Video conferencing services are now invaluable for businesses of all sizes, whether for connecting a far-flung remote workforce or facilitating meetings with clients across the globe. That’s why PCMag tests and rates the leading video conferencing software. In the process, we learned that different products serve diverse needs. Zoom, for example, began as a service for individuals and small teams and has grown into a full-on business platform called Zoom Workplace. Webex by Cisco, meanwhile, has a long history of catering to businesses, scaling all the way up to giant enterprises. Both are Editors’ Choice winners. Still others specialize in mass-audience applications, such as online training and webinars, so it’s worth exploring all our top picks. Make sure to click through to our in-depth reviews and scroll past the list for advice on choosing the best video conferencing service for your company.
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
- Intuitive interface
- Highly accessible closed captions
- Native Vidcast tool for asynchronous video recordings
- Recognizes hand gestures to generate emoji reactions
- Powerful AI assistant helps you catch up on meetings
- Pricey plans and add-ons
- Non-enterprise tiers top out at 10GB of cloud storage for recordings
Webex was one of the pioneering video conferencing systems and continues to be highly competitive among current options. It delivers reliable performance and rich collaboration features, such as breakout rooms, screen-sharing, and whiteboards. Webex now even has an advanced AI assistant that can transcribe meetings and give you a quick recap if you have to step away briefly. It’s not the most affordable service, but a highly capable free tier makes it easy to get started.
Webex is an excellent choice for businesses anticipating rapid growth because it scales well. It’s also available on virtually every mobile and desktop platform, including Linux. If AI-enhanced features are important to you, Cisco’s AI assistant is among the most sophisticated.
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Webex by Cisco Review
- Competitive price
- Advanced Zoom AI Companion
- Many integrations
- End-to-end encryption
- Easy to use
- Poor spelling and grammar correction in Zoom Docs
Zoom Meetings is now just one part of Zoom Workplace: a unified communication and collaboration platform that provides document editing, team chat, whiteboard sharing, and more. It aims to reduce the “toggle tax” that occurs when you switch between multiple applications. Zoom’s industry-leading AI Assistant can even summarize in-progress meetings and answer any questions you might have about what another participant said earlier.
Between its superb core video conferencing features and advanced collaboration tools, Zoom is the best all-around video conferencing platform we’ve tested. The free tier is workable, though businesses should prepare to pay for a premium plan to get the most out of it.
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Zoom Workplace Review
- Clear interface
- Supports massive audiences
- Whiteboard and breakout room features
- AI-powered automatic transcription
- Mobile apps can cut off whiteboard views
- No phone support and limited chat hours
Unlike most of the video conferencing solutions we test, ClickMeeting specializes in large online meetings and webinars. It claims to support up to 10,000 participants at its custom enterprise tier, but even its more basic plans can scale up to 1,000 attendees. The service has an accessible and sleek interface, making it a sound choice for any company looking to reach a mass audience.
If you need to conduct online training sessions or webinars, ClickMeeting should be on your shortlist. It focuses on these types of events rather than peer-to-peer and small team collaboration.
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ClickMeeting Review
- Accessible entirely from a web browser
- State-of-the-art transcription and recording tools
- Real-time translated captions in 69 languages
- High-quality audio and video
- Extensive annotation tools available during screen-sharing
- Requires Google Workspace for Business and Gemini subscriptions for the full experience
- Lacks native whiteboard tools
- No monthly plan
Google Meet is an excellent general-purpose video conferencing platform that’s accessible from virtually any device. Its real-time transcription feature is top-notch and supports more languages than any competitor. The platform offers extensive Gemini AI features, too, as well as tight integrations with other Google tools.
Google Meet is a no-brainer if you use Google Workspace for online collaboration. It’s very reliable and easy to use.
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Google Meet Review
- Approachable design
- Lets you share your screen within a browser
- Annotation and automatic transcription abilities
- Enables keyboard and mouse sharing
- Excellent customer service
- Lacks breakout rooms
- Chats tab can get confusing when multiple attendees are typing at once
Intermedia AnyMeeting is an attractive, easy-to-use service that’s packed with enough features to suit any organization. We especially liked its AI-powered assistant that delivers reasonably high-quality transcriptions of video meetings and can even flag action items based on what participants say during the call. And, as comprehensive as it is, AnyMeeting’s pricing is on par with most of its competitors.
