Video conferencing platforms have been embedded in the business world for a while now, but it wasn’t until the Covid19 epidemic hit that online meetings and conferences became the industry standard. With most companies moving to the WFH system (work-from-home), video conferencing software became an integral part of conducting business.
The right video conferencing platform can enable you to quickly and efficiently confer with your colleagues, devise plans for the future and delegate tasks, and create a video call with your clients. The reason video conferencing software is preferred over other virtual meeting software such as Skype is that they offer more accessibility and are easier to use.
Webex vs. Zoom – An Overview
As said before, video conferences have become the norm in the business world. Pair that with high-quality video, group messaging, mobile device access, and some advanced features and it comes as no surprise why this is the case.
In fact, TrustRadius shows us that since the Covid19 pandemic began, Webex and Zoom use has gone up by more than 600%!
And while Zoom is currently the market leader in both growth and popularity, Webex software is still a very popular choice. But should popularity be the only metric when you’re choosing which video conferencing software is best for your company?
Of course, popularity can be interpreted as how good or successful something is, but that isn’t always the case. Take a look at Discord for example – immensely popular yet rarely used in a professional business environment.
So here’s the breakdown of the Zoom vs Webex question about which one is better. We’ve done the research so you don’t have to.
Price & Hosting
The price of a product plays a fundamental role in the decision-making process of choosing the right video conferencing platform. Although these video conferencing tools are relatively cheap, it’s important to deduce which one is better. One thing to note though – both Zoom and Webex have a free version but for all intents and purposes, unless your company numbers only a few employees, it’s better to pay for the full software.
A medium and large company would require plenty of space for participants. The price of each plan directly correlates with the number of supported participants and there are some stark differences between Zoom and Webex.
Zoom
The Zoom Small Business plan costs $14.99/month for each business account (host). This price tag is nearly the same as the Cisco Webex small business plan. Not a huge difference, but that’s just the starter plan we’re talking about.
You can also try out the premium version for free before you purchase any of the plans which is a big positive compared to Webex that doesn’t offer a trial version.
In most cases, the number of video conferencing participants is lower than those using only their voice. Zoom’s most expensive and expansive plan (Enterprise) allows up to 1,000 people to participate in a video conference.
Cheaper plans support fewer people (100 or 300) but they’re also the more affordable option. With that said, Zoom does offer something called a ‘Large Meetings’ add-on and it isn’t even expensive coming in at $46.50/month.
It should be noted that you can only purchase the Business and Enterprise plans if you buy a specific minimum number of licenses (10 and 50, respectively).
Talking about their webinar solutions, you’ll be able to have more than 10,000 participants in one call. That’s a staggeringly high number that you won’t find in any other video conferencing app.
Overview:
- Free plan allows up to 100 participants with a 40-minute time limit
- $14.99/month per host (Small business plan) – supports up to 100 participants
- $19.99/month per host (Medium business plan) – supports up to 300 participants; the minimum number of hosts needed for this plan is 10.
- $19.99/month per host (Large business plan) – supports up to 500 or 1,000 participants; the minimum number of hosts needed for this plan is 100; Cannot be purchased without contacting Zoom
- Expand the number of participants to 1,000 for Small and Medium business plans by purchasing the ‘Large Meetings’ add-on for $50/month
Cisco Webex
The Cisco Webex Small Business plan costs $13.50/month per host. A dollar and a half cheaper than Zoom’s with more space for participants.
Webex also offers a free plan with support up to 100 participants but with a slightly longer time limit than Zoom – 50 minutes.
The Medium Business plan comes in at $26.95/month per host with an increase in hosting ability; with this plan, you’ll be able to have up to 200 participants.
Unfortunately, Cisco Webex doesn’t display their price for the Large Business plan and as such, you’d need to go through the process of contacting them yourself for a personalized quote.
There is no minimum limit on the number of licenses you need to purchase for a specific plan; this is quite a huge deal considering some businesses want advanced features for their small teams. Because of this, Webex has the advantage here.
Overview:
- Free plan allows up to 100 participants with a 50-minute time limit
- $13.50/month per host (Small business plan) – supports up to 150 participants
- $26.95/month per host (Medium business plan) – supports up to 200 participants
- You must contact Cisco for a personalized quote for the Large business plan; theoretically supports up to 1,000 participants
Who’s better?
To be honest, it’s a pretty tight race between the two. Both Zoom and Cisco offer similar characteristics for a similar price but only one can come out on top. For large-scale business meetings, Zoom takes the cake due to both ease-of-purchase and the number of supported participants. Costing just $19.99 for large virtual meetings and supporting 1,000 Zoom users means that Zoom is more affordable and accessible than Webex.
However, compared to Zoom, Webex offers a lot of other video conferencing features. Its free plan is also more powerful than Zoom’s which might be great for smaller companies.
In the end, Zoom’s video conferencing experience is better for the price than Webex.
