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Video conferencing software lets teams hold real-time audio and video meetings, share screens, and collaborate from any location — and for most organizations, it's no longer a single tool but a mix of platforms used across departments, regions, and use cases.
Key takeaways:
- Hybrid and remote work have made video conferencing a permanent part of how organizations operate, not a temporary substitute for in-person meetings.
- The right platform depends on meeting size, collaboration features, compatibility, and support — not just price.
- Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, and Cisco Webex remain the most widely used business platforms, each with different strengths.
- Most organizations run more than one video conferencing platform at once, which makes cross-platform performance monitoring essential.
What is video conferencing, and why does it matter now
It's the default way distributed teams meet — not a stand-in for the office.
Video conferencing tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, and Cisco Webex let colleagues, clients, and partners meet face-to-face without travel, sharing files, screens, and notes in real time. The global video conferencing market was valued at approximately USD 11.65 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 24.46 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 8.2% (Grand View Research) — driven by hybrid work adoption and enterprise demand for AI-assisted collaboration features.
Market growth projections for video conferencing continue to trend upward as hybrid work becomes standard practice.
In this guide, we'll look at what to evaluate in a video conferencing platform, compare the most widely used tools, and cover why performance monitoring matters once more than one platform is in play.
Why hybrid work keeps video conferencing essential
Flexible work is now the expectation, not the exception.
Hybrid and remote work arrangements are now a standing feature of how most organizations operate, and video conferencing is the infrastructure that makes them work. The benefits apply to both employers and employees:
- Reduced real estate costs:
With fewer employees at a desk full-time, organizations can rightsize office space and reduce the overhead tied to maintaining it. - Reduced absenteeism:
Employees working from home can manage things like childcare or commuting constraints while still working close to normal hours. - Increased productivity:
Less time lost to commuting and fewer in-office interruptions tend to translate into steadier focus and higher output.
What businesses need from a video conferencing platform
Modern tools go well beyond "just" hosting a call.
Today's video conferencing platforms bundle file sharing, screen sharing, whiteboarding, instant messaging, breakout rooms, and privacy controls into a single experience. With proper onboarding, most platforms let teams hold audio and video meetings that feel close to being in the room together, without the cost or logistics of travel.
Source: TCI Technologies
For modern businesses to grow across regions, maintaining quality relationships with suppliers, partners, internal teams, investors, and clients depends on being able to communicate reliably — and video conferencing is how most of that now happens.
- Supports the distributed workforce:
Teams stay connected regardless of physical location, which improves an organization's ability to make decisions and collaborate across geographies. - Simplifies IT management:
Cloud-based platforms remove the burden of maintaining and optimizing on-prem conferencing equipment — admins can manage settings and usage reporting from a web console instead. - Enables richer communication:
Video carries nonverbal cues that audio-only calls miss, which reduces ambiguity and makes remote collaboration feel closer to an in-person conversation.
Need to improve the performance of Unified Communications within your business?
10 things to evaluate before choosing a video conferencing tool
The right fit depends on how your teams actually meet, not just the feature list.
Every video conferencing platform has trade-offs, and what suits one organization may not suit another. It's worth gathering input from IT teams, service providers, and the employees who'll actually use the tool day to day before committing to one. Consider the following:
- Users (hosts):
Pricing is typically billed per host who can organize meetings — confirm current tiered pricing directly with each vendor, since plans and limits change frequently. - Meeting participants:
Free tiers often cap participant counts, while paid and enterprise plans raise the ceiling significantly — check the current limit against your typical meeting size. - Meeting duration:
Some free plans cap meeting length; others allow unlimited duration but limit participant count. Match the trade-off to how your teams actually meet. - Group collaboration features:
Look for whiteboarding, third-party app integrations, screen sharing, and instant file/text messaging built into the platform. - Recording:
Confirm whether full meetings or sections can be saved locally or to the cloud for anyone who couldn't attend live. - Compatibility:
Check whether the platform works with your existing devices and, if you use dedicated conference room equipment, whether it integrates without requiring an upgrade. - Usability:
A simple, intuitive interface reduces training time for both hosts and participants and keeps meetings running on schedule. - Support:
Support levels vary significantly by plan tier — confirm what's included before you commit to an enterprise agreement. - Mobile access:
For distributed or field-based teams, confirm the mobile app supports the same core features (screen sharing, messaging) as desktop. - Pricing structure:
Most platforms offer monthly or annual subscriptions, often with a free tier or trial. Confirm current published pricing directly with the vendor before budgeting, since it changes often.