If you feel comfortable with its user interface and controls, AnyMeeting is hard to beat. The one caveat is that it lacks certain webinar-oriented features, such as breakout rooms.
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Intermedia AnyMeeting Review
- Robust free tier
- Attendees can join calls without downloading any software
- Can easily switch devices between calls
- Impressive live transcriptions
- Difficult to turn off default meeting recording behavior
RingCentral Video provides reliable, visually consistent video calling tools across different platforms. Its robust free plan includes intuitive in-meeting collaboration tools and highly accurate live transcription features. The available Webinar tier for large meetings is also a better value than most similar services we’ve tested. Finally, post-meeting tools make it simple to pick out insights and share recordings.
You can’t do much better than RingCentral Video if you don’t want to pay to host video meetings. It’s also an excellent choice if you want a solution that pairs well with a business VoIP system, and both products work within RingCentral’s top-notch app.
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RingCentral Video Review
- Minimalist dashboard
- No time limits on video conferences
- 24/7 phone and web support for all customers
- SmartNotes distill meeting summaries to their essentials
- Commuter Mode eliminates on-the-go distractions
- No free plan
- Odd process for enabling annotation while screen-sharing
- Post-meeting summaries, transcripts, and recordings aren’t immediately accessible
GoTo Meeting is a dependable and mature video conferencing solution from GoTo (formerly LogMeIn). It offers good value for the money and includes competitive features like smart transcription and unlimited recording to the cloud. It also integrates with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 calendars.
GoTo Meeting works best for contact centers, remote IT management, and webinars, especially in combination with GoTo’s other related software.
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GoTo Meeting Review
- Inexpensive
- Up to 25 simultaneous video feeds
- Supports virtual backgrounds
- Includes reactions
- Useful AI-powered transcriptions and insights
- Complicated AI setup
- Requires additional downloads to access necessary features
- Demands investment in the greater Zoho ecosystem
Although it lacks the bells and whistles of some competitors, Zoho Meetings’ appeal lies in its low price. Unlike many of the services in our roundup, it has a free tier that lets you host meetings for up to 100 attendees. It also integrates seamlessly with the rest of Zoho’s business software suite.
If you already use apps within the broader Zoho ecosystem, Zoho Meetings is worth a look. It could also meet your needs if you’re on a particularly tight budget. As a standalone solution, however, you might find that alternatives provide more value.
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Zoho Meeting Review
- Highly customizable
- Tightly integrated with other Microsoft Office apps
- Plentiful integration options
- Included with Microsoft 365 business accounts and Windows 11
- Most effective in a Microsoft-centric environment
- Compartmentalized design may inhibit open dialogue
- Can be difficult to find the conversations you need
Microsoft steadily piles features into its products, and Teams is no different. It rose from humble beginnings to become a team collaboration behemoth and a core part of the Microsoft 365 suite. More importantly, unlike some competitors (such as Slack), it’s also a full-featured video conferencing system that’s suitable for far more than one-to-one video calls.
If you’re already a Microsoft 365 customer, Teams might be all the video conferencing software you need.
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Microsoft Teams Review
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The Best Video Conferencing Software for 2025
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Buying Guide: The Best Video Conferencing Software for 2025
What Is Video Conferencing Software?
Video conferencing software continues to evolve. Initially, it was available only in the form of pricey conference room systems that combined specific hardware and software. Now, popular cloud-based services largely work within a browser and don’t require any dedicated infrastructure.
Contemporary video conferencing systems have a cornucopia of capabilities that their predecessors never did. Best-in-class video conferencing services offer broadcasting modes for passive viewers (also known as webinars), digital whiteboard collaboration, file exchange, remote desktop access, screen sharing, text chat, and more. Additionally, some services integrate with business voice over IP (VoIP) packages, enabling users to convert voice calls to video calls or initiate a shared meeting at the touch of a button without interrupting the original connection.
How Much Does Video Conferencing Software Cost?
Like most software-as-a-service (SaaS), video conferencing providers offer multiple pricing tiers. The lowest tier is free for many of the services we test. These offerings are great for connecting with friends and family and for occasional business use. However, they have limited features and place restrictions on how long meetings can be and how many people can attend. Organizations that plan to use video conferencing as an everyday tool should invest in a paid service.
