Blackboard Collaborate vs Zoom | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 6.2 out of 10

Based on 92 reviews and ratings

Score 8.9 out of 10

Based on 1376 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

High quality audio

High quality video

Low bandwidth requirements

Mobile support

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Desktop sharing

Whiteboards

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Calendar integration

Meeting initiation

Integrates with social media

Record meetings / events

Slideshows

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Live chat

Audience polling

Q&A

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

User authentication

Participant roles & permissions

Confidential attendee list

Pros

The ability to host a number of people in a meeting and manage their participation via text and audio.
The screen sharing features allows presenters to demonstrate procedures exactly as instructed on the screen. This also allows the presenter to permit others to share their screens if they need clarification of something or to share further ideas.
The software gives you the freedom to use a whiteboard to draw/demonstrate concepts to students and other employees.

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Carly Pietrzyk, PhD

Teacher/Curricululm Consultant

Robert Morris UniversityEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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It just works. Biggest complaint with our previous solution is that it took 10 minutes to connect to a meeting. Now, our users connect instantaneously.
Dashboard is fantasitic. Can access real time information to troubleshoot calls.
Admin ports offers quite a bit of information. Like that it's a one stop shop to access everything I need to administer the site, users, run reports and access the dashboard.
Tickets get resolved quickly.
Feature requests are realized quickly.

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Lead IT Network Collaboration Engineer

Informatica LLCInformation Technology and Services, 5001-10,000 employees

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Cons

Logging in can be challenging for students who are not exactly computer literate. The program's reliance on an updated Java can be a real source of frustration for students and parents.
Accessing sessions once they've been recorded is a bit cumbersome. It is especially difficult for professors who are not as computer literate.
Accessing a virtual classroom could be improved. I would like to see a customizable "button" or "widget" option that can be placed on a professor's webpage.

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Laura Abercrombie

Adjunct English Professor

Polk State CollegeHigher Education, 201-500 employees

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When I used Zoom while conducting some administration tasks, it wasn't quick to switch back and forth between the one providing support and the user for the copy/paste function. When I spoke to the one providing support they said it happened all the time.

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Network System Administrator

Voss IndustriesAviation & Aerospace, 201-500 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Blackboard Collaborate 9.0

Based on 1 answer

It is a tool that faculty likes to use. It has so much flexibility to allow students to see a class even if they happen to not be available in the classroom.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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Zoom 9.4

Based on 15 answers

We're sticking with Zoom for the foreseeable future--given its compelling feature set, ease of use, and advanced technology, there's just no other competition to be excited about. Plus it's a Gartner-recognized industry leader, so it's a rather easy choice.

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Stefan Scherbik

Associate, Video and Collaboration

BAYADA Home Health CareHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees

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Usability

Blackboard Collaborate 8.9

Based on 3 answers

Blackboard collaborate, is very easy to use, in my opinion. However, I consider myself fairly computer and technologically literate. Some professors, students, and parents I know who try to use the software have a difficult time with it. Some suggestions for improvement--I think there should be an autostart tutorial for participants (and session leaders, if I'm being honest) with an checkbox option to "never see this again" if you find yourself to be an expert. It should cover the basics such as: the raise hand feature (or the other polling features), the chatbox feature, the whiteboard feature, and the mic/camera. This way, we don't have students freaking out when they enter the session and us having to calm them down every single time. It may make the program a little less "lightweight" which I know is what you're going for--but it makes the workflow more challenging for those of us actually using the software regularly.

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Laura Abercrombie

Adjunct English Professor

Polk State CollegeHigher Education, 201-500 employees

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Zoom 9.7

Based on 14 answers

Everything is easy to understand and use, new users need no training. On the flipside there are minor annoyances such as calendar export being cumbersome (need re-auth every time) and also not having recordings shared within a team or forcing people to name them.

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Matthew Gardner

Co-Founder/Product

RouteThisComputer Software, 11-50 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Blackboard Collaborate 8.0

Based on 1 answer

The availability of the software is quite impressive. You can access it at any time that you want and from anywhere that you want, but that depends on how the software is set up by the University. There might be sudden outages due to not having enough space on your database, which we had that very issue happen recently here at our University. During that time, you could not access their blackboard at all until it was brought up online again.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Computer Software Company, 11-50 employees

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Zoom 10.0

Based on 1 answer

There have been less than a handful of outages during our two years with Zoom, and whenever there was one, an email informing us of the outage went out immediately, and they had the issue resolved shortly thereafter.

