Google Workspace for Education vs. GoTo Meeting

Google [Workspace for Education (formerly G Suite for Education)] is pretty darn good [at] meeting the needs for educators and students. It is not designed to run your business office, transportation group, or lunch services. It doesn't need to be good at those. Focus on teachers and students. They do that really, really well. The Google folks continue to add features that help serve teacher and students. For example, they have really done a good job of adding Google Meet features such as polling and breakout rooms. Those features required a paid subscription to Workspace, but it makes sense since those features compete with Zoom, which requires a subscription for those services.

Incentivized

I provide regular training as a big portion of my job. There is weekly training with an infinite number of users in attendance on any given date—GoTo Meeting is not the best option for this because I would have to mute users as they join the meeting. However, I also provide frequent training sessions to a small number of users that feature more individualized content, and having them able to mute/unmute at will is a better fit for a smaller group with in-depth materials.

Incentivized

• Email: The best email experience, period. It's fast, has the best mobile apps and tons of addons that extend it.
• Office suite: The Google editors might not have all the features of their MS Office counterparts, but they have most of them and the apps are surprisingly performant.
• Domain management: The Google Admin Console, coupled with the GAM command line tool, is very powerful, easy to use and simplifies any admin's work.

Incentivized

• Excellent audio and video quality.
• Functional and easy-to-use screen-sharing feature for product demonstrations and presentations.
• Possibility of recording meetings that we can later review and share with those who could not attend.
• Possibility of managing the microphone of the participants in host mode so as not to disturb the entire event.

Incentivized

• The admin console regularly feel sluggish
• Require third party tools to make changes to bulk devices
• Support could be a little better

Incentivized

• We occasionally experience slow performance during screen sharing.
• The help center should have detailed tutorials on commonly asked FAQs and also to initially set up the profile.
• One of my initial thoughts regarding recordings was to edit them in the future when the product changes.

Incentivized

We used other software like goto meetings but found it best because of its user friendly interface and easy interfacing. It helped us in COVID and now we can say we are depending on it and love it. We recommend it to our friends company and they are also using it. It is very affordable and easy to integrate with system

Incentivized

Always up, never down. Compatible with so many different platforms, OSes, and tools. For instance, someone can be on a phone, tablet, laptop, and all of those tools are compatible with Google apps like Meet, Docs, Slides, and anything else Google based. It's flexiblity is fantastic and meets our changing hardware and software requirements

Incentivized

The simplicity of GoToMeetings desktop, mobile, and web-based applications make it a very robust and user-friendly meeting solution. At times, it may be more complex than needed, but it is nice to have so many features that can be used if needed. Once installed, it is very easy to use and navigate.

Incentivized

This application has always been available. Never an issue

Incentivized

This application is fast. Loads fast, no stall

Incentivized

When we have issues, they seem to respond quickly and do everything they can to help us. They have even tried to find other ways we could get more use out of their product, or improve the way we are currently using it. Overall, their support has been fairly good for us.

Incentivized

It was very easy and self-explanatory.

Incentivized

Google has a simpler approach to its apps. With all applications being online, things like auto-save being a default have been helpful for many staff in our organisation. Compare this to Microsoft where much of the admin has to be managed by the ICT Team, Google allows for a portion of control to the user to manage permissions of areas. This type of user empowerment helps people see how important ICT is to a business.

Incentivized

Many times, it seems like GoTo Meeting requires less bandwidth to run. We noticed with a few test machines that if you have over twenty video streams, this product could handle the load better than if we used Microsoft Teams and had many video streams.

Incentivized

• There has been a steady evolution of new features coming out that reduced the need for third party tools
• We have been able to sign agreements to lock in annual renewal costs for up to 5 years
• It's a ubiquitous platform, finding support is generally pretty easy

Incentivized

• Any collaboration app these days are now a great addition for those organizations which have more than one office and they need to collaborate with each other.
• GoTo Meeting can contribute to cost savings by reducing the need for extensive travel, accommodation, and related expenses associated with in-person meetings especially in case like us as we have multiple branches.

Incentivized