Webinar/meeting software: Zoom instead of GoToWebinar?
April 10, 2018 10:35 AM Subscribe
My company has been using Webex for webinars and online meetings and my whole office hates it. We've been trying out GoToWebinar and Zoom and I'd love to hear feedback from folks who've used either or both. Is Zoom too good to be true?
GTW offers a pro license that includes meeting and webinar capability for about $199 a month. Zoom offers the same capability for $55 a month. The salesperson from GTW has been trying to convince me that GTW offers far superior customer support and Zoom is too new to provide the same level of support. This guy has been really pushy though, and of course he's going to say that about a competitor.
I'm also annoyed that GTW offers a monthly and an annual option for their Starter plan, but the salesperson tried to talk me out of the monthly option because they don't really offer any support unless you purchase the annual plan. Which seems pretty lousy to me.
GTW has left me with kind of a bad taste in my mouth, which makes me much more inclined to go with Zoom. But is Zoom too new of a player to take that risk?
For context, we have probably 2-3 virtual meetings a month (we've been holding them as webinars, which has been imperfect), and perhaps 10 webinars a year at most (maximum attendees are 100). So we're pretty small potatoes in the webinar game.
GTW offers a pro license that includes meeting and webinar capability for about $199 a month. Zoom offers the same capability for $55 a month. The salesperson from GTW has been trying to convince me that GTW offers far superior customer support and Zoom is too new to provide the same level of support. This guy has been really pushy though, and of course he's going to say that about a competitor.
I'm also annoyed that GTW offers a monthly and an annual option for their Starter plan, but the salesperson tried to talk me out of the monthly option because they don't really offer any support unless you purchase the annual plan. Which seems pretty lousy to me.
GTW has left me with kind of a bad taste in my mouth, which makes me much more inclined to go with Zoom. But is Zoom too new of a player to take that risk?
For context, we have probably 2-3 virtual meetings a month (we've been holding them as webinars, which has been imperfect), and perhaps 10 webinars a year at most (maximum attendees are 100). So we're pretty small potatoes in the webinar game.
Zoom has filled a need for a company I used to consult for as well as the company I currently work for in doing some 1 to 1 and 1 to many presentations. In dealing with Zoom's support (which I rarely had to do, it just worked) they were fine. We're looking at rolling out something more significant with them soon. I think the fears are unfounded and the product works.
posted by deezil at 10:46 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by deezil at 10:46 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
I use GoToMeeting every few weeks for a conference call with about 30 attendees. Works far better than anything else I've tried. Haven't tried Zoom.
If I were in your shoes I would probably give Zoom a try. If you don't like it, there's not a lot of cost in switching to GoToWebinar, right?
posted by grouse at 10:52 AM on April 10, 2018
If I were in your shoes I would probably give Zoom a try. If you don't like it, there's not a lot of cost in switching to GoToWebinar, right?
posted by grouse at 10:52 AM on April 10, 2018
Zoom is great for folks who work spontaneously across platforms (like myself) -- you can seamlessly go from laptop to mobile app without any weirdness. The small company I work at uses it for everything, it's very stable and we can keep 2-15 people on with everyone sharing video without any hiccups or crashes or sudden disconnects. It also handles bad connections more gracefully than any other conferencing app we've tried.
The only limit between the free & paid accounts is the length of the session (40 min), so it's very low barrier to entry if you just want to give it a shot and see how it works for you.
Tl;dr: we love it, everything else out there didn't work well enough for our uses
posted by Snacks at 10:57 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
The only limit between the free & paid accounts is the length of the session (40 min), so it's very low barrier to entry if you just want to give it a shot and see how it works for you.
Tl;dr: we love it, everything else out there didn't work well enough for our uses
posted by Snacks at 10:57 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Addendum: Zoom's customer support has been fantastic so far, I have nfc what that guy is talking about -- they're new and HUNGRY, they want our business but they're not pushy in the slightest
posted by Snacks at 10:59 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Snacks at 10:59 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Our roughly 200 person international company uses Zoom all day long, both internally and with clients. It does what it's supposed to do.
I would guess that probably 80% of the problems we encounter on Zoom are due to our own internet/voip issues, and 19% are user error.
posted by phunniemee at 11:37 AM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
I would guess that probably 80% of the problems we encounter on Zoom are due to our own internet/voip issues, and 19% are user error.
posted by phunniemee at 11:37 AM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
I've been using GTM pretty heavily for a decade; for most of that time it's had no real peers in terms of ease of use or stability. Zoom is the first thing that I've seen that's close, but it's not close enough for us to switch over yet.
posted by uberchet at 1:52 PM on April 10, 2018
posted by uberchet at 1:52 PM on April 10, 2018
I use Zoom every day. I'm a User Experience Researcher (for products unrelated to video conferencing), and my work has often involved getting people to use Webex, Skype, Appear.in, Microsoft Teams or Zoom who weren't already familiar with video conferencing. Zoom is hands down the best and easiest solution I've tried (although I've not used GTM with any regularity). People figure Zoom out pretty quickly and it seems much more reliable than the others. The screenshare and recording options are simple and great. I try to use Zoom as much as possible. I realise I sound like a testimonial.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:00 PM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by iamkimiam at 2:00 PM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
My weekly online gaming group uses Zoom and it's pretty dang spiffy. I would definitely give it a whirl, see what happens.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 2:15 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 2:15 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
The only people at my 100% remote company who don't like zoom are those who run Linux and they just use the phone app.
FWIW I can't get GoToMeeting to work on my Linux box. This is probably a problem with my own configuration (isn't it always?) but it means that isn't an advantage of GTM for me.
posted by grouse at 2:16 PM on April 10, 2018
FWIW I can't get GoToMeeting to work on my Linux box. This is probably a problem with my own configuration (isn't it always?) but it means that isn't an advantage of GTM for me.
posted by grouse at 2:16 PM on April 10, 2018
Zoom is the best, and they're really responsive to any concerns or bug reports as well. The all-remote company I work for uses it for almost all meetings that aren't in person. The few meetings I'm in that don't use it are generally set up by outside organizations, and every time I'm in a Google Hangout or GoToMeeting or join.me or UberConference or, sigh, a WebEx, it just makes me appreciate Zoom all the more. Its Slack integration is also excellent (you can start up a Zoom meeting spontaneously from chat for quick discussion). Jitsi Meet would be my second favorite, as it's encrypted and free. But I'm not sure how it holds up to use by larger groups on an enterprise level.
Long story short: Zoom is definitely not too good to be true. My company uses it on a near-constant basis on weekdays for meetings small and large, both with clients and internally, and it holds up. And they keep introducing new features (e.g., green-screen capability and unmuting with space bar) that people really like.
posted by limeonaire at 6:18 PM on April 10, 2018
Long story short: Zoom is definitely not too good to be true. My company uses it on a near-constant basis on weekdays for meetings small and large, both with clients and internally, and it holds up. And they keep introducing new features (e.g., green-screen capability and unmuting with space bar) that people really like.
posted by limeonaire at 6:18 PM on April 10, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by enn at 10:45 AM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]