Are you ready to get over Skype?
Well, it seems like the good old days when Skype was prominent in personal usage. Sitting in dorm rooms and contacting your friends across the country.
Afer so much time, technology has evolved and so the internet and the working of the business as well.
But apparently, Skype hasn’t changed much! At least, not significantly enough to recognize.
Remote working becoming more integral to professions, collaboration, video conferencing and communication tools for businesses are like lifelines.
You might be wondering whether there are alternatives to Skype, better than that or something that has more to offer.
Or more specific to your business and even something unique. Well there are! And actually too many of them.
But that brings another question, which one to even cosider giving it a try?
So we came to help, assimilating the best Skype alternatives that you should look forward to trying in 2022.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams seem to be one of the most obvious Skype alternatives for small businesses.
Even if it can be the next step to Skype as well with additional features specific for small business.
For many, it would appear more like an upgrade as many features carried over from the skype for Business.
Microsoft Team comes with a plethora of features that will seem quite upgraded and even overwhelming for Skype users.
It offers you persistent team messaging, one-to-one messaging, customized backgrounds in meetings, live captions, live events and so much more.
The tool also allows you various integration with top-notch productivity and collaboration apps such as Trello, Asana and all other Microsoft productivity apps as well.
Cisco Webex
Cisco Webex is another very similar application to Skype, especially Webex offers robust cloud collaboration for its users.
Webex, formerly known as Cisco Spark provides messaging functionality, and a collaborative platform for your entire team.
Cisco Webex also offers one-to-one persistent chat along with team messaging as well.
Their communication features extend further with providing Cisco whiteboard, more familiar to the Cisco Spark Board users, not the Webex board.
You would know if you ever have been or were the user of Cisco Spark Board.
Then, the users who have Cisco VoIP handsets, further provide more features such as telepresence devices and conferencing solutions.
Recently more features for Webex were introduced such as Improved video, people insight, live motion video, Webex share and new VDI client.
Jitsi
You might have not heard abot this one! Well, it may be new to the scene but not behind.
It is one of the potential alternatives available for Skype. It is built on an open source platform that is easy to access through a web browser or mobile application.
Since it is encrypted end-to-end, your calls are secured.
This can be a great alternative only if you are looking for something very simple and dedicated to your business only.
And it being open source and allowing you to base code, you can create your own video service platform for video conferencing, live streaming and communication.
This can also be great if you do a lot of Youtube LIVE streaming videos.
Zoom
Were you waiting to see Zoom in this list? Is that so obvious now?
Well, it is indeed! After all, Zoom has been one of the most popular video communication tools with massive public appeal.
It has survived security issues like Zoombombing and whatnot! They are seriously challenging and plan to dethrone top-notch players like Skype.
Especially with its generous free plan, it gets to most of the people, with features like 100 users meeting with 40 minutes of maximum duration.
Their plans for small businesses are always about adding more to the top where it allows various team collaboration, webinars and video conferencing features at large scale.
And when we say large, it means even events like seminars, comedy shows, large conferences and whatnot.
Then Zooom further offers interactive video communication and sharing features such as interactive whiteboard, file-sharing, screen-sharing and more.
Slack
Slack is another great alternative for Skype that you can try out for your business in 2022.
They were one of the first persistent chat platforms.
Slack has a great competitive edge due to their extremely simple and easy-to-use interface elevating user experience.
Slack is continuously improving, first they came with Slack dark mode, then recently with Enterprise Key Management (EKM).
The latter one to solidify the security parameters to satisfy the large enterprises with their concerns over data.
Slack offers features like task list management, automated reminders, custom shortcuts and much more.
Flock
Flock comes with a built-in video conferencing feature along with their interactive chat communication platform.
It is designed for teams of all sizes. One of the best parts about this Skype alternative is ease of use.
All you have to do is click on “Start a video conference” and you are good to go. There are free verion and paid version to choose from.
Flock Pro allows you upto 20 participants without any time limitation for team video calls.
