Best Webinar Software and Video Conference Software (Free Download)
As we move into a digital age it’s important to make sure that you’re able to deliver your content to the people that it matters to without any hiccups and to ensure that you need to use webinar software.
Why use webinar software?
As webinars get more and more popular we see a surge in the number of bad webinars and this is mostly because everyone is trying to present their information in the same way as the way they would have in person.
Thankfully the solution to this is relatively simple, you can try changing a few things when planning your webinar. First off is to embrace the new way of presentation with the webinar software.
With webinar software, you can present your ppt directly without needing any other hardware such as a printer. You can try making the webinar more interactive by adding a live chat so that people can interact with you as well as each other to learn the most from your presentation.
Secondly, you should try making your points as concise as possible with examples. This helps those people for whom understanding the content definition is difficult. Try talking about common misconceptions and FAQs in your presentation. This small move can improve your webinar’s clarity and can help you stand out from the rest.
Lastly, make sure that you look good with some good webcam software since your online appearance is the appearance that’s going to matter from now on. Make sure to place your webcam in a good spot from where it’s easy to see your face.
A good webinar software gives you unparalleled flexibility and allows you to make engaging speeches and lectures that can impact people. Webinars have the potential to be more interesting than in-person presentations but that requires you to think differently and approach webinars in a different way.
What is webinar software?
Webinar software is an app or a tool that can help you deliver your content effectively in the way that you want it to. You can choose how you want to interact with the audience by adding on-screen chatboxes and emotes to let you know how people are feeling about the content.
Apart from this, you can decide how to present your presentation in case you have one. You can also present a whiteboard on the webinar really allowing you to be on the fly. Really get into the mood with a stylus and derive everything on board.
How to use webinar software?
Most webinar software’s are easy to use, the GUI (Graphical User Interface) is made with presenters in mind. You can decide what to share on the screen with the share screen option where you can decide what gets presented, you can present videos, ppts, pictures, and more.
You can even invite guests and allow them to share their content and form a panel. The possibilities are endless, you can combine any number of features ranging from live chats to virtual drawing boards, you can customize your webinar to suit the topic of the webinar.
Some webinars could also allow you to use green screens in your background so that you can later replace them with other images and videos to make the experience more seamless. For example, you could replace the green screen with the PowerPoint so that you can directly point at what you’re talking about, hence adding a more wholesome feel to the webinar.
Although most webinar software does have audio mixers built into them you might want to use an external audio mixer to make sure you’re loud enough since you can never be sure enough.
Webinar software vs video calling software
Most video calling software has all the features required to conduct a webinar but using webinar software can help you share your content better.
You could use webinar software to enhance a google meet webinar while still being able to access all the features of google meet. You could use webinar software with any video calling software, not just with google meet.
Those who don’t need too many features for their webinar could use google meet since it has a whiteboard feature, a present screen feature that allows you to share your video, ppt or even images, and last but not least it has a chatbox and a raise hand feature which allows the listeners to engage more with the speaker.
Another option to google meet in terms of video calling software is zoom. The paid version of Zoom is perfect for anyone looking for a quick and easy way to conduct a webinar since you can use the speaker mode to make sure that only the speaker is able to talk. You can share your screen too and interact with your audience with a chatbox.
Although if you’re hosting a professional webinar using webinar software along with your video calling software is highly recommended.
Webinar software options
1. Google meet
The reason google meet is first on our list is because of how easy it is to use google meet. The controls are intuitive and can help deliver a basic lecture. While it isn’t close to being the best option on this list it is easy to use and requires no installation.
You can share a Jamboard with your class and easily interact with the audience through the chat. Apart from being able to write on the jam board, you can use the jam board to collaborate with other speakers to bring out your ideas and really brainstorm ideas together adding more to the feel of actually being there in person.
One of the main reasons that I’d advise you to not use google meet would be the fact that you can’t really set a single speaker which means that anyone can unmute themselves and talk which is not ideal when you’re dealing with larger audience sizes.
And even though google meet has a chatbox the chat features are limited and any new user joining the meet cannot access older messages in the meet chatbox.
Although google meet lacks these features as I write this article, they are adding new features every day and I’m pretty sure that one year into the future, google meet could end up being the de facto webinar software.
FEATURES
- It’s free for all users
- Integrated with google classroom making it perfect for delivering lectures
- You can present your screen hence share documents, videos and ppts
- You can record the meet so that you don’t have to deliver the lecture twice
- You can control who all can join the meet by specifying which email ids can join the meet
- The moderator (or admin) can kick and mute participants allowing better control over how the crowd interacts with you
- With live captions, you can deliver your content without having to worry about people being able to hear you.
