google-hangouts-vs-webex-meetings

Webex Meetings is Cisco’s web and video conferencing solution and is ideal for business use cases. Google Hangouts Classic provides users with online communication capabilities like video conferencing and VoIP calling. However, though the classic version of Google Hangouts still exists and is free to use, it has evolved into two newer products that are better suited for business use cases: Google Chat and Google Meet. Google Hangouts Classic is better suited for personal use and for making one-off business calls. 

Features 

Both Cisco Webex Meetings and Google Hangouts Classic allow users to make video calls, voice calls, and send chats to other users. However, Webex Meetings has more advanced features that make it better-suited for business users than Google Hangouts Classic. On the other hand, Google’s product is free with lightweight features, making it preferable for personal use. 

Cisco Webex Meetings includes features like screen sharing, meeting recording and transcription, both one-on-one and group chats, dial-in options for video meetings, and visibility into the list of meeting participants. In contrast, Google Hangouts Classic allows screen sharing and messages to other contacts but does not offer meeting recording or dial-in options for video meetings. 

Google Hangouts Classic also only allows up to 25 meeting participants, while Webex Meetings can support online meetings with up to 100,000 participants. Users can launch Webex Meetings from within the Webex Application, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Canvas, and Moodle—whereas Google Hangouts Classic users can start meetings from the Google Hangouts web or mobile applications, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook. 

Limitations 

The main limitations of Cisco Webex Meetings are the feature restrictions on lower-tier plans, such as a meeting participant cap of 100 and meeting duration limit of 50 minutes on the free plan. Meeting recordings and transcriptions are also not available on the Cisco Webex Meetings free plan. However, they are available for all other paid plans. 

If you’re planning on using Google Hangouts Classic for your business, there are a few key limitations to be aware of. For example, you won’t be able to record video meetings or meet with more than 25 participants at once. This may be fine for micro-businesses and small teams, however, this will be problematic for teams with more than 25 members. Google Meet is a better option than Hangouts Classic for midsize teams and larger businesses looking for a video conferencing platform. 

Pricing

Cisco Webex Meetings offers a free plan with limited features and then four additional paid plans. The free plan only allows one meeting host, while the paid plans offer between 1-9, 1-50, 5-100, or an unlimited number of meeting hosts. Paid plan users also have access to more advanced features like encrypted cloud meeting recordings, meeting transcriptions, toll-dial in and toll-free dial-in options, and at least 5GB of cloud recording storage space. 

Google Hangouts Classic is free for all users that have a Google account. However, Google is in the process of transitioning users away from Google Hangouts Classic to either Google Chat or Google Meetings, it’s two newer products ideal for business users. More information about the transition away from Google Hangouts Classic can be found here.