It recently added the cloud-based video recording option that starts directly within the chat.
Flock also comes with Zoom integration for cross-sharing the teams, clients and other information.
GoToMeeting
One of the well-known skype alternatives has to be this US-based web video conferencing company, called GoToMeet.
They offer one of the best user experiences in web conference meetings with plenty of high-end features.
It is really popular amongst professionals preferred over skype. The application is really reliable and reputed in the business space.
It allows users to join meetings from anywhere in the world. It is so easy to use.
Workplace
You must have already been familiar with Facebook Messenger tool where it allows you to do all the basic video conferencing or communication.
Well, the workplace is a platform that uses Facebook’s platform to give another verison, more like a social networking platform for companies.
It comes with features to make one to one voice and video calls and group calls as well.
Workplace rooms are quite like channels where upto 50 people can join the video meeting even without the Workplace account.
With Facebook Messenger, you are aslo getting all kinds of feeautres such as file sharing, news feed focussed on business and much more.
RingCentral Glip
Another Skype alternative, and that too a free one, popularly known for their unlimited meeting duration for upto 100 people.
Now, that’ s something worth checking out, especially if you might not have to pay at all.
It does offer exceptional video quality to their users where a user can join the meeting from the web or through their Glip App as well.
RingCentral Glip allows you to create instant channels and teams just during the chat even or before and after as well.
You can actually switch between the devices on which you are doing the meeting while on the meeting, like switching from desktop to mobile devices.
Glip is really unique in their approach as compared to other comeptitiors in the market.
They offer features like file sharing, Calendar integration, meeting recordings, background noise supressions and more.
Well, if you are wondering, they do have a paid plan for individuals and small businesses.
It offers a great balance of video conferencing features and task management features at one platform.
Whatsapp For Business
Not a straightaway alternative for skype but their business version does have a great potential to be explored.
It is usually a Wifi, phone data or internet-powered free chat messaging platform with video and audio call features.
Whatsapp is popular due to its texting capability, not primariy for video conferencing or business communication.
Also, it is well known for sharing files, save notes, send images, videos and create groups for interactions as well.
It has started surely from the private messaging application but expanding to the business territory.
With their business features, it allows video calls, creating business groups and more collaborative options as well.
It depends whether your business suits this particular Skype alternative or not.
Zoho Meeting
Zoho Meeting is a video meeting tool based on the browser where with their free version, up to 2 participants in a meeting and 10 in a webinar can communicate for an unlimited amount of time.
Zoho is popularly known for their webinar features where one can schedule websites with custom registration forms.
It also allows email reminders to the participants on a regular basis with the follow-up emails.
You can also see all the basic webinar analytics to grow your campaign for better results.
Then, the users are allowed to create polls before or during the Zoho webinars.
They can also use the live Q and A feature, virtual hand raising and broadcast messages as well.
Whereby
Whereby is the browser-based video conferencing tool formerly known as appear.in, especially designed for businesses.
This can be a real simple replacement of skype where you don’t have to go through a huge learning curve to understand its interface.
It is very simple to use where their freelance offer one meeting room for upto 4 participants.
There is no installation required as it is a web-based tool. It further allows you to integration with all popular tools and platforms such as Google Drive, Miro, Trello, Youtube et.c
With their paid plans, you can get branded meeting rooms with your own logo and background on it.
Chanty
Chanty is not very different from Flock that we already listed above, especially in terms of the communication and collaboration features.
What makes it more alike, is both are basically a collaborative communication-driven platform with audio and video features for businesses to interact.
They later launched their video conferencing feature including one-to-one and soon with group video meetings as well.
This is actually perfect for small businesses who also need a project management or basic task management platform as well.
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Business, marketing, and blogging – these three words describe me the best. I am the founder of Burban Branding and Media, and a self-taught marketer with 10 years of experience. My passion lies in helping startups enhance their business through marketing, HR, leadership, and finance. I am on a mission to assist businesses in achieving their goals.