Secure Alternative to Zoom and GoTo Meeting - Blueteam Networks

Microsoft Teams is a game-changer for remote small business communication. It’s a cost-effective, secure, feature-rich option often overlooked for Zoom and GoToMeeting out of habits and the hastiness to adapt to remote work at the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

When Covid-19 forced the widespread rapid adoption of video conferencing tools, Zoom and GoToMeeting quickly emerged as early leading choices. Zoom is now so popular; it’s often used as a generic term for remote video conferencing.

Read our article: Stay Productive Despite COVID-19 With Microsoft Teams

However, there are serious vulnerabilities and performance issues associated with both Zoom and GoToMeeting.

Zoom-bombing, malware, phishing scams, audio issues, leaks, compromised accounts, PC takeovers, and geopolitical controversies has many business owners and organizations looking for a safe Zoom alternative.

GoToMeeting is a popular second choice, but it tends to have service outages along with audio, video, and connectivity issues.

Microsoft Teams is an excellent Zoom and GoToMeeting alternative. With advanced functionalities built-in for not only video conferencing but collaboration as well. There are several areas where Teams outperforms the competition.

Best Zoom Alternative

First, Microsoft Teams has a generous free plan.

Teams allows up to 300 participants at a time, with a 60-minute maximum meeting time. It’s also packed with collaboration features like unlimited chat, whiteboards, screen sharing, file sharing, and up to 10GB of cloud storage. 

Zoom’s free plan allows a maximum of 40-minute meetings for up to 300 people. This is perfectly reasonable since most of us agree we could spend less time in meetings, but its security issues are still a significant drawback.

GoToMeeting’s free plan only permits 3 participants for a 40-minute maximum meeting length. Aside from all of the collaboration tools in Microsoft Teams, this makes Teams an even better GoToMeeting alternative for business users who videoconference with multiple people at a time.

Extensive Features

Microsoft Teams includes extended collaboration features in all its plans including Office 365. Its free plan offers real-time collaboration in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, along with over 250 app integrations.

Users can chat without conferencing, share files, work together, automate workflows, and back everything up to the cloud.

In addition to its productivity suite, Teams comes with 3GB storage for free plans and 1TB for its entry paid level. Zoom only offers 1GB of storage in its $14.99 per month entry plan. It then provides 3TB of extra cloud storage at $500 per year. Teams is a far more cost-effective Zoom alternative for business users who need cloud storage. (And every business should have a backup storage system in place.) GoToMeeting relies on plugins from Google or Microsoft for more productivity. It can also integrate with Slack for even more chat features. Without having its built-in tools to offer, those who want a unified communication solution can opt for Teams as a GoToMeeting alternative.

Secure Track Record

Microsoft has an established track record for enterprise-level security with well-developed policies. Since Teams is built on its existing platform, its security architecture complies with over 90 regulatory and industry standards. Microsoft analyses user data to improve the product but does not share or sell it to other parties.

Zoom’s history of security and data privacy is not good. In addition to its numerous security issues, Zoom has been caught sharing user data with Facebook and China. Zoom enforces security retroactively, only fixing problems when the public reports them; they are sued, they experience bad press, or are required to do so by government agencies like the FTC.

Many of these issues have been corrected, but cautious users can opt for Microsoft Teams as a safe Zoom alternative.

Microsoft Teams is a wholly unified communication and collaboration solution. It makes business communication easy, even when your entire team is working from home or in the field.

Read our article: Cybersecurity Tips for Working Remotely