In this era of digital workspaces, almost all of us attend at least one online meeting a day. And that is why, most of us are already well aware of online meeting hosting and live streaming platforms like Zoom, Muvi … Continue reading →
In this era of digital workspaces, almost all of us attend at least one online meeting a day. And that is why, most of us are already well aware of online meeting hosting and live streaming platforms like Zoom, Muvi Live Huddle, Skype, Zoho, and others.
In most workplaces, Zoom is used predominantly to host online meetings and webinars. But, when it comes to 2-way live streaming of those meetings, Zoom has certain limitations. That is why, companies nowadays are looking for a good alternative to Zoom Live Streaming, which will have all the good qualities of Zoom and even more!
If you are looking for one such Zoom live-streaming alternative, then you are on the right page! Our in-house streaming experts have reviewed and ranked the best Zoom Live Streaming Alternatives in 2023, and the winners are:
Meetings by Muvi Live
Vimeo Live
Skype
Google Duo
Zoho
LiveWebinar
Vidthere
BlueJeans
We will tell you why we liked them and why you should try them once, in this blog. So, keep reading!
What is Zoom?
Before we jump into the alternative, let’s give you a brief idea of what Zoom is all about.
If you have not used Zoom yet, let me tell you that Zoom is an online video conferencing software that can be used to hold online meetings and webinars. It has some amazing features like meeting chat, meeting recording, Zoom Whiteboard, waiting room, and lots more! It was released in 2012, making it one of the first of its kind.
A few years later, Zoom released its live streaming feature, which allowed anyone to live stream their online meetings on multiple platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and others.
This new feature opened new doors for businesses, as they could now live stream their annual meets and large-scale conferences so that their investors, shareholders, and customers could tune in. With time, this service became one of the primary necessities for businesses.
All About Zoom Custom Live Streaming
Zoom custom live streaming lets you stream your meetings and webinars to any custom platform. It can be your website or your social media handles like Facebook or Youtube. You will just have to configure some settings before you start your meeting or webinar so that you can live to stream them directly.
This custom live-streaming facility is available for individuals and groups. Yes, you can allow any member from a specific group to live stream their meetings and webinars on custom platforms.
But, this facility is not available to all Zoom users. There are certain prerequisites.
Prerequisites for Live Streaming Zoom Meetings
For live streaming zoom meetings, you should have a certain zoom account, desktop, and OS specifications. The following prerequisites are mentioned on the official website of Zoom.
For live-streaming meetings, you would need:
Pro, Business, Education, or Enterprise grade Zoom account. Other accounts are not eligible for live streaming.
The host must be licensed to live stream meetings.
Your desktop, that you would use for live streaming should have:
Windows: version 4.0.29183.0407 or higher
macOS: version 4.0.29208.0410 or higher
Make sure that Group HD video/Full HD (1080p) is enabled for higher video quality
For live-streaming webinars, you would need:
Pro, Business, Education, or Enterprise grade Zoom account. Other accounts are not eligible for live streaming.
The host must be assigned a webinar license.
Your desktop, that you would use for live streaming should have:
Windows: version 4.0.29183.0407 or higher
macOS: version 4.0.29208.0410 or higher
Make sure that Group HD video/Full HD (1080p) is enabled for higher video quality
When and How to Live Stream Zoom Meetings?
You can use Zoom Live Streaming to live stream any type of conference or webinar on your own website. It is particularly helpful when you need to live stream a conference directly on your website or social media page, but don’t have any in-built mechanism to do so. Also, sometimes you need to live stream open webinars so that many people can join them. It is possible through Zoom Live Streaming. You can even allow your employees to live stream their team conferences so that the other stakeholders can join the discussion.
According to the official website of zoom, you can do live streaming on Zoom after doing the following settings:
First of all, you will have to sign in to your Zoom web portal admin account. The admin account is needed as normal accounts might not have the option to edit account settings.
After signing in, click on “Account Management” and go to “Account Settings”.
There, you will get a “Meeting” tab. Click on it.
You will get the option to enable “Allow Livestreaming” under the Meeting (Advanced) section. Usually, it is pre-enabled but you must check it once. If it is not enabled then please enable it.
Then, select the Custom Live Streaming Service check box.
Save the changes.
Is Zoom Live Streaming Free?
The answer is no! Though you won’t have to pay anything separately for live streaming, but Zoom doesn’t allow live streaming through their free basic accounts. If you want to live stream, you will have to upgrade to either Pro, Business, Education, or Enterprise plan, hence paying the subscription fee for these plans.
The Pro plan costs you US$ 149.90 in a year, while you get up to 100 attendants.
The Business plan costs you US$ 199.90 in a year, while you get up to 300 attendants.
Pros and Cons of Zoom Live Streaming
Like every other platform, Zoom live streaming also has some pros and cons. Let’s take a look at some of its advantages first.