Video Conferencing Features
Creating and hosting video conferencing sessions requires plenty of features that are readily available for businesses and hosts to properly run them. These features range from screen sharing, group meetings, audio & video quality, and more.
For example, a business may want to record their video webinars or video calls and as such, they’d need screen recording and plenty of storage space. Let’s take a look at what these two offer.
Zoom
Zoom, in general, comes with more features and is almost solely oriented towards improving and perfecting the user experience. Because of this, you can expect HD video & HD audio in any zoom call. Screen sharing is also an important video conferencing tool that Zoom naturally comes with.
A major positive side of Zoom as compared to Webex is that Zoom has created a single service, packed with various features including meetings, training, support, and SIP calling integration. What this means is that when you purchase a plan – you receive all of these features at once.
The Zoom video webinar service is also readily available, as is video conferencing. Additionally, Zoom users can expect the ability to manage meetings, SSL security, video call recording, and third-party app integration.
Lastly, Zoom offers something called ‘Breakout rooms’. This feature enables the host(s) to split a single meeting into multiple breakout groups. This is done quickly and seamlessly and allows for more flexibility when managing meetings.
Overview:
- HD video & HD audio support
- Whiteboarding
- Screen sharing
- SSL Security
- Larger features are combined into one service
- Meeting management
- Video call recording
- Third-party app integration
- Breakout rooms
Webex
The Cisco Webex platform comes with nearly the same features albeit with differences in key areas. As such, Webex offers file transfers and the ability to remove attendees from meeting rooms but doesn’t come with HD audio.
Now you might be thinking that HD audio is not that important but the reality is, this might lead to situations where participants can’t hear each other properly. And in that regard, Zoom is the winner. But hold on, there’s more to Webex than just that.
The Cisco Webex web conferencing platform doesn’t offer larger features in one service – contrary to Zoom. Unfortunately, you’d have to purchase them as separate products meaning buying the Webex Meetings, Webex Support, and Webex Training.
Webex is also equipped with screen sharing, whiteboarding, meeting management, and third-party app integration capabilities.
Overview:
- HD video support
- Whiteboarding
- Screen sharing
- SSL security
- Meeting management
- Third-party app integration
- File transfers
- Ability to remove attendees
- Co-browsing
- Larger features are sold as separate products
Who’s Better?
Gotta go with Zoom yet again. Zoom is jam-packed with features and although Webex is close behind, it hasn’t yet reached Zoom’s level. Combine this with the fact that Zoom is inherently cheaper than Webex and you’ve got plenty of reasons to choose Zoom as of right now.
This doesn’t mean Webex is a bad choice, just that the price doesn’t really justify what you get in the paid plans. Even so, Webex is more expensive for other reasons and it’s those reasons that some companies may find more important than the ones listed here.
Security
Security in the video conferencing market can be defined in multiple ways; technically it is the sum of its parts. What I mean by this is that for a room conferencing tool to be secure, it needs to provide adequate protection against unauthorized access and hacking attempts, while simultaneously encrypting user data and requiring user authentication.
Both Webex and Zoom do this very well which is a good sign; whichever one you pick, you’ll be met with strong security measures. Let’s analyze them both:
Zoom
The Zoom platform offers great security features that should in most cases prove to be enough. Zoom security features include two-factor authentication, data encryption (no end-to-end encryption yet, unfortunately), waiting rooms, an alert system to indicate when a participant is recording a call, and more.
Although these features make Zoom meetings fairly protected, there are still concerns regarding Zoom’s lack of, dedication let’s say, towards improving security even further and fixing certain issues.
These issues range from incompetent support personnel to ‘Zoombombing’. The latter refers to the ‘practice’ of joining a call unauthorized and showing or playing inappropriate content. Keep in mind that Zoom was originally oriented towards businesses but slowly moved away from that and started turning Zoom into a broader video conferencing solution.
Zoom meetings can be vulnerable solely because of the lack of advanced security features such as end-to-end encryption. Zoom has, however, managed to upgrade some of their security features including the ability to assign passwords to Zoom rooms.
Overview:
- Two-factor authentication
- Data encryption
- Waiting rooms
- Call recording alert system
- Host controls for screen or file sharing
- Ability to place participants on hold
- Optional password protection or user verification for using Zoom rooms
Cisco Webex
In the Webex vs Zoom debate, Webex has historically been a more security and business-oriented video conferencing solution. Because of this, the focus has been on protecting the host and participants, as well as the entire business, from all forms of attack.
Webex meetings are secure in a multitude of ways including end-to-end data encryption, granting or revoking access privileges to participants, two-factor authentication, password protection for conference rooms, and more.
These are just some of the Webex features you can expect to keep your mind at ease regarding security and data protection.
As such, medium and even large-scale businesses have opted to use Cisco Webex if they need the extra security for their employees.
Overview:
- Two-factor authentication
- End-to-end data encryption
- Screen or file-sharing controls
- Ability to grant or revoke access to participants
- Password protection for meeting rooms
- Secure data centers
Who’s Better?
