Top Video Conferencing Tools, Free And Low Cost

Videoconferencing, also known as Video Teleconferencing, allows people at different locations to see and hear each other as if they were together in one location. Video conferencing tools allow people to use both broadband Internet connection and their personal webcam in order to have multi-party videoconferences.

7 Best Video Conferencing Tools

First at all, the criteria to select the right conferencing tool for you are several. Here, I’ve listed a few of them(Each criteria has been highlighted with a different colors):

• Platform: software or web-based.
• Video channels multi-party tools: Number of persons can join to a video conference at the same time
• Embeddable widget: Is the ability to create widget embeddable to add into a web site.
• Session recording: Feature to record your conference session for later review or publishing.
• Basic price: Amount to purchase the service, and additional features. They can be free or low-cost.
• Text chat: Allows to other participants to text-chat.
• Other features: File transfer, live annotation, screen-sharing, whiteboarding, and so on.

1. Skype – Is a free VoIP software and video conferencing service that allows you to chat, make video calls, transfer files, and much more. You also can choose to buy $10 of Skype credit to call landline and mobile phones. While Video calls are limited to two people, you can look for third-party software that allows you add more people, and also record your conferencing sessions. Embeddable widget available. Mac version also allows to share your screen.

2. Windows Live Messenger – Is a  free software for video conferencing developed by Microsoft and available for Pc, Mac, and Windows Mobile-based phones. It also support advanced features such as: transfer files, and supports Xbox integration. It provides widget to embed a meeting on your web site as well. Live Messenger can not be used for public conferences. Also, feature to record your video calls or audio is missing.

3. Vsee – Is a multi-party video conferencing tool. It allows up to 6 people to a video chat at the same time. You can also annotate documents, transfer files, record, share applications, share videos, pan, zoom remote cameras, and tilt. No widget to embed a meeting on your web site is supprted. The service goes for 50$month.

4. Sight speed – Available for Pc and Mac, Sightspeed includes video chat with up to 2 channels streaming at the same time. Sightspeed gives you advanced feature such as file transfer, text-chat, video messaging, and session recording. The best thing is that it’s free for two people, or goes for $9.95/month for 4 people and unlimited video storage. No widget to embed a meeting on your website is supported.

5. Adobe acrobat connect pro – Is a video conferencing developed by Adobe. It allows you to create a meeting in a simple and fast way. All you need to do is to take a compatible webcam and a microphone. that it! It also support advanced features such as session recording, text-chat, screen sharing file transfer and whiteboarding. Price goes for $0.32/min/user.

6. Nefsis - Is multi-party video conferencing tools that allows 20 members to start a conference at the same time. It support desktop sharing, session recording, whiteboarding, HD webcam support, and much more. The service goes for $70/month.

7. Ovoo - OoVoo is a video-conferencing software that lets you to communicate with people through video-audio conference (up to six people), text-chat, and also to record video messages. Available for Windows and Mac, you can share up to 20 files at once(up to 25 MB per file). It is free to download and use.