Pros of Zoom Live Streaming
Zoom is already used by many business ecosystems, so it is nothing new to them.
Zoom provides very good security features which are important for many business platforms.
But there are some disadvantages of Zoom Live Streaming too. Let’s take a quick look at some of them.
Cons of Zoom Live Streaming
The live streaming facility is not available in free plans.
You can live stream only on a single platform at a time. For live streaming on two platforms, you will have to use third-party tools.
There is a limitation on the number of meeting attendants.
Not compatible with all versions of Windows and macOS
The 8 Best Zoom Live Streaming Alternatives
There are very few good Zoom Live Streaming Alternatives available. We have studied almost all of them, and picked the top 8 alternatives for you!
1. Meetings by Muvi Live
Meetings by Muvi Live is by far the best Zoom Live Streaming alternative, in all respects, starting from pricing to the number of attendants. Developed as an extension to Muvi Live, the leading live streaming software, Meetings delivers effortless two-way live streaming for all your meetings and webinars.
Some of the major features of Meetings are:
Live Chat Support With Emoticon Support: The live chat feature of Meetings lets your attendants express their feelings through messages and emojis.
Chat Moderation: You can moderate and control the live chat conversations, in case you need to block any of your attendees.
Audience Analytics: Get detailed stats of your attendees, including their names, date and time of joining the meeting, and more!
Join as a Guest: To join the Meetings live meet, your audiences don’t need to sign up. They can join as guests simply by clicking on the meeting invite link.
Meetings Pros
The biggest and unique benefits of Muvi Live Meetings are:
Higher attendance capacity, using which you can allow up to 600 participants in a single meeting.
2-way live streaming lets your viewers join the live feed and express their views on the meet.
The process of joining the meet is seamless, as you don’t need to sign in or create an account.
Environmental noise suppression cuts off the additional and unnecessary news coming from the environment.
Extremely affordable, as anyone with a Muvi Live subscription can use Muvi Live Meetings.
Enjoy unlimited meeting duration without any interruptions.
Meetings Cons
Meetings is still in its initial days, so some of the features are still in the development phase.
Meetings Pricing
Meetings is an extension of Muvi Live. Muvi Live offers the following pricing plans:
Muvi Live follows a Pay As You Go pricing plan, where you don’t need to pay a single penny in the beginning. Later, when you start using the product, you will have to pay for the infra fees, according to your usage. The platform fee will always remain ZERO, you just need to pay for the infrastructure components you use.
For corporates and businesses who need to use the product regularly, there is a subscription plan as well. Muvi Live Enterprise starts at US$ 799 per month.
Zoom Live Streaming vs Meetings by Muvi Live – Which One Is Better?
Meetings is much easier to use, hassle-free, and affordable. We have compared it with Zoom Live Streaming on different parameters and tabulated the results below.
Parameters
Zoom Live Streaming
Meetings
Number of attendants
100 for the Pro plan and 300 for the Business plan
Upto 600 for all plans
2-Way Live Streaming
Not well developed
Well developed
Sign-in required
Yes
No
OS Requirements
Windows: version 4.0.29183.0407 or higher, macOS: version 4.0.29208.0410 or higher
Works with all OS versions
Pricing Structure
Starts from US$ 149.90 per year
No need to pay anything upfront. You will pay according to your usage.
Pay as you go
Not available
Available
Overall, it is one of the best Zoom live-streaming alternatives available in the market.
2. Vimeo Live
Vimeo Live is made for all types of customers, from business houses to individual contributors and content creators. Some of its key features include:
Overlay graphics to make your live streaming more attractive
Supports live Q&A sessions
Lets you add your own brand logo to the meetings and webinars
Vimeo Live Pros
Top-notch video quality
You can use high-tech cameras to capture live visuals during meetings and webinars
Cloud-based service
Vimeo Live Cons
Difficult to set up the meetings space
Focuses more on live streaming features rather than video conferencing features
Doesn’t offer group meetings
Vimeo Live Pricing
Vimeo will charge you US$ 65 per seat (for one attendee) per year.
3. Skype
From time immemorial, Skype has been used for virtual meetings. And now, it is one of the leading Zoom live streaming alternatives as you can live stream your Skype call using their Skype Meeting Broadcast feature. Currently, it is available for Skype for Business only.
Some of the major features of Skype Meeting Broadcast are:
You can share screens while broadcasting your meeting live.
You can record your meetings.
You can blur the background whenever you want.
Skype Pros
No limitation on call duration
Works on Android, iOS, Xbox, and Amazon Alexa devices
Can take up to 1,000 participants
Skype Cons
Does not offer advanced live-streaming features.
Interactive features are not well developed.
Skype Pricing
No specific pricing plan for broadcasting meetings. You just need to purchase either a Microsoft Office 365 plan or a Skype for Business plan.
