6 Zoom alternatives
Find the meeting app that fits your guests and your team.
Hosting models, what each tool genuinely does best, and one honest caveat apiece — including for our own product, which is on the list and clearly labelled.
Editorial update: 19 October 2026
What should your next tool do better?
Zoom won the pandemic and became the default verb for meetings — a separate app you schedule, link and join. But most team meetings aren't webinars: they are the same five people who were just discussing the topic in chat. And when the call ends, the decisions scatter into Slack, email and task tools that never met the meeting.
This guide compares six real alternatives for team video calls. One of them is our own product; we say so on its card and apply the same honest-caveat rule to it as to everyone else.
A different tool for a different need
Start with your requirements, then compare the trade-offs.
Compare at a glance
| Explore the options | Best for | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Google Meet | Google Workspace organisations and external-facing calls. | No self-hosting, and the value assumes you live in Google's ecosystem — outside it, Meet is just another meeting link. |
| Microsoft Teams | Organisations using Microsoft 365 that want connected chat and meetings, subject to the licences they hold. | You inherit the whole ecosystem — licensing tiers, admin complexity — and video is one feature of a much larger product. |
| Whereby | Client-facing calls and small teams that want zero-friction browser meetings. | No self-hosting, and it is deliberately just meetings — chat, tasks and docs stay in the rest of your stack, and larger rooms need paid plans. |
| BigBlueButton | Schools, universities and training providers that need a self-hosted virtual classroom. | Designed for teaching rather than day-to-day team standups — for ordinary team calls, its classroom tooling is more than you need. |
| PolybaseOur product | Teams whose meetings are internal and constant, and organisations that want calls on infrastructure they control. | Recording requires enabled LiveKit Egress, S3-compatible recording storage and participant permissions. Captions and recording transcripts require configured speech providers; automatic AI summaries and action items are not available. |
| LiveKit | Product teams that want to build a custom realtime audio or video experience on infrastructure they control. | Infrastructure and SDKs, not a ready-made workspace: you build the meeting UI, identity, permissions and workflows, and operate the media service. |
The six contenders.
- Product website
Google Meet
The Google Workspace default
Google Meet is the path of least resistance for Google Workspace organisations: browser-based, wired into Gmail and Calendar, with solid quality and nothing to install. For external calls it is about as frictionless as video gets.
- Best for
- Google Workspace organisations and external-facing calls.
- Hosting model
- Google cloud only.
- What to check
- No self-hosting, and the value assumes you live in Google's ecosystem — outside it, Meet is just another meeting link.
- Product website
Microsoft Teams
Meetings inside the Microsoft 365 bundle
Microsoft Teams provides chat, meetings and collaboration with Microsoft 365 services. Microsoft offers suites with and without Teams, so check your exact licences and any separate meeting or administration features. It is a hosted service, with no self-hosted Teams server edition.
- Best for
- Organisations using Microsoft 365 that want connected chat and meetings, subject to the licences they hold.
- Hosting model
- Microsoft cloud only — there is no self-hosted edition.
- What to check
- You inherit the whole ecosystem — licensing tiers, admin complexity — and video is one feature of a much larger product.
- Product website
Whereby
Browser meetings with zero friction, from Norway
Whereby is a Norwegian company that made browser-based meetings pleasant: persistent room links, no downloads, no accounts for guests. As a European vendor it is a refreshing counterpoint to the US giants.
- Best for
- Client-facing calls and small teams that want zero-friction browser meetings.
- Hosting model
- SaaS only (European vendor).
- What to check
- No self-hosting, and it is deliberately just meetings — chat, tasks and docs stay in the rest of your stack, and larger rooms need paid plans.
- Product website
Polybase
Our productThe sovereign team workspace
Polybase runs browser-based WebRTC calls through a self-hosted LiveKit media server, encrypted in transit with DTLS-SRTP. Start calls from channels or DMs, or join a scheduled meeting beside chat, tasks and docs. Screen sharing and background effects depend on device support; live captions need a configured speech provider. For offline calls, LiveKit must run inside the same network.
Full disclosure: Polybase is our product. Read this entry as the maker's perspective — the caveat below is as real as everyone else's.
- Best for
- Teams whose meetings are internal and constant, and organisations that want calls on infrastructure they control.
- Hosting model
- EU-region cloud, private VPC or self-hosted. Offline calls require LiveKit inside the same network.
- What to check
- Recording requires enabled LiveKit Egress, S3-compatible recording storage and participant permissions. Captions and recording transcripts require configured speech providers; automatic AI summaries and action items are not available.
- Product website
LiveKit
Open-source realtime media infrastructure
LiveKit is an open-source realtime media server and SDK suite for teams building their own audio and video experiences. You run the server on your infrastructure and own the application around it.
- Best for
- Product teams that want to build a custom realtime audio or video experience on infrastructure they control.
- Hosting model
- Self-hosted open-source media server, or managed LiveKit Cloud; application development required.
