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The Microsoft Teams vs Zoom Guide: Which is Better
Microsoft Teams and Zoom both dominate the video conferencing space. But which is better when you compare Microsoft Teams vs Zoom? With the omnipresence of remote and hybrid working, virtual conferencing and collaboration tools have never been more essential. Finding the right platform for your business is critical to your workplace efficiency. Both Teams and Zoom offer a number of benefits for remote and hybrid teams. The right one will depend on your unique business needs.
If you’re wondering how Microsoft Teams vs Zoom compare, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll take a look at pricing, plans, user experience, security, support, integrations, and features so you can decide which platform is right for you.
Microsoft Teams vs Zoom
Both Teams and Zoom offer a video conferencing platform with a number of collaboration features, but each has a unique origin. You probably didn’t hear about Zoom until 2020, when much of the workforce was sent home during the pandemic. Zoom gained popularity for its ease of use and ability to connect people face-to-face. But Zoom has been around since 2011, when it was founded by Eric Yuan, former lead engineer at Cisco. Eric started Zoom to create a video conferencing platform that was easy to use, and the rest is history.
Microsoft has been around for much longer than Zoom, but Teams is a newer product. Microsoft Teams as it is today evolved from two separate platforms: Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams was introduced as a direct competitor to collaboration platforms like Slack. Over time, Microsoft recognized the need to consolidate, which led to the decision to integrate Skype for Business into Teams.
Both Teams and Zoom offer unique collaboration features that can help you facilitate remote work. Zoom is more focused on video conferencing, while Teams offers a variety of collaboration features. The right one for you will depend on what you need! Let’s take an in-depth look at how Microsoft Teams vs Zoom stack up.
Pricing and Plans
When deciding between Zoom vs Teams, one essential factor to compare is the price. Both Zoom and Teams offer a variety of pricing tiers that come with different features, including meeting length, participant cap, and storage.
Microsoft Teams Plans
Microsoft Teams offers four different plans, one free and three paid. With the free plan, you can host meetings for up to 60 minutes with up to 100 participants. The chat and collaboration features are limited in the free plan, though, so if you need more chat, file, sharing, and storage, you’ll want to look at one of MS Teams’ paid plans.
| Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams Essentials | Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | |
| Cost | Free | $4/user/month | $6/user/month | $12.50/user/month |
| Meeting Duration Max | 60 minutes | 30 hours | 30 hours | 30 hours |
| Max Participant Cap | 100 participants | 300 participants | 300 participants | 300 participants |
| Office Apps Included | Web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint | Web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint | Web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, plus additional 365 apps like Yammer and Planner | Desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, and Publisher, plus additional 365 apples like Yammer and Planner |
| Cloud Storage | 5GB/user | 10GB/user | 1TB/user | 1TB/user |
| Recording | N/A | Recordings with transcripts | Recordings with transcripts | Recordings with transcripts |
| Administration and Support | N/A | Phone and web support | Phone and web support, administration tools, and analytics | Phone and web support, administration tools, and analytics |
| Chat and collaboration | Limited | Unlimited chat | Unlimited chat | Unlimited chat |
| Live captions | English only | English only | Over 30 languages | Over 30 languages |
Zoom Plans
Like Teams, Zoom offers a free plan with basic functionality. Meetings on the free plan are limited to 40 minutes with up to 100 participants per meeting. In addition to their basic plan, Zoom also offers four paid plans that come with more features, like cloud recording storage and video editing.
| Basic | Pro | Business | Business Plus | Enterprise | |
| Cost | Free | $15.99/month/user | $21.99/month/user | $26.99/month/user | Quote based pricing |
| Meeting Duration Max | 40 minutes | Up to 30 hours per meeting | Up to 30 hours per meeting | Up to 30 hours per meeting | Up to 30 hours per meeting |
| Max Participant Cap | 100 Participants | 300 participants | 300 participants | 300 participants | Up to 500 or 1000 attendees |
| Cloud recording storage | None (local recording only) | 5GB/user | 5GB/user | 10GB/user | Unlimited cloud recording storage |
| Captions | Automated captions | Automated captions | Automated captions | Automated and translated captions | Automated and translated captions |
| Chat | Chats and channels for collaboration and file sharing | Chats and channels for collaboration, file sharing, and more | Chats and channels for collaboration, file sharing, and more | Chats and channels for collaboration, file sharing, and more | Chats and channels for collaboration, file sharing, and more |
| Video editing | Up to 5 videos, limited to 2 minutes each | Unlimited recording, editing, and sharing of short-form videos | Unlimited recording, editing, and sharing of short-form videos | Unlimited recording, editing, and sharing of short-form videos | Unlimited recording, editing, and sharing of short-form videos |
User Experience
When comparing Microsoft Teams vs Zoom, one major difference you’ll notice is in the user experience. Zoom is renowned for its ease of use, while Teams comes with a bit of a learning curve.
One of MS Teams’ biggest strengths is its unified dashboard that provides quick access to features and applications. Unfortunately, this dashboard can be pretty overwhelming. It takes training on the platform to figure out how to use all the features. Once you learn how to use it, Teams’ integration with Microsoft 365 apps contributes to a seamless experience.
On the other hand, Zoom’s user interface is intuitive and straightforward. Joining a meeting is a simple process, which makes Zoom accessible to users with varying technical expertise.
Support
Almost nothing is more frustrating than when essential technology crashes, especially if it keeps your business from moving. That’s why customer support is so critical.
