Meet when you click start a meeting .

It brings you to a holding screen where you can double check that your hair is good and then decide whether or not you want to keep your camera and mic on before you enter the meeting .

When you click into the meeting , you'll see that fewer options are presented to you than in zoom .

The bottom left hand corner shows you the meeting details which you can expand .

Center on the bottom bar are the buttons to turn on and off your mic and camera .

As well as the call , you can click the people icon in the top right hand corner to see all of the participants in the meeting .

And you can also access the chat in this area of the U I as well .

You can send messages and links to all participants of your call , but do note you cannot send messages to individual call participants in the right corner of the bottom bar .

You'll see a captions button .

When you enable this Google will automatically do a live translation of whatever is said in the meeting , which is something that zoom currently cannot do though they do have a closed caption feature where somebody can type in closed captions for something like a webinar present .

Now will allow you to share your current screen .

And if you're on a Mac , when you do this , you'll need to click on the smaller version of your screen in the window that pops up and then click share for your screen to be shared .

Google does have a gallery view now that rivals zooms that you can change to when you have multiple people on the call to change the view , click on the three dots in the bottom bar and hit change layout or if you do nothing , it should automatically switch to a tiled view .

When a certain number of people join the call , the three dots menu also links to settings where you can change your audio and visual settings for Google Meet .

I've actually used both of these platforms on and off for over the past year now .

So I know what you're gonna ask me .

You're gonna ask me .

OK , Josh , tell me which one I should use my answer .

There is , it depends , I'd say go use Google Meat if you just need a simple video calling solution because it works pretty well .

It's got basic features .

You don't have to download an app for it .

As long as everybody has a Google account , it's gonna work really well for your situation .

And the biggest plus right now for using Google Meat is there is no 40 minute time limit .

The time limit per meeting is 24 hours .

Now keep in mind that time limit will reduce to 60 minutes come September 2020 .

Now , if you need a video calling solution that has more advanced features like live streaming or background replacement , then I'd say yes , you definitely want to use Zoom .

It's the solution everybody has heard of and it works really well .

Now , if you've used both Google Meet and Zoom , let me know in the comments which platform you prefer and if you like this video and found it helpful , make sure you hit that thumbs up button below and subscribe to the channel to see more videos on tech platforms and comparisons between them like this one .

Well , that'll do it for me for six months later .

I'm Josh Teter .

Thanks for watching .