Zoom Video Conferencing Alternatives

Now that we have more and more people working remotely from home due to the coronavirus, video conferencing services have increased in ways many people would not have thought possible in the previous months. 

Of all the video conferencing products out there’s one that’s seemed to pull ahead of the pack and it’s called Zoom.  This video conferencing app made its debut in January 2013 and by 2014 it had already amassed over 10 million active users worldwide (source). Fast forward to today and it is one of the most wildly used video conferencing platforms.

When the COVID-19 pandemic prompted various organizations to transition their workforce to remote workers Zoom’s user-base grew 67% (source).  While this sounds like a big win for the folks at Zoom Video Communications it was actually the beginning of one of their biggest nightmare to come–it was brought to light the once touted highly secured platform offering end-to-end encryption of all communications between users was in fact vulnerable and open to hackers. 

I’m sure by now you’re thinking, well, if Zoom is not as secure as it was marketed then what are my alternatives? Well, we have a few solid alternatives that come to mind.

• Skype
• Microsoft Teams
• Google Meet
• Gotomeeting
• Join.me
• Cisco WebEx
• Amazon Chime
• Zoho Meeting
• UberConference
• Starleaf

There are many more video conferencing products on the market. Some opensource, others paid, and/or freemium. However, the big question you must always consider is, will my communication between myself and my teammates be secured and not a point of vulnerability that compromises my computer system or will it be the opposite?