The demand for video conferencing has surged in recent months as businesses made the transition to remote work in the first half of the year 2020.
In this digital age, conversations are no more restricted to phone calls alone.
Yes, we have mobile phones, chatting tools, social media accounts, and emails, but the lack of face-to-face communication amongst employees and clients is a big missing link in times of remote work.
The global market for video conferencing was worth $3.85 billion in 2019. By 2027, the value of video conferencing will grow at a rate of 9.9%, with more people using this functionality than ever before.
Thankfully, Zoom and Cisco Webex are two popular, reliable, and effective video conferencing tools you can leverage to supplement voice calls with high-quality video during virtual meetings and presentations.
Are you looking for enterprise application software (EAS) for your business? At ProofHub, we have implemented both Zoom and Cisco Webex to enhance and unify intra-team communication experience as well as boost out global business connections.
Both top-rated systems have their own distinctive benefits and features. Which of these two video conferencing applications is the best platform for hosting virtual meetings online?
In this article, I will take you through a detailed, well-researched comparison between Zoom and Webex that will make it easier for you to pick the best solution for your team. But first, let’s begin with the basics.
What Is Video Conferencing?
Video conferencing is a technology-based innovation that allows two or more users residing in different locations to visually and audibly communicate face-to-face with each other easily and efficiently. This technology is especially useful for remote teams with widely dispersed team members.
Video conferencing can be utilized for company meetings, job training sessions, casual conversations, or addressing board members. This tool not only brings together your entire workforce on a single platform to share information, ideas, and provide feedback but also keeps them engaged, connected, and productive.
Benefits Of Video Conferencing
There are several benefits of using a video conferencing solution that you cannot ignore, particularly when physical, in-person meetings are not possible due to many reasons. Let us have a look at what a video conferencing software application brings to the table for today’s businesses.
1. Faster Decision Making
Technology is about improving productivity. No one ever invested in a fax machine to save postage. Video conferencing connects people face-to-face in an instant. With 93 percent of communication being nonverbal in nature, using quality video conferencing software can help you make and maintain real human connections irrespective of distance so that you can make decisions faster.
2. Improved Collaboration
A unified collaboration tool is easy to integrate into your workflow. It is a must for your team members to be on the same page throughout the entire lifecycle of a project. Video conferencing tools save time and enhance the meeting experience through clear visuals, which helps users better understand others point of view.
3. Better Conference Room Experience
Adding video conferencing technology helps to improve the quality of meetings. Better technology combined with good meeting habits are known to improve relations, cut down on the time taken to complete tasks and projects, eliminate travel dependencies, and strengthen communication comprehension between attendees.
4. Improved Productivity
BlueJeans studies show that 94% of businesses believe access to video conferencing improves their productivity. There’s clarity in communication, which eliminates any doubts, confusion, and misunderstandings amongst team members that are common due to lack of face-to-face communication.
5. Strengthens Human Connections
87% of remote team members say that they feel more connected to their colleagues with video conferencing. With an increasing number of employees moving into the remote landscape, using video can help make your team members feel more included in the company culture.
What Is Zoom?
Founded in 2011 by the ex-Cisco engineer, Eric Yuan, Zoom was created to be a cloud-native and mobile-friendly video conferencing software system. Its popularity took off in 2020 as video conferencing became the essential need of the hour for businesses in the wake of the novel coronavirus.
Zoom was seeing 200 million daily meeting participants (not DAU) in the month of March 2020. The following month, this figure had risen to 300 million. This efficient, easy-to-use video conferencing tool offers some of the best features at a reasonable price tag. There’s even a free version!
Today, Zoom offers video conferencing collaboration and webinar software and has historically been the most widely used platform by small and medium-sized companies.
What Is Cisco Webex?
Founded in 1995 by Subrah Iyar and Min Zhu and acquired by Cisco in 2007, Cisco Webex is the leading, cost-effective, and dependable enterprise software for video conferencing, online meetings, screen share, team messaging, and webinars.