Popular video conferencing platforms for business
Four platforms dominate enterprise use today, each with a different strength.
As video conferencing has become business-critical, reliability, ease of use, and support have become the deciding factors for most organizations. Here's how four of the most widely used platforms compare:
Zoom
Zoom is widely used for its intuitive interface and consistently strong reviews for video and audio quality, plus fast file- and screen-sharing. See current features on Zoom's feature page.
Microsoft Teams
Teams is a strong fit for organizations already using Microsoft 365, since meetings, chat, and file sharing sit inside the same ecosystem as Word, Excel, and SharePoint. See current capabilities on Microsoft's Teams page.
GoTo Meeting
GoTo Meeting is a common choice for small and mid-sized businesses, with features like polling and a "raise hand" function built for structured meetings. See current details on GoTo's website.
Cisco Webex
Webex remains a common choice for online training, webinars, and remote support, and is often selected by organizations with strict security requirements — it supports Transport Layer Security (TLS), third-party accreditations, encryption, firewall compatibility, single sign-on, and secure scheduling. See current features on Webex's product page.
Why performance monitoring matters as video conferencing scales
More platforms means more places for problems to hide.
Video conferencing and collaboration platforms now sit at the center of how most businesses operate day to day. As remote and hybrid work continue to raise expectations for reliability, fast problem resolution has a direct effect on an organization's bottom line — a dropped call or degraded meeting is now a business-continuity issue, not just an IT ticket.
Most organizations don't run a single video conferencing platform — they run several, chosen by different teams from vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, Zoom, and others, often without central visibility into how each one is performing. That makes it hard for IT teams to tell whether a poor meeting experience is a network issue, a vendor-side problem, or something local to one user — until a monitoring layer across all of them makes the root cause visible.
IR Collaborate gives IT teams performance visibility across voice, video, and collaboration platforms — whether the environment is on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid — so multi-vendor UC environments can be managed from a single view instead of switching between separate admin consoles.
Do your unified communications and collaboration tools deliver what they promise?
Frequently asked questions
What is video conferencing software?
Video conferencing software lets people in different locations hold real-time audio and video meetings over the internet, typically with added features like screen sharing, chat, and recording.
What should businesses look for in a video conferencing tool?
The most important factors are participant limits, meeting duration, collaboration features (screen sharing, whiteboarding, recording), device compatibility, ease of use, and the level of support included at your plan tier.
What's the difference between video conferencing and unified communications?
Video conferencing is one feature within a broader unified communications (UC) environment, which also includes voice calling, messaging, and contact center tools. Most organizations run video conferencing as part of a wider UC stack, not as a standalone system.
Which video conferencing platform is best for enterprise use?
There's no single best platform — Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, and Cisco Webex each suit different needs, from Microsoft 365 integration (Teams) to security-first environments (Webex). The right choice depends on your existing tech stack, team size, and compliance requirements.
Why do organizations use more than one video conferencing platform?
Different departments, acquisitions, or client requirements often lead to multiple platforms being adopted over time. This is common enough that most enterprise IT teams now plan for multi-vendor environments rather than trying to standardize on one tool.
How can IT teams monitor video conferencing quality across multiple platforms?
Purpose-built performance management tools, like IR Collaborate, give IT teams a single view across vendors and environments, so they can identify whether a call quality issue originates in the network, the platform, or a specific user's setup — without checking each vendor's console separately.
Is video conferencing secure enough for regulated industries?
Most enterprise-grade platforms offer encryption, single sign-on, and compliance certifications, but the specific requirements (e.g. HIPAA, financial services regulations) vary by platform and plan tier — always confirm current certifications directly with the vendor before deploying in a regulated environment.
Conclusion
Choosing the tool is only half the job.
Picking the right video conferencing platform matters, but for most organizations the bigger long-term challenge is keeping several platforms running reliably at once. As hybrid work keeps video at the center of how teams operate, the organizations that manage that complexity — rather than just adding another tool — are the ones that avoid it becoming a recurring source of IT tickets and lost time.
See how IR Collaborate gives IT teams one view across every video conferencing and UC platform in your environment. Request a demo.
