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Advice on OpenTok and Zoom
Needs advice
on
DiscordDiscord
and
ZoomZoom

I want to host an online Jeopardy game with less than 30 participants. During each round of the game, I'll stream some videos. The point is to gather friends together to play the Jeopardy game and watch random stuff. Please let me know if there's a more suitable platform other than Discord and Zoom. Thanks, everyone!

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Replies (1)
RuralAnemone
Head Devoloper/coder at Super Smash Eternal · | 2 upvotes · 189.3K views

Personally, I think that Discord works much better than anything else, even if you don't have Nitro (which is what they call their premium plan). You could seriously do this Jeopardy thing with just Discord (and maybe a bot to make it easier)

Zoom would only let you have a crappy meeting that hackers could easily join. Discord actually has DDoS protection, Zoom just has things that can easily be bypassed.

And if you do want Nitro, it's only $9/mo or $99/yr

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LaShaune Stitt
Chief Consultant at Women of the World · | 4 upvotes · 157.8K views
Needs advice
on
CrowdcastCrowdcast
and
ZoomZoom

I am in the midst of planning an online webinar for middle school boys. There will be five panelists that will be present at different times, and the attendees will be participating in Q&A's as well as group discussions - like breakout groups. Since each attendee/panelist will have a different operating system, I want to know which tool is most effective and accessible for my event?

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Replies (2)
Recommends
on
ZoomZoom

I've used Zoom for something similar, and it should work for you. Zoom is widely accessible, including via phone calls. Breakout rooms are included (https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476093-Enabling-breakout-rooms).

One challenge with middle school boys might be managing participant behavior. Regular Zoom calls with more than ~20 people can easily get chaotic. Zoom's webinar mode might be more appropriate for this use case. Webinars are an extra $40/month.

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Recommends
on
CrowdcastCrowdcast

Zoom is more popular and have more control over participants, but Crowdcast is more flexible, because of the HTML5 support and can apply widgets on webpages. Both can be used on any platform, but zoom needs to be installed first.

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Needs advice
on
Google MeetGoogle Meet
and
ZoomZoom

I have a google account and use google classroom. I want to give classes online, including screen-sharing, and going in and out of multiple documents on screen.

Even though I am paying for my google account, I still want to explore which of these two tools is best for what I want to do. My classes vary from 5 to 20 persons per class, three times per week, and have a duration of 2 times 45 min.

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Replies (1)
Recommends
on
ZoomZoom

I’m in the same boat as a teacher. I researched both, used both, I like Zoom much better. I like to compare it to Google having the lite version of an app while Zoom is the paid version. Zoom allows the “Host” to control every aspect from password protecting your room to the host admitting people in individually. I know Zoom is normally paid but has a limited free version. Hope this helps but Zoom seems much further ahead.

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Lisa Myers
Needs advice
on
SkypeSkypeWebexWebex
and
ZoomZoom

Hi, I am helping teachers in my kid's schools to set up distance learning and wanted to see what is better between Webex, Zoom, and Skype (although only putting this one in as most parents probably have it). The children are 8-9, so they won't be using it on their own and the parents have no experience using Webex or Zoom.

The main use will be for the teacher to explain what they will be covering in the week and enable some social interaction between the kids.

I need to be easy to use for about 20-25 people.

Thanks for your advice, Lisa

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Replies (4)
Yoram Kornatzky
Independent Information Technology and Services Professional at DR. YORAM KORNATZKY LTD · | 4 upvotes · 32.2K views
Recommends
on
ZoomZoom

I consider Skype dead. Even Microsoft strongly neglected it. Webex is more corporate-oriented. So for your use case, I recommend Zoom. It is easy to set up, and the quality is very good. Zoom became such a household name that the average person heard about it. Moreover, any person probably has friends who may have used it. So it will be easier for people to get some community help.

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Fábio Henrique Oliveira
Recommends
on
WebexWebex

Hi, Lisa,

I haven't used Skype in a long time. I have I lot of experience with Zoom and Webex. Both for me are very good tools, especially if you have money to pay for (to unlock more features, like more people in a video conference - Zoom).

Nowadays, I've used more Webex with my undergraduate students, I'm using the free account. Cloud recording is a features very useful, especially while using the free account (thanks Cisco!). Webex has control features very useful (e.g., mute, raise hand etc).

