Video options for a private group?

February 11, 2022 6:34 AM

What are folks using for online group gatherings with video?

I am looking to start an online group for ladies who love cannabis; I'd like find a platform with video capability to hold an virtual chat and smoke sesh once a month. (I'm planning invite only because of legality and age.) I would prefer that it be free so there is not a cost for entry, but would consider it for good functionality.

Is Zoom the best fit? Or perhaps Discord? Is another option I am not thinking of?

TIA!

posted by Kitteh to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

MS Teams has a free version. I've been using it about a month, and it seems comparable to Zoom, maybe easier.

Slack offers video meetings called "huddles" for up to 50 people. I am not sure whether huddles are included in free version of Slack.

With either Teams or Slack, you get everything else that comes with Teams or Slack. Slack might be a little more complicated than teams, but I think it is much more functional.
posted by NotLost at 6:42 AM on February 11, 2022

I would probably use Discord for that.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:48 AM on February 11, 2022

The nice thing about Discord is that there’s a persistent text chat for keeping in touch in between video meetings. It’s a very familiar platform for under-30s, but may be unknown to older folks who aren’t into video gaming or online fandoms. OTOH, you might see saved text as a liability (legality still being a sort of wobbly thing in many places), and in that case Zoom might be a safer bet.
posted by rikschell at 7:28 AM on February 11, 2022

Jitsi.
posted by cobaltnine at 9:57 AM on February 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

I like Discord, since unlike Zoom it's invite-only-by-default (on a server) and doesn't have many of the associated problems associated with public-by-default Zoom (waiting rooms, meeting passwords, secret meeting ids, presenter control, etc). It's good for communities/friends since it's based on a persistent chat server. But Discord's video is less reliable than Zoom, and requires a bit more clicks. I use Teams for work and dislike it in general, although text chat saved on a per-video basis makes a lot of sense.
posted by meowzilla at 11:16 AM on February 11, 2022

Zoom seems pretty suboptimal to me because you have two options with Zoom:

1. make all the "meetings" invite-only and require everyone to log into Zoom, and most peoples' Zoom accounts are probably work-related (ew)
2. make the meetings open and run the risk of random interlopers.

Discord accounts typically aren't used for work at all, unless you're in the game industry I suppose.

(also, politics alert: Discord is currently making some people angry due to some NFT nonsense.)
posted by neckro23 at 11:29 AM on February 11, 2022

element.io host Jitsi Meet videoconferencing and have an app called Matrix if you want a fully isolated private experience. You pay, your correspondents have free access.

Webex seems better than Zoom but Webex is no longer free. Teams is okay but a huge data-tracking machine. Google Meet is also viable if one person pays for Google Workspaces -- but I think the rock-solid video is lower quality than Webex or Zoom. Apple Facetime might be an option if everyone's rich.
posted by k3ninho at 9:45 AM on February 13, 2022