While Zoom offers fairly secure options for all your web conferencing needs, it, unfortunately, isn’t enough to win this battle. As said before, Webex pricing isn’t ideal considering what you get but as far as security is concerned – they’re unparalleled.
Considering Cisco’s history of being solely business-oriented, the Zoom-Webex debate in regards to security goes in favor of Webex.
Third-Party App Integration
Some businesses may use these apps as webinar software which doesn’t really require the usage of third-party apps, whilst others conduct their business on several and would like to integrate them for simplifying the communication process.
A perfect example of this would be an IT company that uses Slack for in-house communication, Google Drive for sharing files, and Google Calendar for determining deadlines. For the best experience and additional hybrid platform preferences, these apps would need to be integrated with a video conferencing platform.
Well, the good news is that, as far as the Zoom vs Cisco Webex battle is concerned, both platforms have exceptional software integration.
Zoom
- Google Calendar
- Google Drive
- Dropbox
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Skype
- Slack
- MailChimp
- Salesforce
- Eloqua
- Panapto
- Hipchat
- Workplace by Facebook
- Marketa
- Okta
- Microsoft Outlook
- ClickUp
- Appointlet
Cisco Webex
- Google Calendar
- Google Drive
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Slack
- Salesforce
- Github
- Asana
- Trello
- JIRA
- Sharepoint
- Microsoft Teams
- Box
Who’s Better?
If you’re judging by raw numbers, then Zoom wins. Zoom offers integration with 17 apps with more to come and is pretty versatile in their choices. However, they aren’t really focused on project management tools and as such, can add another layer of complexity to the work environment.
On the other hand, you can expect to integrate with 12 apps for your Cisco Webex meetings. Although the number of apps supported by Webex is lower, it seems much better acquainted for proper project management work.
It doesn’t support as many communication and organization apps as Zoom, but you’ll have a much better time managing your projects and deadlines.
The margins in this comparison are very close yet I have to give it to Webex. Its app integration support is much more useful on a grander scale than Zoom’s and can actually save your team (as well as yourself) plenty of time and effort as the apps can be used in conjunction with Webex.
Webinar Capabilities
Webinars are an informative and effective way of transferring various information and knowledge one might want to share with others. Webinars function the same way as seminars but in an online setting. The Webex comparison to Zoom regarding webinar features is just as important as everything else since it’s part of the whole thing.
Zoom
- Live Q/A Sessions
- Zoom room for panelists (for practice)
- Live chat and polling during the webinar
- Screen sharing for panelists
- Attendees can be promoted to hosts
- Automation of marketing
- Zoom events support up to 3,000 participants
- Hosting capabilities allow hosting for up to 100,000 attendees
- Personalized quote for events numbering more than 10,000 attendees
- Simultaneous display of up to 720 HD video scenes
Cisco Webex
- Exceptional video quality (720p)
- Screen share for panelists
- Many unique background types (blurred, virtual, branded)
- Practice room for panelists
- Live messaging and polling during the webinar
- Personalized URL that is sent out after the event for promotional offers or additional materials
- Various useful Q/A tools
- Webex events support up to 3,000 participants
- Hosting capabilities allow hosting for up to 100,000 attendees
Who’s Better?
Thanks to its advanced webinar features and solutions to known problems, Webex takes the win here. Don’t misunderstand me in this case; Zoom does a perfectly good job of being a great webinar hosting solution but it trails slightly behind Webex.
After all, that sweet, fast bandwidth and crisp video quality (considering everything) are what most webinar hosts want from such a platform.
Final Verdict
Both Webex and Zoom are incredible choices for all your video conferencing needs. It’s very difficult to tell you which piece of software is better because they are both very complex and oriented towards different types of users. Zoom is more user-friendly and accessible to the Average Joe, but Webex seems to be more powerful at the time being with a more corporate approach.
Webex requires a specific type of business to use it in order to be fully effective in what it offers. It’s also cheaper and better in terms of security and webinar capabilities.
The truth is, it depends on what you’re looking for. If you need an easy-to-use, powerful, and versatile video conferencing solution then the Zoom portal is for you. On the other hand, if you want something more secure, cheap, and generally focused on making businesses happy – Webex is the better choice.
Make sure to evaluate what your business needs before making a choice. And remember; if you encounter any issues along the way, you should contact Zoom support or use the Webex contact center for all your questions.
Zoom and Webex FAQs
Do you need an account for Zoom and Webex?
No. Although you will be restricted to the most basic features on both platforms.
Are Webinars free?
Regarding Zoom, you’ll need to purchase a webinar license in order to host one. Webex Events on the other hand does not require a specific license to host a webinar.
Should I use the Free Plans in the beginning?
It would be a good idea, yes. That way, you can test out the basic functionalities of both platforms and see how everything goes. Just remember that you won’t have all the features and options unlocked in the free version.
