on24-vs-zoom

On24 and Zoom both allow businesses to create web conferences that can support a large number of participants with audio and video.  On24 is a webinar software designed to support businesses presentations for large groups of people.  Zoom is a web and video conferencing tool designed to help businesses host internal and external meetings, as well as larger conferences.  Zoom is popular with businesses of all sizes, while On24 is most popular with mid-sized and large enterprises. Zoom may be more popular with smaller businesses due to the availability of a free pricing package.

Features

On24 and Zoom both provide essential video conferencing tools, but they also have some unique features that set them apart from each other.

On24 includes html5 support that allows users to participate in conferences without downloading an application. This is great for webinars as users who only wish to attend one webinar will not need to commit to downloading an application for a single conference. Additionally, On24 includes analytics tools businesses can use to see how many viewers their webinars had, as well as statistics like what percentage of users stay for the whole conference.

Zoom offers high quality audio and video for small internal meetings or large conferences.  Users can share multiple screens or use multiple cameras, as well as use the “touch up my appearance” setting to make sure their video is the highest quality it can be.  In addition to the video and audio quality of Zoom, users have access to collaboration tools such as whiteboards and drawing that allow presenters to make notes and highlight important information on the fly during a presentation. 

Limitations

Though On24 and Zoom both enable businesses to host conferences and meetings, they also have a few limitations that are important to consider.

Zoom provides simple, one click meeting invitations, but all meeting participants have to download the Zoom application.  Businesses using On24 can allow users to join web conferences using the browser based application without a download.  Browser based conferencing can be important for businesses that frequently conference with external individuals.  Additionally, Zoom’s analytics features are not as detailed as those provided by On24, for businesses using their video conferencing software primarily for internal meetings this may not be important but it is relevant for businesses hosting webinars.

On24 provides support for large amounts of participants, but it can be more difficult to implement and use compared to Zoom’s simple user interface. Additionally, On24 provides excellent support for webinars, but does not provide a more inexpensive tool for smaller meetings.  For businesses that primarily need to support smaller web conferences, rather than webinars, other tools may be more affordable.

Pricing

Zoom’s Pro pricing tier costs $15.00 per host per month and allows meetings as long as 24 hours. The business tier costs $20.00 per host per month and includes custom branding. Lastly, the enterprise tier costs $20.00 per host per month and requires at least 50 hosts. This plan includes unlimited cloud storage.

On24 pricing is not detailed publicly, but businesses can reach out to vendors for a detailed quote.