Zoom Meetings & Chat

Comments: Overall zoom is a great tool for meetings and webinar. People can also join without host joining the call. So, you don't have to wait till host's join. It's quick and the phone app works well to.
I like the UI It's simple and easy to send an invite. We used to do all meeting including international ones with zoom only and if the internet is good, I never faced and drop or lags in the call.

Pros: The quality of audio and video both calls is good without any interference and drops. We used to use this software daily for our client meetings and bi-weekly webinars. There used to be multiple people in calls from different locations internationally, there were no delays in calls. Screen sharing is one of the most useful feature as we need this all the time for client calls.
Another helpful feature is, you can record you webinar which can be shared later with the group and during the meetings you can also send messages privately to one person.
Sending invites is quite easy as the interface is simple. Additionally, different time zone can also be selected for calls.
I used to have zoom app installed on my phone as well and used to join meetings while travelling through phone only. The app works well too it's easy to use and has all the features. Once or twice the app hanged and the call was dropped in between but otherwise i didn't found any other problem. On my laptop I never faced such kind of issue with this software. And of course as it works using internet, if your connection isn't stable or good you'll have lags and drops.
It has all the basic features need in any webinar software like mute, audio, video, desktop sharing, chat, adding to calendars, time zone selection etc. So finally, it's easy to use and quality is also nice.
The free version has no trial period and can be used as long as you want with some limitations. I would recommend this software.

Cons: The free version has limited minutes of conferencing and the call is disconnected automatically after that. This feels wired as one time we were in the middle of explain a feature and the call ended abruptly. Of course you can start the meeting again and continue but for group meetings I would recommend the paid version.
The link generated for meetings has random string rather than you id or name. So, it is difficult to recognize the link just be looking at it and you have to look the detailed invite as who's hosting the meeting. It would be easier and time saving if there is name in the meeting link itself.

Comments: We are all able to share screens and see the same content together, at the same time. We do not have to email our spreadsheets or presentations before the meeting, constantly reminding everyone where to look or what we are discussing to stay on topic. We are able to see our team's faces for better communication, which leads to better understanding and interaction.

Pros: Ease of installation and integration with google. Once extensions are all installed, you can schedule your Zoom meeting right in the google calendar, which is always a plus. Our company uses Zoom to have meetings within office and with our teams from Australia, Canada, Korea, and China and it works flawlessly. I am able to see our team members from China and video quality is Superb. I share my screens to show content to them as well and it works really well. It never crashed or lagged once. We have used other softwares before and always had a bad connection issues which was very frustrating.

Cons: At first, people have hard time learning to use the program. Zoom offers so much features that sometimes, people are confused about what works for what but eventually, people figure it out and it works.

Comments: Overall my experience with Zoom has been overwhelmingly positive. Once you get over the initial bumps in the road to figure out how to best use it, it shines as a software. I have never had a dropped, stalled, or buffered call, I have never had audio issues, it really is a cut above the rest in that regard. After using Zoom I can't imagine going back to competitors like Skype or Google Hangouts for video conferencing.

Pros: It's honestly very easy to use. Even our clients who don't necessarily have Zoom downloaded prior to a Zoom Meeting find it easy to get up and running which really takes the burden off of us and relieves any back and forth having to explain how to work the program during time that should be spent already on a call. The functionality of the software does not change very much between the free version and the more premium versions which I appreciated; the paid version really only seems to remove the restrictions of the free version so it didn't feel like having to learn a brand new program once we made the switch. Everything is labeled fairly clearly, and I didn't have to research the software extensively to find out how to work each function because of how user-friendly it is. The options to use your computer audio or call in by phone really makes it shine I think though, as most video conferencing software does not provide the either/or option, which I think anyone who has been in a video conference will know only leads to lackluster audio quality.

Cons: I think if Zoom created a handbook or user guide that they sent to each person or business who purchases their software, it would really put them above the rest. The software is user-friendly, but I did have to google a few things to figure out how to work certain elements of the software. I understand the reasoning behind defaulting every call to password protected, but I think it should be optional, as there are already a lot of numbers involved in accessing a call and throwing in a password has confused more than one of my meeting participants. The invitation to each zoom meeting I think is also a little unclear, when you first start using the program it is an overwhelming amount of information to have put in front of you and with the addition of multiple phone numbers by time zone and two different links it can be difficult to puzzle out. If it was a little more clearly defined I think it would be perfect, I know I had to trial and error myself before figuring out how to do it right every time.

Comments: I am very happy with our choice to move to Zoom. It is not very resource intensive and is more cost effective than Webex. No additional 'Firewall work' was needed to get it going on our network and the interface is clean. The web admin console is easy to use and makes managing licenses a breeze. We are able to save on the amount of licenses needed as non licensed user still has 45 minutes of meeting time. Users are normally prompted very clearly about how soon the 45min time will elapse and it helps to wrap up meetings. I highly recommend Zoom for any size organization.

Pros: I like the fact that Zoom is not very resource intensive and runs very well within our virtual environment. Video rendering is surprisingly good on a virtual machine with 1 core and 2Gb of memory. We opted to install the client on the base image which did not affect performance negatively in any way. The web version is compatible with IE11, Chrome and Firefox and users do not feel restricted by choosing to use the browser vs the client.

Cons: Migrating from Webex, our users did not seem to "figure it out" right away. There were a little hand-holding initially especially with the "sharing screen" portion. What we would find is that users would click "share screen" and nothing happens as there is another step to the process where the decision needs to be confirmed. Confirming this decision is essentially, I am in no way advocating for it's removal, but maybe adding a dialogue box as a prompt, that makes the rest of Zoom inactive, so the user sees that confirmation is needed before doing anything else.

Comments: Zoom has been a great investment for us. We have never had software or any tool so quickly adopted by our users. By using Zoom, we have cut costs on video conferencing and allowed ourselves to do more with less in regards to conferencing. It has become the go to collaboration tool, and more user are doing video conferencing/screen sharing than they ever did with another tool.

Pros: I love how simple it is to use and how robust a tool it is without much management or administration. We have never had a tool that was so highly accepted and adopted with minimal effort by our users. We love the tool so much that it has become our company wide video conferencing solution.

Cons: The biggest drawback with the tool that I have seen so far isn't really an issue with the tool as much as it is about we use it. We have had issues with being able to play video's through the Zoom at the same time as presenting. We get a delay in the video and audio when doing this. I think this would happen regardless of the solution, but it's worth mentioning.