Are you looking for the best online meeting app? Every day millions of people use applications to meet others online. There are tons of apps out there but it can be hard to choose the best one for you.
I’ve selected the best video conferencing app for online classes, best free online meeting platforms and best group meeting apps that will help you run your business.
Cisco Webex: Best features
The most robust features you can find for a free video conference appCisco Webex free plan
| Provider | Price | Max meeting participants | Recording storage | Learn more |
| Cisco Webex | Free | 100 | None | View Plans |
Pros
- Screen sharing
- Huge number of meeting participants
Cons
- Not the most user friendly
- No recorded meeting storage
What we like
Out of nowhere, Cisco Webex upped its free-tiered package from 50 participants to 100. You win this round, Craig.
Screen sharing
Ever tried to explain a problem to someone over a video call and wished you could just lean over and show them?
Screen sharing allows you to do that (provided your problem exists on your computer). And the Webex free plan comes with screen sharing so you don’t miss out on this oh-so helpful feature.
Huge number of meeting participants
You can have 100 participants on a video conference at a time with Webex. That’s a huge amount of people to chat with.
You can have 100 participants and see 25 people at once. You can all wave at each other if you want.
We’ve never seen any free video conferencing app go beyond the 100 participants at once, so Webex is at the very top of the food chain for number participants.
What we don’t like
Webex doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface. It’s clearly intended for work rather than casual social calls.
Webex’s web app is straight to business. It’s basically the video conference equivalent of a crew cut.
Cisco Webex isn’t a social platform in the same way Skype is, for example. There aren’t obvious chat features (there’s a chat function once you start a meeting) or ways to easily invite someone to a meeting. I wouldn’t talk to my elderly mother on Cisco Webex, that’s for sure.
However, for business purposes, Cisco Webex is a cut above the rest.
Skype: Best user experience
Talk or chat for hours in a friendly social environment.Skype plan
| Provider | Price | Max meeting participants | Meeting length | Learn more |
| Skype | Free | 100 | 4 hours | Download |
Pros
- Chat and easy-call features
- Four-hour meeting length
Cons
- Ads
What we like
Skype does a great job creating a user-friendly experience that I absolutely would use with my elderly mother.
Chat and easy call-in features
Skype was made for more casual video conferencing, and perhaps best of all, it was always intended to be free. You don’t have to stress about Skype prompting you to upgrade to paid versions every ten minutes (*cough* FreeConference *cough*).
Right when you log in to Skype, you’re greeted with your chat windows. You can easily start up video conferences by clicking the camera icon in the top right corner. Oh, and you can send emojis and GIFs super easily.
How does Skype make money?Skype sells small ad space on its program and offers a subscription for folks who want to use their Skype account more like a cell phone plan. You can pay $3.59 a month for unlimited calls to mobile and landline phones with your Skype account.
My family uses Skype because everyone easily understands how to use it. Also we can send dumb emojis to each other.
Four-hour meeting length
Before Cisco Webex went and enhanced their free version to have unlimited meeting times, Skype was first in the industry when it came to meeting length for free video conferencing apps. Those were the days. Still, four uninterrupted hours on a free video easily beats out most other free apps (Zoom only allows for 40 minutes for free).
Once your four-hour conversation ends (that sounds exhausting), you can just start up another four-hour call if you want. You can spend 10 hours a day video conferencing for free with Skype.
What we don’t like
Skype upped the ante and is now on par with most other free plans with its 100-participant limit. The only thing is, we’d love to see more robust features offered, even if it requires a payment. Or at least we’d like to pay to get rid of those ads.
Zoom: Best performance
The most reliable platform with high participant capacitiesZoom free plan
| Provider | Price | Max meeting participants | Meeting length | Learn more |
| Zoom | Free | 100 | 40 mins. | View Plans |
Pros
- Reliable performance
- 100-person meeting capacity
Cons
- Security issues
What we like
Zoom is the most popular video conferencing app for a reason—it’s because it runs so dang well.
