5 free Zoom alternatives that break the 40-minute barrier
If you’re using the free version of Zoom and you’re not a huge fan of meetings to begin with, the 40-minute meeting limit could arguably be seen as a feature.
But sometimes you’ve just got to meet for longer than two-thirds of an hour, right? And if you’re looking for free Zoom alternatives that are more generous, have we got a list for you.
RingCentral Video: Unlimited for 100 people, plus recording
Probably best known for its business phone systems, RingCentral also offers a dynamite free video meeting service called RingCentral Video.
The free version is perhaps confusingly called RingCentral Video Pro, but once you see the list of features, the whole “Pro” thing kind of makes sense: You can host meetings of unlimited length with up to 100 participants, and you get 10 hours of cloud recordings that can be retained for seven days.
Meeting video is captured in HD, you can use virtual backgrounds, and there’s closed captioning and a whole bunch of other useful features. If you’re looking for the ultimate free Zoom alternative, this is the one.
Jitsi Meet: Open-source, unlimited for 100 people, no accounts required
The easiest-to-use free Zoom alternative on this list is also the least well-known one: Jitsi Meet.
To get started, you visit its site and start a meeting instantly with a unique URL that gets generated for you right at the top of the main page. Share the URL with up to 100 other people and, boom, you’re in.
Meetings are encrypted end-to-end, video is HD quality, you can remote control others’ desktops, and there are integrations with Google, Microsoft, and Slack.
Microsoft Teams: 60 minutes for up to 100 people, plus chat and storage
If you’ve got a small company and you need want to do a bit more than just hold meetings, the free version of Microsoft Teams is a must-have.
Yes, video meetings are limited to only an hour and you can’t record them, but you get a pretty fully-featured collaboration suite on the side that lets you instant message members of your team, store and share up to 5 GB of files per person, and access web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Plus, if you haven’t used Teams’ excellent Together mode, you haven’t lived.
Google Meet: 60 minutes for up to 100 people, path of least resistance
Chances are, everyone on your team has a Google account. If that’s the case, the free version of Google Meet will get everyone connected in no time.
You can also invite external participants should someone not have a Google account, so that’s a plus. Video quality is excellent, as are the tablet and mobile apps, and you get screen sharing and live captions—but no recording in the free version.
And while group meetings can only last up to an hour, if you’re a real micromanager, you can hold one-on-one meetings of unlimited length (shudder). To be fair, the free version of Zoom supports 30-hour one-on-one meetings as well—that’s still about 29 hours too long, if you ask me.
Webex: 50 minutes for up to 100 people, breakout rooms, polling, and whiteboarding
The free version of Webex may not give you a ton more time than Zoom, but it’s a venerable, solid platform that lots of people are used to accessing (who hasn’t attended a Webex webinar?) and offers some nice freebies.
You won’t get cloud recordings, but you do get screen sharing, breakout rooms, polling, and white-boarding, making Webex a good option for brainstorming sessions.
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