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Stefan Scherbik

Associate, Video and Collaboration

BAYADA Home Health CareHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees

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Performance

Blackboard Collaborate 9.0

Based on 1 answer

The performance of the software is remarkable. The loading speed of the pages is more than satisfying, it all depends on the users internet package. So far, there wasn't any issue of Blackboard slowing down other software or systems when integrated with them

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Computer Software Company, 11-50 employees

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Zoom 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Zoom has among the best performance of any video conference platform, as I've mentioned several times. Besides that, their Chat platform works great, and their back end always runs smooth. It's unfortunate that reporting can now only be done by one month at a time, but nonetheless, it only takes a second to run any kind of Zoom report, whether it's an attendee report, Poll results, a user report, a list of meetings from the past month, etc.

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Stefan Scherbik

Associate, Video and Collaboration

BAYADA Home Health CareHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Support

Blackboard Collaborate 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Blackboard support is quite knowledgeable and quick to respond to requests.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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Zoom 9.2

Based on 14 answers

As I've written before, Zoom makes us feel like we matter and that we're a client rather than a customer. They want us to succeed and they put in the time to make sure that we do. I feel like they're more of a business partner rather than simply a vendor or supplier. They spent a lot of time onboarding with us, giving us demos, helping us get set up, and then giving us follow-up to be sure it's going well.

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Senior Systems Analyst

CymSTAR, LLCDefense & Space, 201-500 employees

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Implementation

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Zoom 9.6

Based on 7 answers

If you receive any pushback from higher ups, point to any of the various positive reviews like this one. Or show Zoom's excellent Gartner report, or articles describing Zoom's partnership with Sequoia capital. It's not difficult to show how Zoom is a trustworthy industry leader with best-in-class technology.

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Stefan Scherbik

Associate, Video and Collaboration

BAYADA Home Health CareHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees

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Alternatives Considered

While other products can handle more active participants in a meeting at one time, Blackboard Collaborate has a much simpler and easy-to-use interface that makes it an ideal product for one to many presentations. It integrates fully with multiple learning management systems to allow simply scheduling as well as has a separate front-end to allow for use outside of the LMS.

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Zoom is more user-friendly than any of these other options. The UI is better looking and easier to understand. Zoom also integrates well with our chosen hardware including Avocor touch screens, Huddly cameras and Shure microphones.

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Audio Visual Technician

Western UnionBanking, 10,001+ employees

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Scalability

Blackboard Collaborate 8.0

Based on 1 answer

The reason for this rating is that the software is a pretty good tool that can be utilized for use in all of the Universities around the world. It has the capability to fulfill the needs of various different education systems. Although, there are slight improvements that are needed, therefore the rating is at 8.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Computer Software Company, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Zoom 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Because the Basic licenses are completely free, and because it's very easy to configure and install Zoom, and because anyone can join Zoom from a link without needing an account, scaling is a Breeze. There are absolutely no roadblocks. My company keeps adding more Zoom Pro license every week since it's so in demand. We were able to convert users from several different platforms onto Zoom with no trouble at all.

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Stefan Scherbik

Associate, Video and Collaboration

BAYADA Home Health CareHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Collaborate Ultra has been the most effective for us for training faculty virtually.
Faculty have been excited that they can have a remote guest speaker in their classroom, and all they need to do for set up is to e-mail that guest speaker a link to join the session.
Collaborate Ultra is beyond useful for faculty to meet with online students who are either across the country, or even in other countries, with tools that really help to focus on course work.

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Joseph Axenroth

LMS Administrator

Westfield State UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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Allowed for us to start meetings at a faster speed especially with its Slack integration.
Integration with HubSpot has made it easy to also set up Zoom webinars and sync any contact data within the CRM.
Need battery chargers for laptops in a meeting lasting over an hour - drains them fairly quickly.

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Christine Austin

Creative Lead, Marketing

Impact Branding & Design LLCMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

View all 595 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Blackboard Collaborate Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Zoom Editions & Modules

On-premise Edition

Virtual H.323/SIP Room Connector	49/month
Business	19.99/month

SaaS Edition

Basic	$0
Pro	14.99/month
Business	19.99/month
Zoom Room Conference Room	49/month
Webinar	54.99/month

Additional Pricing Details

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Rating Summary

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

Blackboard Collaborate

Zoom

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