- What to check
- Infrastructure and SDKs, not a ready-made workspace: you build the meeting UI, identity, permissions and workflows, and operate the media service.
Five questions worth asking before you switch.
- 01
Separate app or part of the workspace?
A standalone meetings tool means links, calendars and context switches. Calls inside the workspace start where the discussion already is.
- 02
Can you run it on your own servers?
Most video platforms are cloud-only. If compliance needs calls on your infrastructure, the shortlist gets very short, very fast.
- 03
What happens after the call?
Recordings, notes, tasks — where do the outcomes live? A meeting whose decisions evaporate was a voice memo, not a meeting.
- 04
Internal standups or external events?
Daily team calls and 500-person webinars are different products wearing the same word. Pick for the meetings you actually have.
- 05
What does the bill reward?
Per-host licences, per-tier participant caps, time limits on free plans — check how the pricing behaves when your usage grows.
Where Polybase fits
You are reading this list on our site, so here is the part vendors usually skip.
When it fits
Calls start where the work is
No meeting links, no separate app — click the call button in the channel or DM where the discussion already lives, and teammates join from there.
Decisions survive the call
Every call has a chat panel, and any message in it becomes a tracked task in one click. Meeting notes are Polybase docs in the same channel, searchable later.
Video you can self-host
EU-region cloud, private VPC or self-hosted. Offline calls require a self-hosted LiveKit server inside the same network; speech and recording services must meet the deployment's network requirements.
Plan around your deployment
Test your intended meeting length, participant count and network on the Polybase deployment you will use. Recording has configured capacity and duration limits; agree the operating requirements before relying on it.
Plain pricing
Calls are part of Core at €10 per user/month, alongside chat, tasks and automation — not a separate per-host meetings licence.
What to check
Recording
Eligible channel/DM and meeting calls support explicitly started recording when LiveKit Egress and S3-compatible recording storage are enabled. Test permissions, capacity and retention in your deployment. Recording subtitles and transcript downloads require a configured transcription provider; automatic AI summaries and action items are not available.
Webinar scale
Test the participant count, guest admission and presentation controls your event needs on the intended Polybase deployment. Do not treat team-call support as a proven webinar capacity.
Certifications
Not certified yet — SOC 2 and ISO 27001 are on our roadmap. We answer security questionnaires and architecture questions today.
Enterprise sign-on
Tenant administrators can configure OIDC SSO providers and SCIM 2.0 provisioning. Test provider setup, verified-domain account mapping and sign-in policies in your deployment. Native SAML support is not included.
Choosing a Zoom alternative.
What is the best Zoom alternative in 2026?
Compare the actual meeting workflow. Google Meet and Microsoft Teams suit teams using the relevant hosted suite; check its plan. Whereby offers browser rooms for small guest calls, and BigBlueButton targets teaching. Polybase connects calls with channel work. LiveKit is infrastructure for building an application, rather than a ready-made Zoom replacement.
Which Zoom alternatives can be self-hosted?
BigBlueButton is a self-hosted meeting application. Polybase supports self-hosting with LiveKit inside the same network; LiveKit itself is a media server and SDK. Zoom Meetings Hybrid also offers on-premises media and Private Mode, with specific deployment and service dependencies. Compare the complete architecture rather than labelling every hosted product cloud-only.
Does Polybase record meetings?
Eligible channel/DM and meeting calls can be recorded when LiveKit Egress and S3-compatible recording storage are enabled. Recording is explicit, visible to participants and subject to permissions and configured capacity; guests cannot start it. Recording subtitles and transcript downloads require a configured transcription provider. Automatic AI summaries and action items are not available.
Can Polybase handle large webinars like Zoom?
Evaluate your actual participant count, external guest controls and presentation workflow in a capacity pilot. Polybase does not provide a general webinar-capacity guarantee. Keep your existing event service for workflows the pilot has not validated.
What does Polybase cost compared to Zoom?
Calls are included in Polybase Core at €10 per user/month, together with Chat, Tasks, Drive and Flows. Self-hosted and enterprise deployments have custom pricing. Check meeting capacity, recording storage and speech-provider costs separately; compare the services your team would actually replace.
Documentation and primary sources
Editorial update: 19 October 2026
- Google Meet
- Microsoft Teams
- Whereby
- BigBlueButton
- Polybase
- LiveKit
- Microsoft: suites with and without Teams
- Zoom: Meetings Hybrid and Private Mode
- LiveKit: Cloud and deployment options
Product names identify the tools being compared. No endorsement is implied.
See Polybase next to Zoom, feature by feature.
Book a 30-minute demo and we'll show a call started from a channel, ending in tasks — or start with the detailed side-by-side comparison.
Continue your research
Compare another part of your team's toolkit.
Google Meet
Free plans, self-hosted calls and the limits that matter.
Read the guideSlack
Team conversations, with a deployment you can choose.
Read the guideMicrosoft Teams
Compare chat, meetings and the tools around them.
Read the guideMicrosoft 365
Choose who operates your office suite and where data lives.
Read the guide