Both Teams and Zoom offer differing levels of customer support. For their free service, Teams only offers an online help center. The help center has resources and answers to commonly asked questions, but no live support is available. Paid members can access 24/7 live support through email or chat as well as phone support between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. PT.
Like Teams, Zoom only provides an online help center for its free plan.
Customers subscribed to Zoom Pro receive access to support through chat or email, while those with Zoom Business or higher can access phone support.
Security
Security is another major factor to consider when deciding between Zoom vs MS Teams. In the past, Zoom had some issues with security, with several instances of uninvited participants interrupting Zoom meetings. Since then, Zoom has beefed up security measures and obtained security certifications like SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001. Additionally, Zoom offers two-factor authentication, meeting passwords, waiting rooms, and end-to-end encryption for additional security.
Because it leverages Microsoft’s robust security infrastructure, Microsoft Teams has a reputation for security. MS Teams employs encryption in transit and at rest, as well as end-to-end encryption in certain circumstances. It offers multi-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access, secure channels for private conversations, and secure guest access. Microsoft Teams is also designed to meet various compliance standards, such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA.
Integrations
Integrating regularly used business apps into your video conferencing platform can make your workflow go much smoother. That’s why both Zoom and MS Teams offer hundreds of integrations with third-party apps.
On all of its plans, Microsoft Teams integrates with other Microsoft 365 programs, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Paid plans come with even more Microsoft 365 app integrations, plus access to over 700 third-party integrations, like Adobe Creative Cloud, Trello, Asana, and GitHub.
The Zoom Basic plan comes with integrations with some top apps, like Asana, Workplace, SaleForce, HubSpot, and Google Calendar. But if you want access to over a thousand apps on the Zoom marketplace, you’ll need a paid plan. Zoom integrates with Slack, Outlook, Trello, Dropbox, and several Microsoft 365 apps.
In comparing Teams vs Zoom integrations, Zoom comes out ahead with the sheer number of integrations available. However, if you’re mostly interested in Microsoft 365 integrations, you’re probably better off choosing Teams.
Features
While Teams and Zoom are both video conferencing platforms, they each offer different features for collaboration and communication.
Some of the specific features offered by MS Teams include:
- Whiteboards: Microsoft Teams offers whiteboards during virtual meetings, which are collaboration tools used for brainstorming and planning.
- File sharing and collaboration: Users can share and collaborate on files in real time.
- Chat: Teams provides chat functionality for one-on-one and group conversations, supporting text, emojis, and file sharing.
- Guest access: Guest access allows external users to collaborate with internal teams.
- Video and audio calling: Teams supports one-on-one and group video and audio calls, making it easy to connect with team members.
- Live events: Host live events with large audiences, such as webinars or company-wide presentations.
- Shifts: Teams includes the Shifts app for employee scheduling and management.
Some of the features offered by Zoom include:
- Whiteboards: Zoom’s whiteboard features lets meeting participants brainstorm and plan during virtual meetings. Whiteboards support screenshots, files, records, and emojis.
- Video conferencing: Zoom is known for its high-quality video conferencing, supporting one-on-one and group meetings with features like screen sharing and virtual backgrounds.
- Live events: Zoom offers webinar features for hosting large online events with participants and attendees.
- Breakout rooms: Zoom supports breakout rooms, which allows participants to join smaller groups for discussions within a larger meeting.
- File sharing and collaboration: Zoom includes chat and file-sharing features to facilitate collaboration during meetings.
- Virtual backgrounds: Zoom allows users to use virtual backgrounds during video calls.
- Clips: One of Zoom’s newer features, Clips allows users to record and edit short-form videos.
- Notes: Notes is another new feature by Zoom, which allows users to create and share editable documents.
Differences
As two of the top video conferencing and collaboration apps on the market, both Teams and Zoom share a lot in common. But when comparing Zoom vs MS Teams, how are they different?
Probably the biggest difference between the two is their main focus. While Zoom offers collaboration features, it is mainly a video conferencing platform. On the other hand, MS Teams offers video conferencing but prioritizes chat and collaboration.
Which Has More Market Share?
When looking at the market share of Zoom vs Teams, it’s important to remember that each platform has a slightly different emphasis. According to research by 6Sense, Zoom has a total of 179,896 customers, which is a 4.56% market share of the video conference space. On the other hand, MS Teams has 65,016 customers, which is a 1.27% market share of the instant messaging and chat space.
Which Businesses Should Choose Zoom?
Zoom might be the right platform for you if:
- You’re looking to host meetings of up to 1000 participants
- You want a user-friendly app that people with varying levels of technical expertise can easily adopt
- You want access to more than 1000 business app integrations
Which Businesses Should Choose MS Teams?
MS Teams might be the right platform for you if:
- Your business relies heavily on Microsoft 365
- You need team chat and collaboration features organized into channels
- You need a significant amount of cloud storage
Final Verdict: Zoom vs Teams
When comparing Microsoft Teams vs Zoom, it’s obvious that both platforms offer high-quality video conferencing and collaborative features. They’re popular for a reason, and without knowing your specific needs, it’s impossible to name the best platform between the two. If you need a video conferencing platform with a user-friendly interface, Zoom might be your best bet. On the other hand, if your focus is on team collaboration and access to Microsoft 365 features, Microsoft Teams will serve you well.
Can’t decide on a video conferencing platform? If you need help deciding between Teams vs Zoom or finding a different platform, OneStop Communications can help. We’ll compare pricing and plans for top business communication platforms to help you find the solution that fits your unique needs.
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