Google Meet vs. Highfive (discontinued) vs. Skype (discontinued)

If you have a small team, use Google Meet. If you want to have a weekly check-up, use Google Meet. If you want to do a small hosting of conferences — kind of like a webinar, I would say to be very specific — Google Meet is really, really good. So that’s what my recommendations are.

Incentivized

The free version I would absolutely recommend, we've had some great use out of it for the past few years. Presenting, sharing screen, the conference line and some other features are all free. If we did need more analytics and more features, perhaps making it easier for the potential customer to share screen, we might re-start the search and we'd potentially rate UberConference lower, but for the free version it's been great for us.

Incentivized

Having interacted with a new replacement tool, Microsoft Teams, it is challenging to recommend Skype, as it lacks some essential features, such as being less equipped with the latest updates, and it is not platform-independent, causing issues on PCs and phones, as well as during calls that might hinder work.

Incentivized

• I think it's fairly easy to operate. Once people get in, they know where the buttons are and stuff.
• The chat's good.
• It does good transcriptions.
• I like the backgrounds that are available.
• I like the just overall, I guess the layout is simple and most people know how to use it, which is good.

Incentivized

• I appreciate being able to select a local phone number: it adds credibility and convenience for in-market clients/prospects.
• I like being able to customize the hold music. One of our employees wrote and produced custom hold music for Anvil, which generates discussion and engagement as an ice-breaker.
• The screen sharing is easy-to-use and is far more reliable than in the past. Prospects and clients do not have to download any app to make it work properly.

Incentivized

• The instant chat function is great. Very straightforward, easy to use, easy to learn, no technical issues.
• Video calls are pretty easy also, user friendly and a mostly stable connection with no issues.
• Voice calls are easy also, eliminates the need for an external landline or the need to use your cell phone. Clear connections, not really any dropped calls.

Incentivized

• One of the challenges that I see is that whenever we have in a meeting, we won't be able to drop some of the documents that we have. That's one of the big challenges which I see in Google Meet. At that point of time, we either have to Slack or we have to share an email. We cannot do that, like sending that particular document in the Google meet chat.

Incentivized

• Can be very laggy - I have been part of screen share conferences where the connection keeps dropping.
• Call quality is not always the best.
• Limited functionality - this cannot be your all-in-one go-to conferencing solution because there are no video call capabilities.

Incentivized

• Skype is a RESOURCE hog. People who have limited bandwidth will have poor call quality.
• It is hard to figure out how to use emojis and upload images in the chat.
• The background images do not fool anybody....it is clearly not your real background.

Incentivized

This app is still having a lot of redundant features as compared to other industry apps such as Zoom and Webex which offers much more on the functionality side along with the option to have greater user access control to the admin/host of the meetings. A sense of interaction is always found to be missing in Google meet which can be easily adopted in the Zoom

UberConference is more expensive than some of its competitors and we have not found a real advantage to using UberConference over certain less-expensive applications. UberConference charges per month per organizer and those costs add up quickly, so we will be moving forward with a more budget-friendly option in the coming months.

Incentivized

I have given this rating as this need to give more than that as it's very helpful for us and makes our work more efficient and fast.

Google Meet is very easy and simple to use. I can schedule a meeting right on my calendar - it literally takes a few seconds. There is no additional app I have to open to schedule anything. Guests can click on the link easily to join any meetings. 10/10!

Incentivized

The interface is intuitive and stupidly simple, no complicated sub-menus or configuration settings. Easy to create a meeting space and then have others join with a link or dial-in PIN on the free tier. On the paid tier it's even easier with PIN-less joining and automatic reminder calls to get participants to join.

Incentivized

Skype is not as good as Facetime in terms of ease to glance at it and figure out how it works. I think that's a result of Skype trying to be too many things at once. A lot of the menu and UI could be streamlined, and I would jettison some of the additional functions that have been tacked on over the years to simplify. That being said, while some options are slightly hard to find, they all work flawlessly once found.

Incentivized

Google does a great job of providing tech support for this product, as it does many others. Similarly, Google has FAQs that cover a large amount of issues faced by users. Problems have not persisted in our use of this product. Problems are resolved quickly and easily, with or without personal Google support.

Incentivized

I haven't needed support for the most part, which is a positive for Highfive. It's intuitive and most features are straightforward to use. In the one instance that I did contact them, it took them longer then expected to respond, but they were able to answer my question once they did.

Incentivized

I am not aware of the current support level for Skype for business, as I have never used even though I have the product. However, the support for Skype's personal paid users is not where it could be. Users who pay for Skype features do not have a clear path to reach out to support. So, rating 6, can be better as soon as I need to use Skype for business support and get a good experience. I will say that I will renew Skype for Business subscription, which is a significant inconsistency on my end. The explanation is that Skype for Business comes bundled with Office for Business, with no additional cost, so why not.

Incentivized

It can be used on the phone via mobile application as well as on the desktop by logging in to the website. Easily installed and ready to use.

Incentivized

The main positive feature in Google Meet over Zoom to me is the fact that Google meet can be seamlessly deployed in the browser with its full functionality. Unlike Zoom for which you need to download an extra application to use. This consequently makes workflow smooth when transitioning between something like emails and taking part in a meeting.

Incentivized

Uberconference is by far more reliable and has a better quality of service than the other providers in this space. I have never had a dropped call with Uberconference (unlike Skype and Hangouts). I do think they need to do more marketing because fewer people know about them than others and sometimes people decline to use the service so we have to use one of the other platforms to connect.

Incentivized

We use Skype in combination with Grasshopper. While Grasshopper acts as a routing toll free number with extensions, if we are making calls directly, we do it through Skype. Skype's desktop and mobile apps are easier to use, and provide unlimited local calls at a flat, affordable rate. Allowing our team to use their existing mobile or desktop devices without additional hardware for business office phone calls is important, and Skype makes that possible

Incentivized

I wasn't involved in the unit pricing factor. So far I used Google meet in the office where I got access to all these Google applications including the Google Meet feature. So I wasn't involved much in this pricing factor of Google Meet and also regarding the contact terms of the product.

This is very good in the professional services as I started using this first for the professional service only. While using this Google Meet itself gives a professional feel as the UI works in a professional way. The video background modification, multi-screen feature, and some other features help in professional service.

The service provided is up to date, as discussed before buying.

• Negative: on each webinar someone from our team had to write manually the people that were participating and after that matching it with the registered people list. We wasted time. It could be easily resolved by adding the export list feature
• Positive: Collaboration and internal meetings. Calendar integration helps us save time.

Incentivized

• Our teams use this every day. It makes it easy to meet with clients and share a screen and display analytics.
• Some of my clients thought that they need to register first to be able to contact me. It's bad that they are not notified in any way that it's enough just to enter its names and that's it.

Incentivized

• Skype made keeping in touch with an advisor in Mexico very easy. The initiative there resulted in 5 new partnerships.
• Skype has helped me with account management for at least 3 customers in LATAM--usually it's a fast way to answer a question about a support renewal.
• For about 9 months Skype helped me stay in touch with a colleague in Prague. We would meet once a week to go over sales activities.

Incentivized