When it comes to video conferencing software, Zoom is the new(er) kid on the block. It was founded in 2011 by the original creator of WebEx, who decided to leave WebEx after it was acquired by Cisco 2007.
Since then, Zoom has been growing by almost 20% per year. Cisco still holds a large portion of the market, but Zoom is gaining on them, and fast.
While there are still a few features that only WebEx offers, users have increasingly flocked to Zoom.
Why? Here are a few reasons why we think Zoom conference solution is the best choice for many businesses:
Simplicity & User-Friendliness
To set up WebEx, you will need multiple downloads and logins (client, extension, VCS control, TMS, Smartnet, and a paid account). Starting a new meeting takes over a minute.
This may not be a big deal if the same people will be using the software every day, but if you have non-tech-savvy employees, or most of your staff will only use the conferencing tool occasionally, Zoom is a much better bet.
Zoom was built around the idea that people are increasingly joining conferences remotely and bringing their own devices to work. Most devices will support Zoom, and once the cloud connector account and codec are set up, you can join a meeting in one click.
In general, Zoom is also easier to integrate with third-party apps like Skype for Business. It’s technically also possible to use WebEx with Skype, but the process to set this up is complex and time consuming.
Total Capacity
Zoom supports up to 100 video participants in a single call, and up to 500 feeds. WebEx can only support 8 participants.
If your organization is big enough to require collaboration among or between large teams of people, having this limit on how many people you can include in a call can quickly become a deal breaker.
Ease of Collaboration
Zoom rooms let you keep track of who’s present in an online meeting and look back on meeting recordings after the fact.
Zoom conference solution also embeds a number of other helpful collaboration technologies to support remote meetings.
For example, users can choose custom virtual backgrounds to present themselves more professionally in online meetings. Zoom rooms also offer built-in IM capabilities in the same interface for text communication as well as audio and video.
WebEx offers some of these features as separate add-ons, but they are sold as separate products for an additional fee.
Zoom Rooms
“Zoom Rooms” are another compelling reason to choose Zoom, as they can offer broad collaboration opportunities without the significant price hike and hassle of setting up a fully custom Cisco WebEx configuration.
Zoom is built to run from a single click on an iPad – and these rooms are multi-functional right out of the box. It’s possible to sync calendars, share your screen, call another room, conduct remote presentations using either your iPhone or a laptop, and more.
Price
If the above reasons weren’t enough, Zoom solutions also tend to be more affordable than WebEx solutions. Though pricing is liable to change over time, WebEx solutions can run up to twice as expensive.
Zoom vs. WebEx: Bottom Line
Both of these tools will get the job done, but considering the overall user-friendliness, features, customizability, and value delivered by Zoom, we recommend it over WebEx for most businesses.
Interested in learning more, or getting your questions about video conferencing answered? Contact us here.