- As the meeting admin, you can take attendance throughout the meet itself where google meet prepares an attendance sheet that reflects the user id of the participants who attended the meet
2. Zoom
Zoom has now become a household name when it comes to video calling. Zoom boasts an amazing set of tools that can help you in your webinar.
Zoom allows you to set speaker mode to allow just the speaker to talk while the rest can only listen, you can also control who all can chat and who can send messages to whom.
You can also present your screen to show a video or a ppt or an image, you can collaboratively draw on the whiteboard as well that too without leaving the meet.
Zoom is ideal for those who are not afraid to explore the settings and can spend some money. A zoom is a good place for webinars even though its main focus is video calling.
You can use Zoom without any installation as well but I’d recommend installing the zoom desktop app or the zoom mobile app to get a better user experience. All in all, zoom is much closer to a webinar app than google meet is.
One of the biggest drawbacks of zoom is the number of participants that are allowed in the zoom meeting. For a free meet, you can only accommodate 100 participants. This means that to hold a big webinar you will have to purchase the full plan and then only will you be able to hold large-scale webinars that give you all the flexibility.
FEATURES
- Free to use
- You can share a whiteboard to work collaboratively or to write something on the spot which you want to share on the webinar
- You can split the meeting into rooms and decide who ends up in which room this helps is conduction group activities where the audience needs to be divided into smaller groups
- You can record the zoom call to keep a record / upload the content to the internet
- You can disable the mic and video for the attendees.
- Add a waiting room so that the attendees can join the zoom call even in case you’re not there
- You can add background effects to your video
3. GoToWebinar
Finally coming down to the more dedicated webinar software we have GoToWebinar which was built to better the webinar experience.
As a webinar software, GoToWebinar is the ultimate destination. It is a one-stop solution for all your webinar needs. You can share ppts, videos, and images without any hassle, you can broadcast prerecorded videos seamlessly making it feel like a live webinar instead of a prerecorded one.
With multiple webinar modes, you can be assured that you will have to spend the least time setting up the webinar as compared to the other webinar software.
You can even customize the theme of the software to match your branding further impressing your audience and makes a more wholesome impact on your audience.
When partnered up with other GoTo products such as GoToStage you can reach out to a larger audience and market your product more successfully. You can even integrate with some other third-party services such as Google, Microsoft, and Zoho to help you with managing and creating webinars.
The attendees can even join the webinar through their browser without having to download any third-party video calling software.
You can measure your interactivity through the event analytics which tells you about your audience interactions, the turnout, the percentage of the audience who paid attention to your webinar and many more such metrics which are crucial for anyone who has to deliver webinars frequently. You can also create custom sign-up forms to take the information that you need before the webinar.
FEATURES
- You can broadcast pre-recorded events
- Upto 3000 members can join the webinar
- Create your webinar schedule so that others can add it to their planner
- Create custom registration forms to get the information you need from your attendees
- Create live polls to see the audience’s preferences in realtime
- Get up and running in no time with webinar templates
- Add your own branding to the webinar by selecting the colour profile that is to be used throughout the webinar
- Get key metrics such as attendance rate, number of registered attendees and much more
- Use source tracking to see where most of your audience is coming from
- Integrate with other GoTo tools to deliver a better experience
- You can connect third-party apps such as Google, Microsoft, Slack and more to get the most out of the webinar
Side by side comparison
| Price | Attendee limit | Number of panelists allowed | Advanced webinar controls | Speaker mode* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Meet | Free | 100-250^ | 100-250^ | No | No |
| Zoom | Free | 500-50,000^ | 500-50,000^ | Yes | Yes |
| GoToWebinars | Price available on enquiry | – | 6 | Yes | Yes |
*speaker mode refers to the mode where nobody other than the speaker can speak / present.
^The number varies depending on which plan you take
Verdict
From the list, Zoom seems to be the best option as it is widely used so most people are already familiar with the platform and has some of the best features even when compared to other dedicated webinar software.
FAQ
No, most of the software comes with streaming as an inbuilt feature.
Once you’re done setting up your webinar, the software will give you a link that you can share.
Yes, you can use google meet or Zoom to create free webinars
Use the share screen option available on most webinar software to present your ppt.
You can use webinar software to set up your webinar and then stream it on a video streaming platform such as google meet or Zoom.