4. Google Duo
Google Duo comes with very good features like:
You can record messages and presentations and send them to your contacts.
It is available for Android, Windows, iOS, and ChromeOS.
Google Duo Pros
Longer call durations
Both audio calls and video conferences supported
Google Duo Cons
Lacks recording of meeting feature
You need to add all the attendees right at the start of the call. You can’t add more members once the call gets started.
5. Zoho
Zoho is a young meeting broadcasting tool but has risen to popularity very quickly. It is a completely web-based service, so you don’t need to download any software to use it.
Some of the major features of Zoho are:
Embed links can be used to embed your meetings on web pages.
Participants can be grouped together for a quick meeting.
Zoho Pros
It allows sending voice messages in its chat box during meetings.
You can send reminder emails to the meeting attendants right before the start of your meetings.
Supports all browsers and most of the OS.
Zoho Cons
Has very few advanced features.
A bit expensive as compared to the other alternatives.
Zoho Pricing
You need to pay US$ 15 per month for 25 participants, and US$ 63 per month for 250 participants.
6. LiveWebinar
LiveWebinar is a very good alternative for those who want to host webinars only. You can live stream your webinars on Facebook, YouTube, and many other platforms using LiveWebinar.
Some of the top features of LiveWebinar are:
Built-in mechanism for holding surveys and quizzes during webinars.
It also allows you to live stream your meetings.
You can even create meeting rooms for recurring meetings.
LiveWebinar Pros
LiveWebinar team is known for its excellent customer support.
No need to install any software or app.
LiveWebinar Cons
Higher webpage reloading time might cause connectivity issues.
No option to link with Google Calendar.
LiveWebinar Pricing
Its Pro plan starts at US$ 11.99 per month and allows 100 attendees.
7. Vidthere
Vidthere is a browser-based webinar broadcasting software, exclusively crafted for business companies. Some of the leading features that make Vidthere one of the leading Zoom live streaming alternatives in the webinar segment are:
You can add your logo and other brand identities to meeting screens and waiting rooms.
You can record the meetings and webinars.
You can have multiple hosts in a single meeting.
Vidthere Pros
You can use their analytics tool to get reports and data about your attendees.
Its starting plan is free of cost, while you need to pay for higher plans.
Vidthere Cons
They have very limited features.
Their first preference is webinars, as the meeting features are not well developed.
Vidthere Pricing
Vidthere offers two pricing plans:
Webinars Lite plan starts at US$ 15 for a month.
Webinar Pro plan starts at US$ 25 per month.
8. BlueJeans
BlueJeans has been there in the market for more than 12 years now. First launched in 2009, BlueJeans support virtual events, meetings, and webinars. Some of its major features are:
Its special audio technology improves the quality of your voice calls.
It offers enterprise-grade security features.
It allows closed captions and real-time transcriptions to facilitate multilingual meetings and webinars.
BlueJeans Pros
You can have a lot of people at both meetings and webinars.
Both browser-based and mobile app-based services.
A lot of people can attend the meetings and webinars.
BlueJeans Cons
There can be some glitches in the software, especially if there are network issues or a lot of people.
It is a bit more expensive than other alternatives.
BlueJeans Pricing
BlueJeans offer the following pricing plans:
Its meeting plan starts from US$ 9.99 per month.
BlueJeans has a starting streaming plan at US$ 83 per month.
It’s Gateway rooms start at US$ 99 per month for each room.
Try Muvi Live Meetings Today!
From the above discussion, we can conclude that Meetings by Muvi Live is not only the best Zoom Live Streaming alternative, but it is also one of the best meeting live streaming platforms overall. Its unique features like 2-way interactive meetings and unlimited meeting durations with 600+ participants and live chat with emojis make it one of the most powerful corporate meeting live streaming tools.
And the best part is, it does the job perfectly, without burning a bigger hole in your pocket! You can even try it for free, without paying anything upfront, and then pay as you go! Sign up to start streaming free today!
FAQs
Q1. Is Zoom Live streaming free?
Ans. No, Zoom does not provide meeting live streaming benefits in its free plan.
Q2. Is there any good Zoom Live Streaming alternative?
Ans. Yes, here are the top 8 Zoom Live Streaming alternatives:
Muvi Live Huddle
Vimeo Live
Skype
Google Duo
Zoho
LiveWebinar
Vidthere
BlueJeans
Q3. How much does Zoom Live Streaming cost?
Ans. Zoom offers a meeting live streaming feature in its Pro and Business plans. The Pro plan will cost you US$ 149.90 per year, which is the lowest price you need to pay for live streaming your Zoom meetings.
Debarpita is a Content Writer with Muvi. With around 2 years of experience in content creation, she has worked across industries like SaaS, EdTech, eLearning, AR-VR, and Metaverse. She believes in delivering content that can be of some value to the readers. In her free time, she likes to try her hand at website and app development.
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