Microsoft Teams combines video conferencing software with team collaboration tools. The communications platform allows MS Office users to conduct conference calls and share files via SharePoint, and join or initiate a group chat.
$4.80
per month per user
Whereby
Score 9.9 out of 10
N/A
Norwegian company appear.in offers their flagship video conferencing platform to small teams, both in a free edition hosting up to 4 guests simultaneously in a session or a paid edition that supports up to 12 simultaneous meeting guests, among other features.
$0
per user
Pricing
Microsoft Teams
Whereby
Editions & Modules
Microsoft Teams Essentials
$4.80
per month per user
Microsoft Teams Enterprise
$5.25
per month (paid yearly) per user
Microsoft Teams Enterprise
$5.25
per month per user
Microsoft 365 Business Basic
$7.20
per month per user
Microsoft 365 Business Standard
$15
per month per user
Free
$0
per user
Pro
$9.99
per user
Business
$59.99 and up
per user/room
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Teams
Whereby
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Discounts are available for non profit organizations.
When compared to the other VC platforms, we found Whereby the easiest to use for users and invitees. The only install from a recipient's point-of-view is a Chrome extension. Zoom requires a download and an account to sign into. Microsoft Teams is only for other members on the …
It is a very simple tool. It can be accessed by all very fast. Sometimes we do more than one videoconference simultaneously and Whereby helps a lot as a second option, especially with few participants.
Nicer layout than any other competitor by far, reactions for emojis pop up on your video (have not seen this anywhere else), easier to access (no downloads). Also, useful internally to always use the same URL, so if you have an ad hoc meeting everyone knows where to go. This …
It's amazing as a daily driver for team communication, and document search/store. Also, if you're doing a lot of LONG meetings and have trouble remembering details, the AI summarization is amazing and convenient. It just works. I'm not saying I always do this, of course, but if I need to 'skim' instead of really digging into every detail from a meeting, the AI-generated summary is generally good enough that I can get away with it.
If you cannot use another more common solution on the market or are looking for an alternative to the known solutions, it is a great alternative. If you have other tools already, and just want to test [them], that's fine, but I think the better-known ones have a better chance of using, knowing, and the learning curve will be shorter.
The webinars feature has some missing functionally such as the ability for all users to use the Q&A feature (only those with a Microsoft Teams account can use it now), the ability to upload documents for attendees to easily access and download, and the ability for presenters and organizers to easily chat amongst themselves throughout the webinar.
The "Channels" organization hierarchy could be more clear. If you have several channels set up, it can get clunky and hard to find the specific channel you are looking for.
The MS Planner tool lacks functionality and organization. You cannot assign more than one person to a task and it's confusing when you try to share tasks with people - it would be nice if they were automatically added to someone's calendar.
The paid version may have dial-in. But I have always used the free version. Dial-in is typically required for an "official" multi-purpose teleconference platform.
I did have some trouble with larger groups (5+) when it was Appear.in but almost always use it for small 1-on-1 or 3 person meetings.
Microsoft Teams is included with our Office 365 subscription and we have no intention of migrating off of Office 365 and Microsoft products. Since Microsoft Teams is included for free with our Office 365 subscription, and since we enjoy all the features, benefits, and functionality, there is no question that our team will continue to use the product
We are using a larger tool suite that already includes video conferencing instead of our older approach of using different apps from different vendors. appear.in has a simple but great set of features but its pricing scheme is not as scalable as we really need in a 500+ employee company.
If you have the full Microsoft Office suite, it works really well because it's integrated well within its ecosystem, but if not, it can be annoying because it tries to open a shared file in the web versions of the file equivalents. The web version is also a bit slow, and the login is very difficult to handle if you have multiple Microsoft or Outlook accounts.
The overall support provided by Microsoft for Microsoft Teams has been quite good but there is still some room for improvements. Microsoft needs to proactively work on fixing the open bugs in order to provide a seamless experience to the users. But over the service and experience provided by the Microsoft team have been quite satisfactory.
Never had to contact support, so we cannot give a rating for their overall support. When we noticed the audio was not always great quality, we simply educated our users to mute the mic and use the in-room conference phone which is connected via a dedicated VOIP link and had much better voice quality. The video performance varied by locations network speed and found it got much worse when the room size increased to over 4 connections.
Microsoft Teams offers a much more integrated experience between their chat and video call function compared to Google Chat and Slack. Both other tools are much better for internal communications are they have simpler UI without other features. Whereas Microsoft Teams can be used for more critical conversations, particularly between external companies, and has been very useful in sales conversations which is what we chose it for when speaking to companies that work exclusively through Microsoft.
I find Zoom more complicated to use and harder to use because a lot of people do not like having to download things to their computers or devices and Whereby is so easy to get connected with . I like that Zoom offers larger rooms, but at this point the cost is not worth the extra expense.
Honestly, this tool is worth every penny. Yes, it's not free and you pay for the quality of services and the license. But the ROI and the benefits are all there. Also, the renewal, negotiation, and contract terms are all very well explained by our Microsoft account manager, and she's a charm.
I used Skype for Business to take calls, hold conferences, and provide remote assistance to users. Microsoft Teams, on the other hand, is superior to Skype for Business in my opinion. My job entails a lot of screen sharing.
Personally, I would say that by using Microsoft Teams, it upped my collaboration with my colleagues by around 50% or around more than half of what I usually did prior to using it.
I had 100% show rate and attendance on all of my meetings in the past 6 months.
If I may add, I also have been chattier & collaborative towards my colleagues in past 3 months particularly the month of December when we had huge traffic at work. I would estimate this behavior to have been increased by around 60% than what I usually incur during normal operating days.