This reliable and globally used video conferencing application registered a record 324 million attendees in the month of March 2020, as the novel coronavirus-led lockdowns coerced businesses to ask employees to work from home.
Like Zoom, Cisco Webex is another great way to hold meetings, organize events, webinars, and conduct video conferences online. You get excellent audio and video quality, and an option to create customized video layout, which means you can choose who you see (and not see) in numerous video feeds across your screen.
Features Comparison Chart
| CISCO WEBEX | ZOOM | |
| Features | Video Conferencing, Cloud Calling, Contact Center, Team Collaboration, Online Training Management, Hardware as a Service, Online Event Management, Remote Support Management | Meetings and Chat, Rooms and Workspaces, Phone System, Video Webinars, Marketplace, Developer Platform, Team Chat, Streamlined Calendaring, Recording and Transcripts |
| Limitations | Learning and using its advanced features can prove difficult, occasional lag during Webex meetings | Poor, unpredictable audio and video quality, a bit clunky user interface, can get expensive for larger teams |
| Telephony Extensions | Webex Calling provides call subscriptions for telephony users, offers cloud services and an app for mobile devices and desktops, and gives access to Webex Teams for unified communication | Zoom Phone offers a single platform for video, voice, chat, and collaboration, intelligent call routing and management, auto-attendant/IVR, caller ID, and dialing personas, plus call recording |
| UX | Can be challenging for new users, and not the most intuitive interface | Requires little to no end-user training with a one-touch feature to join or start meetings across all devices |
| Security | Security-focused, all meetings require passwords by default | Had some security issues but recent security updates have made Zoom at par with Webex |
| Participants | High-quality video meetings with up to 1000 attendees | Support for up to 1000 video participants and 49 videos on the screen |
| Supported Integrations | Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Box, Apple, Slack, Appspace | Workplace, IBM Watson Workspace, Salesforce, Skype, MS Outlook, Google, Firefox, Hipchat, Appointlet |
Zoom vs. Webex – Who’s Better At What
Environment: On-Premises, Cloud, or Hybrid
Webex can be purchased and implemented as an on-premises, cloud, or hybrid platform, which gives you the versatility for how you want to slot this video conferencing software into your infrastructure. Cisco manufactures its own physical endpoint devices that are connected to the platform.
Being a cloud-based solution only, Zoom provides an online portal that enables you to view the entire system details and quality statistics at an individual call level. Unlike Webex, Zoom relies on third-party hardware for room endpoint integration.
Security: Which Tool Is More Secure?
Built with the enterprise business in mind, the Webex platform protects user information without compromising on essential features like secure search for stored and shared content. End‑to‑end encryption keeps your messages, documents, and whiteboard content encrypted from one device to another.
After Zoom bombing incidents in the first quarter of 2020, Zoom video conferencing software earned a reputation of being less secure than its competitors. However, Zoom has implemented a number of security updates to prevent a data breach and is now more secure and reliable than it was a few months ago.
Room-Based Video Conferencing
If you’re singularly focused on in-room video conferencing then Webex can be your one-stop-shop. Webex software and Cisco in-room endpoints were created on purpose to work together. Webex supports co-browsing, removes attendees, and allows file-transfers. You get a single vendor for all your video conferencing and collaboration needs.
Zoom does not manufacture its in-room video endpoints, but you can even use Cisco hardware with Zoom (and other third-party providers) to enable in-room conferencing solutions. Since there are a variety of integration possibilities, you will have many endpoint options to choose from, but this can result in greater support complexity.
Video Quality
If all Webex meeting clients have at least 2Mpbs bandwidth, attendees in the meeting can enjoy 720 pixels content sharing at up to 5 FPS. If Webex Meetings applications have at least 3 Mbps bandwidth, the content share quality is 1080p at 3 FPS. Lack of adequate bandwidth can degrade your presentation and data sharing to XGA and 5 frames per second.
Zoom, on the other hand, has superior high-definition and high-quality video that really shines in a league of its own. Your colleagues and clients do not want a grainy video. Even though Webex also offers high-quality video, Zoom enjoys an upper hand here.