Among the services we reviewed, the median pricing for business-grade service is around $13 per user per month. Most also offer more expensive tiers for enterprises. As usual, the greater your needs, the more you should expect to pay.
Although most services charge by the number of users, others charge by the number of hosts. Services that charge per host are generally primarily for webinars, in which only a host can initiate a meeting (and meetings typically have many attendees). On the other hand, services that charge per person are usually for peer-to-peer usage, allowing anyone to start a meeting.
What Can Video Conferencing Software Do for Your Business?
Video conferencing has quickly become an essential business tool, particularly with the rise of remote work. The products in this roundup all offer video calls via webcam, typically alongside several other features, such as text chat.
Understanding what constitutes a video conferencing platform can be confusing since some team messaging platforms, like Microsoft Teams and Slack, offer the same features. Teams offers a complete video conferencing solution, which is why we include it. Slack and some of its competitors just have person-to-person video calling, so they don’t make the list. The solutions here all support multi-party video meetings.
You might also want other capabilities. Screen sharing is essential for presentations. The ability to share just one application, document, or image (rather than the entire desktop) is helpful, too. Many packages also support video annotation and virtual whiteboards, which foster participant collaboration. Most of the video conferencing services in this roundup also offer a text chat mode either inside or outside of meetings.
Many services offer automated recording that you can initiate with the press of a button. Typically, they save recordings to cloud storage and automatically share them with all meeting attendees. If you think this is a feature you will use often, make sure the service tier you choose offers sufficient storage capacity. Alternatively, you can integrate it with your existing third-party cloud storage provider.
Video conferencing services now includes lots of artificial intelligence (AI) features. Examples include analytics and optimization, automatic call summaries and transcription, call scheduling, facial recognition, noise cancellation, and more.
What Equipment Do You Need for Video Conferencing?
Beyond the video conferencing software, you should also consider the hardware you need. Fortunately, almost every modern laptop, tablet, and smartphone has a microphone and a serviceable (if fairly mediocre) camera. Many modern laptops and higher-end mobile devices ship with high-quality 1080p webcams.
Desktop PCs, on the other hand, typically require additional hardware. If you’re looking for crisp sound or video quality, you need the best microphone and high-end webcam you can get. Some business monitors also come with built-in video conferencing features. You can use some digital cameras as a webcam, too. For most use cases, consumer-grade hardware is all you need. Then again, if you want the highest possible video quality for webinars and client meetings, you might need to buy extra lighting accessories.
Although these hardware purchases drive up the total cost of your video conferencing deployment, you still save compared with old-school, end-to-end conferencing solutions. You don’t need to make a huge capital outlay all at once. Instead, you can buy the licenses you need and add new seats as necessary, which can dramatically reduce costs.
Recommended by Our Editors
How to Buy Video Conferencing Software
At first glance, choosing the right video conferencing service for your organization can seem challenging because most offer the same basic features. Although you still need to evaluate several factors before making a decision, assessing a software’s overall user experience is a great place to start.
In each review, we discuss the ease of signing up, creating a meeting, inviting participants, and setting up audio and video controls. We also look at the experience from a meeting invitee’s point of view and how easy it is to access smart meeting controls, such as annotation, file sharing, virtual assistants, and whiteboard-style collaboration.
We’ve also tested each service’s prominent features, but it’s up to you to decide which ones you need most. For example, do you need dial-in numbers, VoIP integration, or both? How about features like remote control or screen-sharing? Some services offer teleconferencing with dial-in numbers (local or toll-free) and VoIP calling, while others provide just one or the other. A few offer international dial-in numbers.
During our testing, we host and join meetings to evaluate the experience of registered and non-registered users. We make sure to outline how easy it is to join a meeting, including whether a participant needs to download software before joining (which could cause a delay or even be a deal-breaker). Other services simply require that attendees enter a code to access the meeting.
Our reviews also cover the host’s administration features. The best services let you set up various types of meetings, such as lecture-style calls in which all participants are on mute or a Q&A mode in which presenters can mute and unmute participants as necessary. Other options include allowing breakout sessions, creating a waiting room while preparing for the meeting, locking latecomers out of a meeting, and turning webcams on and off.
Most of these services offer at least a 30-day free trial, so you can test the product that looks most attractive to you.
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