Kind regards,

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John Perry
Account Executive at Towerstream · | 3 upvotes · 108.4K views
Recommends
on
Microsoft TeamsMicrosoft Teams

From my experiences I feel like Zoom is a pretty intuitive program to teach kids, however Skype might be more common amongst them already.

I am a big fan of Microsoft Teams.

They all do the same pretty much but Teams I find the bells and whistles are easier to find, like custom backgrounds... creating groups for topic discussions that remain there until you want to change/edit or delete. Easy to share files.

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Attila Fulop
Recommends
on
ZoomZoom

We've been using Zoom for about a half a year and it's stability is unbeatable. We have all-hands on Fridays with 100+ participants. The free tier can easily handle the requirements, the only limitation is that max meeting length is 40 minutes. After that you can immediately restart the meeting, but the pro option is also very affordable. It also features screen sharing and whiteboard sharing out of the box. I also appreciate that it's not mandatory to register an account to attend a meeting.

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Needs advice
on
Google MeetGoogle Meet
and
ZoomZoom

I own an Escape Room. Since right now everyone is practicing social distancing, I would like to run my Escape Room games virtually. I would like to allow approx 4 users to log in to play. They can chitchat a few minutes before their game to get to know each other. Then once the game begins, I will introduce myself and give them the plot to their escape game. I will have a wide-angle camera mounted to the wall to show the room, and as the game master, carry a tablet or webcam around as players talk to me and direct me to show them certain items in the room, move in for closeups in certain areas, try lock combinations, etc. I will be their hands while they solve the puzzles. I am not sure if Google Hangouts Google Meet or Zoom is better for this. I did try it yesterday using google hangout meet and it was good, but I think there may have been a wifi issue where it was choppy. Just trying to figure out the best option. Thank you! Catherine

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Replies (4)
Recommends
on
ZoomZoom

Google meet, as well as zoom are amazing platforms for online meetings. But I will try to explain the pros and cons of both according to your needs.

  1. Network requirements: Google meet requires considerably more bandwidth than zoom, and it isn't a great choice if you have poor internet, or if there are more than 25 or 30 participants. While zoom is pretty lightweight and can support large groups (say about 80) with little to no internet instability.

  2. UI: Zoom and google meet have decent UI, but assuming that participants will be using mobiles, they might have a hard time with chatting in zoom as it takes up a lot of space to view all contents.

  3. Security: Even though both zoom and google meet provide 100% encrypted connections, I personally think google meet is somewhat better due to the flaws in the recent zoom security patches.

  4. Battery consumption: Google meet hogs up your battery when uploading your video and also your video quality, unlike zoom will not be adjusted based on your network, meaning, even if you have poor internet, google meet will upload your video in high quality, sometimes leading to lag and hangs.

NOTE: If you are using the free version of zoom, your meeting will automatically end after 40 minutes. So either keep your games small, or buy the premium version.

In the end I think zoom will be a better choice according to your needs, but if you plan on buying zoom, I recommend you read other reviews about zoom. Enjoy and stay safe!

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Verhaeghe Jonas
Sr. Marketing Technologist at Invisible Puppy · | 3 upvotes · 136.5K views
Recommends
on
ZoomZoom

I would suggest Zoom: - quality sound and audio is great - simple to set up and invite people + it doesn't matter if they have a microsoft, google, etc. email account or operating system - recently it added a couple of security options which could be handy in your situation = for example 'lock meeting' - once all your participants have logged in you can 'lock the meeting' to prevent others from entering. Another on is the enable waiting room, where participants can 'wait' before you allow them in the meeting.

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Recommends
on
ZoomZoom

Zoom has lot more features and higher quality. Agree with the other people's advice. Make sure to realize it is 40 min limit for free account - but you can do monthly Zoom subscription and try it out or only use during pandemic and cancel subscription once this is over if you need to.