Capacity
The capacity to accommodate users plays an all-important role in determining which tool would organizations choose for video conferencing. And in this regard, both Webex and Zoom are at par, with the capacity to support up to 1,000 attendees during a single session of your video conference.
However, it’s the type of plan (whether basic or premium) you choose for your enterprise that determines the number of participants you can add to your video conference.
User-Friendly Design
Based on consumer feedback, Zoom is considered simpler and easy-to-use as compared to Webex. The former allows users to join an online video conference or meetings, with common features across all devices. This caters well to companies that practice Bring Your Own Device culture, allowing everyone to access all features across all devices easily.
Webex does not have the most intuitive interface and requires a lengthy registration and check in process as compared to Zoom. Simply, you’re into your meetings faster in Zoom.
Meeting Follow-Up
Meeting follow-ups are important for any type and size of business to check whether the ideas discussed during the meeting are implemented as per discussions or not. Follow up is also crucial for managers to check on the progress of tasks and projects.
Participants can refer to the previous meeting’s recording and listen to it whenever required. Zoom’s unique Participant Reporting feature checks all those members who attended the meeting. This feature is not available on Webex. It’s easy to pick a clear winner here.
Call Quality and User Experience
Cisco Webex has a robust set of features, like polling, attendance, attention indicator tool, and a wider range of features for meeting hosts, file transfers, and the ability to remove participants. Webex has made changes to its interface, which has made it more intuitive and user-friendly. Webex Calling is an efficient voice platform for enterprise voice communications in your organization.
Zoom is more immediately intuitive as compared to Webex. New users find it easier to use Zoom from the onset. It may lack some enterprise features that Webex has, but fewer features equate to an easier learning curve for many. Zoom is a great option for those who want to get a hang of things immediately. Zoom Phone is a calling platform of Zoom, but it needs to mature to be at par with Webex Calling.
Zoom vs. Webex – Pros, Cons, Reviews
Zoom
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Intuitive interface
- Little to no learning curve
- Excellent video and audio quality
- Minimum technical errors during video conferencing
- Scalable
- Ability to host a large number of participants
- Meetings recordings can be used for training
Cons
- Security features still not quite up to the mark
- Free version abruptly ends video calls at 40 minutes
- Paying by the host means it gets costlier for larger teams
- Unpredictable, poor video quality
Reviews
“The overall experience is really great for me because I have come to zoom from skype for business and its way better compared to that product.” – Capterra
“The Zoom product is great, but the billing and customer service is on the opposite side of the spectrum.” – TrustRadius
Cisco Webex
Pros
- Excellent quality audio
- Easy to join meeting with a single touch button
- Can make/receive landline and/or Internet calls
- Ease of use
- Great integration
- Rich feature set
- Advanced security features
Cons
- Consistent issues with lagging/glitches when screen sharing
- Have to pay extra for the “Call Me” feature
- User Interface not up to the mark
- Complex to learn and use
- Frequent platform integration/compatibility issues
Reviews
“Overall, it is an amazing collaboration tool that has helped me work for more than 4+ years seamlessly using both the sharing and audio technology. The Webex meeting tool is also excellent.” – Capterra
“This application is being used by the entire organization since it is a very useful tool in terms of communication and even more in these times of pandemic that social distancing is necessary.” – TrustRadius
Zoom vs. Webex – What Are The Missing Pieces In Both Software?
When it comes to project management and team collaboration, video conferencing is just one important part of the entire process. Even though both Zoom and Webex are quite reliable and efficient video conferencing tools, their features are restricted and don’t help team leaders with tracking employees’ performance, task management, time management, visualizing task stages, group chat, etc.
In other words, video conferencing software is only good at what it does the best. For other aspects of project management, you need to look for something that is more extensive.
Epilogue
Without a doubt, video conferencing software has become the most crucial component of team communication today. It makes team members feel connected to each other through high-quality audio and visuals, which is something that is highly beneficial to widely dispersed team members.
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