Guide: Google Duo vs Zoom: Comparison and Review
Most people communicate regularly with friends, clients and colleagues via text and voice calls. It has often been proven that visual communication (video conversation) is a much better medium to convey information. Zoom and Google Duo are some of the household names in the video calling ecosystem. In this article, we’ll compare Google Duo and Zoom to help you figure out the best video calling tool for your requirements. Are you far away from your family and friends and need to keep in touch? Or do you run a company with employees and customers in multiple countries and continents? Which of these two video calling tools should you go for? You should have answers to your questions at the end of this post. Read more.
1. Device support and registration
Let’s start with the basics first. With Google Duo, users can make high-quality audio and video calls on a wide variety of supported devices (smartphones, tablets, the Internet and even smart displays such as Google Nest Hub). On the other hand, Zoom supports as many devices as Google Duo (except smart displays), but has interoperability with many more platforms and tools (browser extensions and the like) than Google Duo.
With Zoom, you can integrate, schedule and join individual video calls or group video conferences directly from third-party tools such as Slack, Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, etc. It’s also worth noting that Google Duo doesn’t have a dedicated app for Mac. and Windows. So you have to use the web client through a browser. You can download Zoom and Google Duo for your devices from the download section of both platforms. Download Google Duo Download Zoom To use Google Duo, sign in with your Google account and start (voice and video) calls to contacts on your device or Google account. Zoom requires you to create a new account with your email address to use the tool on your devices. Alternatively, you can use Zoom by connecting the tool to your Google and Facebook accounts.
2. Use cases
While you can make video calls with either tool, they are quite different, especially in terms of factors like audience, usage intentions, and more. Google Duo is more suitable for the ‘informal’ communication with friends, family and individuals whose contact details you have. On the other hand, Zoom serves official communication purposes for a wider audience. It is primarily designed as a remote communication tool for professional, educational and business use. For more context, if you want to have a video call with (a group of) friends for casual chat, small talk and socializing upthen Google Duo is the perfect option. Zoom is primarily structured for remote business meetings, online seminars / webinars, virtual classrooms, interviews, virtual workshops and other forms of formal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications.
3. Video calls Features
Both Google Duo and Zoom support individual and group video calls. However, we will mention a few features that should help you decide which tool to choose.
Group call
Signing up on Zoom assigns you to the Basic Free Plan, which allows you to host as many as 100 participants in one group call. However, there is one caveat: For group video calls with more than 3 participants, you are limited to 40 minutes of talk time. If you want your group video calls to last more than 40 minutes with more participants, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium paid plan (more on that later). If you subscribe to Zoom’s best plan, you can host as many as 1,000 participants in one video call for unlimited hours. For Google Duo, the maximum number of participants you can have on a group video call is 12. That’s nowhere near what Zoom offers. On the other hand, Google Duo offers unlimited group video calls. There is no limit to the time you can spend with other participants in a single group video call.
Share screen
When choosing a video call or conferencing app, don’t overlook screen sharing featureThe ability to share what’s on your screen during a video call with your friends or teammates promotes effective collaboration. If you occasionally change the content of your mobile or the computer screen during a video call, choose Zoom. Google Duo previously announced screen sharing for Android, but the feature has since been disabled and is no longer supported on the platform. Again, you should opt for Zoom if screen sharing is an important requirement for your personal or business needs.
Screen capture
This is another one feature that Google Duo lacks. Recording a video call is useful if you need meeting content for reference purposes, or if you need to share a webinar with absent attendees. With Zoom you can record video calls and you choose to save the recording on your computer or in the clouds. Later you can edit those Zoom video recordings too. Zoom also features a number of advanced screen captures features such as adding timestamps to video recordings, recording a separate audio file for each participant, etc.
Virtual background
This is fun and useful again feature van Zoom. If you are making video calls in a room that is not so visually appealing or in an environment with a lot of distraction in the background, you can use Zoom to change the background of the video call to a solid color or one of the virtual Zoom background presets.
You can also choose an image (or video) from your device as the virtual background for a video call. Note: Zoom’s virtual wallpaper is only available for PC and iOS devices.
Example of incoming caller
Google Duo has a unique feature called Knock Knock. When enabled, you can see a live video preview of the incoming caller. This way, you can gain insight into where the person is calling from and (maybe) why they are calling you. Apart from that, it is fun feature
Zoom does not support live video preview; you can only see a caller when you join a video call, and the host / caller has his / her camera switched on.
Make video calls
On Zoom you can host the conversation and send the Meeting ID or Zoom link to participants. You can also join a video call using the host’s Meeting ID or Zoom link. Note: To host or join a video call on Zoom, the video call client / app must be installed on your device (see Section 1 above for more information). Google Duo works differently. You can only make video calls to people who use Duo in your contact list. In addition, only people (Google Duo users) who have your number or email address in their contact list can make a video call to you. Unlike Zoom, random people cannot join your Google Duo (group) video call.
Security and encryption
Both Zoom and Google Duo offer a lot features designed to ensure secure video and voice communications. For example, Google Duo supports end-to-end encryption for voice, text and video communications mobile and internet.
Zoom also secures communication and content sharing with 256-bit TLS encryption and AES-256 encryption, respectively. Interestingly, in your Zoom ‘In Meeting (Basic)’ settings, you can also choose to encrypt your Zoom data shared with third-party apps and endpoints.
Plans and prices
Google Duo is free to use and there are no hidden costs. For small families and businesses (with 12 members or less) that don’t need advanced video conferencing features (screen sharing, screen recording, virtual wallpaper, etc.) during communication, Google Duo is a perfect cost-saving option. The free Zoom Basic plan also works, but you cannot use it for long-term communication (more than 45 minutes) with your team members, family or colleagues.
For companies with a medium or large team (≤ 100 members) it is worth investing in a paid Zoom subscription. You get access to a ton of advanced features View Zoom Plans and Subscriptions
Personal versus professional
Both Google Duo and Zoom offer secure one-on-one meetings, group video calls and others features that can help spice it up up visual communication. Zoom comes with more of these features and is the better video calling app. If pricing is a big deal-breaker, or if you need a simple video calling tool to communicate with a small group of people without interruption, Google Duo should get the job done. The choice depends on your wishes. A recent report from The Intercept points to a very crucial aspect of Zoom that the video call sessions are not end-to-end encrypted. While Zoom explicitly clarifies that user data should not be mined, we mean to say just three words – be careful. The next up: Wondering which apps to use on your Windows PC? Here’s our curated list of 4 best video calling apps for Windows 10.
Google Duo vs Zoom: Comparison and Review: benefits
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