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Decisions about OpenTok and Zoom
Chose
DiscordDiscord
over
ZoomZoom

as many people say that you can only hold 30 to 10 people in one discord call if you were to make a server and add a chat or a VC you can hold up to 99 which is more than zoom and you can also use the text chat, general chat or anything else that you add and the best part you can hold pretty much infinite people I have personally seen servers with up to 100k people in it. One of the better parts is that you don't necessarily have to download it you can search it up on google and make an account it's as easy as that. Another thing is due to the original purpose of the website/app is that it's very customizable meaning that your students can customize heir profile pictures and names, but not to worry in a discord server you can have it where only you can change their nicknames so let's say things get too confusing or you want to be able to see who they really are you can just change it to their name. One last thing I will say is that you can have customizable ranks and so on so if you desire to split people into teams you can do so and with that, you can customize what they can do like give people ranks or de-rank them. Like I mentioned earlier about VC's you can also screen share and do videos so you can see their screen or their face.

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Pros of OpenTok
Pros of Zoom
  • 6
    Video Archiving to s3
  • 2
    Easy setup
  • 25
    Web conferencing made easy
  • 16
    Remote control option
  • 13
    Draw on screen
  • 12
    Very reliable
  • 11
    In-meeting chat is pretty good
  • 9
    Free
  • 9
    Pair programming sessions with shared controls
  • 8
    Easy to share meeting links/invites
  • 7
    Good Sound Quality
  • 6
    Cloud recordings for meetings
  • 5
    Great mobile app
  • 4
    Virtual backgrounds
  • 4
    Recording Feature
  • 4
    Other people use it
  • 4
    User Friendly actions
  • 2
    Reactions (emoticons)
  • 2
    Auto reconnecting
  • 2
    Chrome extension is great to easily create meetings
  • 2
    While sharing screen, you can still see your video
  • 2
    Mute all participants at once
  • 2
    When ending the videocall, everybody gets kicked
  • 2
    Different options for blocking chat
  • 1
    Easily share video with audio
  • 1
    /zoom on Slack
  • 1
    Registration form
  • 1
    Meant for business and education
  • 0
    Zoom

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Cons of OpenTok
Cons of Zoom
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 20
      Limited time if you are a basic member
    • 14
      Limited Storage
    • 11
      Hate how sharing your screen defaults to Full Screen
    • 10
      Quality isn't great (Free)
    • 9
      No cursor highlight on screenshare.
    • 8
      Potential security flaws
    • 7
      Onboarding process for new users is not intuitive
    • 5
      Virtual background quality isn't good
    • 5
      Security
    • 4
      Editing can be improved
    • 4
      Doesn't handle switching audio sources well
    • 4
      The native calendar is buggy
    • 4
      Dashboard can be improved
    • 3
      Pornographic material displayed
    • 3
      Any body can get in it
    • 3
      Not many emojis
    • 3
      Past chat history is not saved
    • 3
      Recording Feature
    • 3
      En In reality,the chat in the meet not is excelent,noo
    • 3
      Zoom lags a lot

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is OpenTok?

    It adds the clarity and emotion of face-to-face communication to your brand whether you're developing for the web, iOS, or Android. We make the integration of high-quality live video a breeze so that you can focus on building a great product.

    What is Zoom?

    Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and cross platform group chat into one easy-to-use platform. Our solution offers the best video, audio, and screen-sharing experience across Zoom Rooms, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and H.323/SIP room systems.

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    What tools integrate with Zoom?
      No integrations found

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      What are some alternatives to OpenTok and Zoom?
      Twilio
      Twilio offers developers a powerful API for phone services to make and receive phone calls, and send and receive text messages. Their product allows programmers to more easily integrate various communication methods into their software and programs.
      WebRTC
      It is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple JavaScript APIs. The WebRTC components have been optimized to best serve this purpose.
      Agora
      Agora.io provides building blocks for you to add real-time voice and video communications through a simple and powerful SDK. You can integrate the Agora SDK to enable real-time communications in your own application quickly.
      Sinch
      Sinch makes it easy for developers to add voice, messaging and SMS to their apps with just a few lines of code. Enrich your apps with communications that your users will love.
      Jitsi
      Jitsi (acquired by 8x8) is a set of open-source projects that allows you to easily build and deploy secure videoconferencing solutions. At the heart of Jitsi are Jitsi Videobridge and Jitsi Meet, which let you have conferences on the internet, while other projects in the community enable other features such as audio, dial-in, recording, and simulcasting.
      See all alternatives