Reliable performance
Zoom offers a super reliable streaming experience. I’ve experienced latency issues, albeit small latency issues, with Cisco Webex, Skype, FreeConference, and Google Meet. Zoom consistently holds low latency rates on its video conferences:
Latency refers to the amount of time it takes to send and receive data. Per our report indicated above, it took about 17 milliseconds for the data to travel from my computer to my friend’s computer. Think about it this way—if you and I were having a video chat and I made a thumb’s up gesture, it would take about 17 milliseconds before you saw it. Likewise, if you made a thumbs down gesture back to me (how dare you), it would take me 24 milliseconds to see it.
According to Cisco, the old rule of thumb is anything above 250 milliseconds is considered unacceptable.2 Well, Zoom absolutely destroys that number and delivers the lowest latency video chat conversations we’ve seen.
Reviews.org uses Zoom with very low latency. Shoutout to the top of my baby’s head in the top left corner.Latency also depends on your internet speedsZoom isn’t quite magical enough to remove latency out of a slow internet connection. Your internet speeds always matter when using Zoom, but what makes Zoom special is that it can get the most out of your internet.
Meeting capacity up to 100 people
Zoom matches Webex with its 100-person meeting capacity for free video conferencing. Hopefully this becomes a bit of an arms race and either Zoom or Webex increases their free meeting capacity soon. If someone from Zoom or Webex is reading this, we promise to give you our number one recommended spot for free video conference apps if you up the ante to 150 participants. You’ve been challenged! [Editor’s note: Not a real challenge.]
Google Meet: Best integration
Sync everything with your Google account.Google Meet free plan
| Provider | Price | Max meeting participants | Meeting length | Learn more |
| Google Meet | Free | 100 | 60 mins. | View Plans |
Pros
- Syncs with your Google account
Cons
- No meeting recordings
What we like
Google Hangouts’ branding has changed way too many times, but now we’re 90% sure that Google Meet (not to be confused with Google Meat, which isn’t a thing yet) is what they’re calling their video conferencing app. Whatever it’s called, the platform syncs beautifully with your Google account.
Syncs with your Google account
Google Meet is a built-in application that is already synced with your Gmail account. Chances are you won’t even have to sign up for anything new, you have access to Google Meet right now. All you have to do is go to Meet.Google.com, click Start a Meeting, and you’re off to the races. You can add people to the call by texting an invite link, or inviting them directly through your Gmail contacts.
You can probably start a meeting from your browser right now with Google Meet.
There are a lot of conveniences built in with Google Meet if you’re already an avid Gmail user. You can even save recordings from your conversations directly to your Google Drive, making them infinitely more accessible to you and others. This is much better than having your conversations saved locally to your computer where they’re easy to lose and harder to share.
If your business already runs on Gmail, we would highly recommend you just double down on the Google lifestyle and commit to Google Meet.
No meeting recordings
If you need to share meetings with teammates who live in other time zones, recordings can be a huge lifesaver. Unfortunately, Google Meet’s free plan doesn’t let you record meetings. So you’ll need to ask someone to take notes or send a bullet-point recap to your coworker in Australia.
FreeConference: Best audio/video conference support
Have up to 400 audio participants on your video conference for free.FreeConference free plan
| Provider | Price | Max meeting participants | Meeting length | Learn more |
| FreeConference | Free | 100 (audio only) | Unlimited | View Plans |
Pros
- Unlimited meeting length
Cons
- 100 participant maximum is audio only
What we like
If you just want to get as many people as possible on a conference call and talk as long as you want for free, FreeConference is going to be your best bet.
Unlimited meeting length
At the cost of what you give up in terms of video conferencing capabilities, FreeConference makes up for it with unlimited meeting lengths, even with its free-tiered plan. You can carry on with your audio-specific conference call for as long as you want, and you can do the same with your four-person video conference call. Hopefully Zoom is taking notes about what other video conference apps are doing. Nobody likes having their meetings abruptly cut short. Thankfully, that’s something you won’t need to worry about with the free plan FreeConference providers.
What we don’t like
You’re limited to only five video conference participants at a time, which is devastatingly low. The rest of your participants (up to 100) can only listen in.
As a free option, VideoConference doesn’t make much sense for folks who know they want to do video conferencing. You’d be much better off going with Zoom or Webex if you always want to host video conference meetings.
Stick with FreeConference for audio conference calls for free, but look elsewhere for free video conferencing.
Conclusion
There are many great video conferencing apps on the market today. From Skype to Facetime, you can get in touch with anybody, anywhere in the world through your laptop or smartphone using video calling.