Item: Zoom
Rating: 10
Author: Dmitry Pashkevich

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We recently began transitioning from Google Meet to Zoom Videoconferencing and Zoom Rooms company-wide. We were happy with Google Meet for a long time, until we started running into problems:

Google Meet imposes a limit of 25 participants per video call and we started hitting it as the company grew
Google Meet started crashing unexpectedly during the conference, especially when someone starts sharing their screen

We started looking for a more robust solution and Zoom was at the top of the list because of its reputation in the industry. We still use Google Meet and Slack calls for one-on-one meetings, but now almost exclusively use Zoom for group meetings.

Pros and Cons

Very high video and audio quality.
Nice little features like automatically muting your microphone when they detect feedback.
You can see videos of other participants in a small floating panel while you're sharing your screen so that you can gauge their reaction while you're presenting.
Video recording: important for training sessions, tech talks, all-hands.
Plenty of configuration options. I appreciate the option to automatically record all calls.
Exciting features coming in the future like clapping and other reactions during a video call.

Unlike Google Meet, it requires you to download an app and/or a browser extension to operate.
Second-class experience on Linux.
Costs extra money, although the cost seems justified for a mid-size company.

Return on Investment

Our meetings became more efficient and effective because we now spend a lot less time dealing with technical issues like poor AV quality, calls dropping/app crashing, etc.
Improved collaboration between the presenter and the audience because the presenter can see other participants' video.
Improved knowledge sharing thanks to the call recording feature which is useful for training sessions and all-hands.

Zoom Rooms

We're only beginning to adopt Zoom Rooms. Overall it's fairly robust and we're pleased with how well the product handles multiple participants, as well as support for various hardware (no hardware vendor lock-in), but we occasionally experience issues with hardware being disconnected/iPad rebooting to install updates. Must be part of the learning curve though. We will likely upgrade our meeting hardware in the near future which will eliminate some of these pains.

Alternatives Considered

Google Hangouts

Google Meet (or Hangouts) imposes a limit of 25 participants per video call and we started hitting it as the company grew.
Google Meet started crashing unexpectedly during the conference, especially when someone starts sharing their screen.
Google Meet has inferior audio/video quality and higher bandwidth restrictions don't handle calls with a large number of participants (e.g. > 10) as well as Zoom.
That said, you get Google Meet for no extra cost with your Google Business subscription.

Likelihood to Recommend

Although I think it works perfectly for all teams and individuals and is the best-in-class product in the industry, the cost may not be justified for small teams or teams who don't use videoconferencing a lot. However, if you have remote employees or do a lot of sales/support/consulting/recruiting over videoconferences, you will likely get a lot of value from Zoom, and the product will scale nicely as your business grows. They're constantly improving it, the product evolves much faster than the competition (e.g. Google Meet, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, etc.).

Best-in-breed videoconferencing solution that is robust and scalable

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Zoom