Zoom vs. Google Meet: Our experience switching.

Author: Rob Black

Imagine this: your SaaS company has reached the top of its market, dwarfing competing products from veritable tech giants. Then, you make some silly decisions about AI that cause your users to jump ship.

That’s what Zoom has done this year. They updated their terms of service in March, July, and August, granting themselves permission to train generative AI on “customer content.”

The last of these updates was in response to the backlash, and unwound their decision to train AI systems on customer content. Despite their backtracking, the ordeal prompted us here at Fractional CISO to switch to Google Meet for video conferencing.

That makes Google Meet our third successive video conferencing vendor. (Our first was GoToMeeting).

It’s safe to say we have a lot of first-hand experience with these services and the pros and cons of each.

Here is our opinion on these services, after months of using them for all of our organization’s meetings.

Zoom Video Conferencing Pros

Zoom is easy to use and has great out-of-the-box video and audio quality. There’s a reason it became the go-to video conferencing platform for businesses and families alike during the pandemic!

Zoom has better audio noise reduction than Google Meet – you get more background sounds through meet.
Zoom has better video quality than meet.
Zoom doesn’t get stuck behind another browser tab like Meet does (unless you are using the Google Meet app).
Zoom does not default to sharing whichever browser tab is open – it shares all windows.
When you click a Zoom link, the Zoom app opens automatically. (With Meet, the app doesn’t open even if installed!)
Zoom has a native integration with Slack. Meet does not.
Zoom handles plugging in a new camera better than Meet, which may require a restart of your browser.
Recording management is easier in Zoom. You can opt to save them to the cloud or your computer. They don’t go into “My Drive” like Meet.
The Zoom app is easier to install than the Meet app. Google has a complicated process involving Chrome menu options and multiple steps.
“Zoom” is a way better name than “Meet.”
Zoom is browser-agnostic. Google Meet hampers some functionality if you use a non-Chrome browser such as Firefox.
Zoom almost never prevents non-Zoom users from being able to join a meeting. We have observed 1% of non-Google parties are unable to join Meet.
Note: A couple of our clients refused to use Meet when we tried migrating from Zoom. We now use their Microsoft Teams or Zoom for meetings with those clients.

Another Zoom positive: Webinars and integrations. While Zoom and Google Meet both have the ability to host live events such as webinars, Zoom has integrations with a number of popular CRM systems like Hubspot, making it easier to manage such events and follow up with participants.

Google Meet Video Conferencing Pros

It was relatively easy for us to switch to Google Meet. As a Google Workspace company, we already had access to the service!

In general, Meet is less user-friendly and has lower-quality video and audio than Zoom. It does do a lot of little things better than Zoom.

Meet is included with our Google Workspace license, so there are no additional costs.
Google already has our data, so we avoid the risk of exposing it to another vendor in Zoom.
We are not giving Google a license to use our conference call content like we are with Zoom.
Zoom sometimes grabs the wrong window to share, which is less likely to happen in Meet.
Meet automatically adjusts window sizes to fit more people onto the screen.
Meet does not unexpectedly update right before an important call like Zoom does.
The Google Meet app shows your scheduled meetings for the day, making it easy to join with one click.
It’s very easy to add a Meet meeting to a Google Calendar invite, great integration.
Anyone in your Google Workspace domain can automatically start a Meet meeting (see – terrible name!) from the calendar invite, unlike Zoom which requires cumbersome administration.
Users are likely already logged into Google, reducing logins compared to Zoom which requires multi-factor authentication for admin tasks.

Google obviously intends for Meet to be a browser-focused app. The service’s behavior is to open meetings in a new browser tab from the link, and installing the “standalone” app is not as easy as it should be.

You should use the Google Meet app because it makes for a better experience. I don’t usually want my video call to get buried in a browser tab, I want it to be front and center and separate from everything else.

Unfortunately, Google does not make it easy or obvious how to install the Google Meet app. Here’s how you can do it:

How to Install the Google Meet App

Open meet.google.com in Google Chrome
Click the three dots menu on the top-right of the browser.
Click “More Tools”
Click “Create Shortcut”
Access the Google Meet app through the Start Menu (Windows) or Launchpad (Mac).

These steps are different from installing something like Zoom because the Google Meet “app” is not a normal app. When you open the Google Meet app, you’re basically just opening a standalone Chrome window that only goes to Google Meet.

Is Google Meet better than Zoom?

No. Zoom is better than Google Meet. (For now anyways.)

Zoom simply provides a better, more user-friendly meeting service. There is a reason it became the platform of choice for businesses, schools, and families alike during the pandemic!

However, we are no longer comfortable submitting ourselves and our clients’ data to their fluctuating terms of service. One of Fractional CISO’s Fundamentals is Security First. We are willing to use an inferior product to help better protect our and our clients’ data.

Unfortunately, there’s no escaping any of the major video conferencing apps. The fact of the matter is if you’re doing B2B work, you’re going to end up taking calls on all of them. At least you can save some money on licenses by cutting Zoom!

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Rob Black, CISSP

Rob founded Fractional CISO in 2017 and has helped dozens of companies improve their security posture as a vCISO. He consults, speaks, and writes on IoT and security. Rob has held product security and corporate security leadership positions at PTC ThingWorx, Axeda and RSA Security. He received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and holds two Bachelor of Science degrees from Washington University in St. Louis in Computer Science and System Science and Engineering. He is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).