Find the Best Video Chat App With This Mega Guide
I’m tired of answering the question: “Which video chat should I use?” I don’t know which one is better because I don’t know what your specific needs are or how much annoyance you’re willing to endure – look at you, 40 minute Zoom cuts – to achieve the perfect video conferencing picture for you and your 97 friends. Yes, and it’s free too.
Fortunately, I don’t have to run around anymore: With this new non-bullshit video conferencing guide from Paul Schreiber of FiveThirtyEight – with research from Lifehacker member Yael Grauer – it has been revealed which video service best suits your needs. a matter of minutes, if that.
First, open the video conferencing guide in your browser. You will come across this giant chart with more columns than I even want to show in the screenshot:
In the first column, you will see a list of all the video services you can think of. (At least I can’t remember any that would have been overlooked.) Each subsequent column lists various attributes that might interest you, including:
- Free / Paid
- 1: 1 or 1: many possibilities (free or paid)
- Participant limit
- Time limit
- Recording
- Screen sharing
- Join by phone or browser
- Text chat
- Mesh view
- Open source
A link to each service’s browser extensions (for Chrome or Firefox) is also provided, as well as links to its desktop or mobile apps, if applicable.
The only thing missing from the video conferencing tutorial is the ability to sort the different columns, which is useful if you’re trying to prioritize something like participant caps over any other feature. Of course, you can use a browser extension like Table Capture to quickly and easily import site content into whatever spreadsheet tool you prefer, for example:
And it’s all! This mega-review is especially helpful because it will save you countless hours spent comparing video conferencing apps yourself or trying to convince your friends (with data!) That their preferred choice is worse than your favorite. Thanks again to Paul for doing all the work so the rest of us won’t have to.