Business Choice 2023: The Best Video Conferencing Services for Work

Not too long ago, having even one person join a work meeting via video call was unusual. The pandemic changed things, though, and a majority of working people use video conferencing regularly. For online meetings to work well, though, an office must have the right video conferencing service.

For the second consecutive year, we asked PCMag readers to tell us which tools work best for face-to-face meetings when you can't all be in the same room. The top picks are our Business Choice award winners. We break our results down into two categories: Employees' Choice—the services workers prefer when they have the option, and IT Managers' Choice—the services those who control the office technology prefer. For the latter survey, we thank our colleagues at Spiceworks(Opens in a new window) and its Aberdeen Strategy & Research(Opens in a new window) division for their assistance and expertise.

We spoke to Aberdeen VP & Principal Analyst Jim Rapoza about the continuing viability of video conferencing after so many people have returned to the office at least part of the time. He says, "While a majority of businesses use some form of video conferencing, including 74% of small to medium-size businesses, many still see it as limiting and a poor substitute for in-person meetings."

Aberdeen's research into the topic shows some significant benefits to keeping current with these tools. "We’ve found that businesses that use up-to-date video conferencing are 65% more likely to see improvements in new product and service innovation, 40% more likely to report enhanced workforce flexibility, and 38% more likely to improve acquisition of new talent," says Rapoza.

That means top IT leaders are modernizing their video conferencing abilities to stay competitive. Businesses of any size would be wise to do the same and stay ahead of the competition, since so many recruits these days expect a remote-work option. Read on to see which services the business leaders in our audience prefer.

(Spiceworks is owned by PCMag's parent company, Ziff Davis.)

First, our survey asks about all the video conferencing services people use for work across the board. We also ask whether respondents use a paid or free version. We break out those options below; but for now, the main list includes paid and free services combined, which yields an interesting winner.

GoTo Meeting is not exactly synonymous with video conferencing; last year, it didn't receive enough responses to make it into our survey results. But this year, the service edges into the lineup and does so with strong numbers for overall satisfaction—the category we consider most important when determining a winner. GoTo Meeting also earns strong scores for video and sound quality. That's enough to earn the service its first Business Choice award. (Note: Click the up, down, left, and right arrows in our interactive tables to view different elements.)

Last year's winner was Zoom. This year, Zoom earns the same overall score but falls to third place in the rankings, thanks to GoTo Meeting's strong showing and Google Meet's overall score improvement. Google Meet also has the best likelihood-to-recommend score of all the finishers here, even higher than GoTo Meeting's score. Meet has high scores in 10 other categories as well, though GoTo Meeting doesn't place in many of those—a possible result when we receive enough "not applicable" answers to a question.

The other vendors on the list this year include Microsoft Teams and Webex by Cisco. Teams brings up the rear, although it earns a still-respectable overall score of 8.1 out of 10.

As for free services people use for work, only three of the services on the chart above make the list. Google Meet easily claims the top spot, since GoTo Meeting doesn't have enough responses here to be included. While Google Meet's scores for overall satisfaction and even likelihood to recommend are lower than when we combine free and paid, it's not by much—especially compared with the same numbers for Zoom and Teams.

Google Meet is on top in nine categories, and Zoom is on top in five; they tie for the quality of their background effects. But that tie score is relatively low at 7.7, perhaps because respondents may not think of visual effects as important or appropriate for work meetings.

Microsoft Teams comes out on top for ease in hosting a meeting. And Teams ties Zoom in one area—meeting transcriptions.

Workplace meetings can't be left to chance, so video conferencing services used for work are generally paid services. Of the five vendors in the overall list above, only four make the cut here. GoTo Meeting isn't one of them; that leaves the door open for another vendor. Surprisingly, it isn't Google or Zoom, despite the scores each earns in the overall chart.

Instead, Webex by Cisco places first among the paid services. The Webex name has almost three decades of history behind it, half of that with Cisco—chances are good that you've seen at least one remote demonstration via Webex. Cisco's service for video meetings is on top of almost every category in which it has enough responses to be rated, but exceptions are mentioned below.

Exceptions for Webex include scores for reliability, ease of use, and the important meeting hurdles of hosting, joining, and scheduling—the paid Google Meet owns all those categories. Meet is also in the top spot for cost/value, security, recording meetings, and background visual effects, all of which are categories in which Webex doesn't have enough responses to earn a score. The paid Google Meet also has the highest score for likelihood to be recommended. Clearly, its users think highly of the service.

It's not fair to call Zoom and Microsoft Teams also-rans in this category, as they garner excellent overall scores; but it's hard to top what Webex and Google offer. The exceptions tend to come in categories where Webex and Google are, again, both missing—paid Zoom is at the top for tech support, mobile support (tied with Microsoft), and transcription, for example, but only because Webex and Google Meet have fewer responses on those questions.

Thanks to our partnership with Aberdeen, more IT managers than ever answer our surveys and reveal the brands they believe are easiest to implement in a work setting. This year, in our first IT Managers' Choice for video conferencing, the award goes to Google Meet.

The list is similar to those above, but the numbers are much higher. Google Meet's scores are all 8.9 (out of 10) or higher. Two scores—reliability and ease of use—are exceptionally high, at 9.4. Google Meet wins in each category for which it has enough responses to earn a score, and the only category in which it doesn't have a score is tech support. That isn't necessarily a terrible thing; it could mean that not many people need tech support when using Google Meet.

Zoom comes in second with strong scores, two of which—video and sound quality—are close to Google's numbers. Microsoft remains in third place. A jack of all trades, the Teams tool is not a favorite as simply a video conferencing tool. Teams has more in common with Slack than with its competitors here. But Slack, which also has built-in video conferencing tools, has yet to register in the results of our video conferencing surveys.

The PCMag Business Choice survey for video conferencing and online meetings was in the field from March 13 to April 2, 2023. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read the survey methodology.

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