How to...
Compare MS Teams, Zoom and Skype for Business
Trying to decide between Teams, Zoom or Skype for Business? Teams is about collaboration. You can also use Zoom for meetings and video conferencing with anyone who has an account. While external people can be invited and participate in Teams Meetings they can’t see your Channels unless the Team Owner adds them as a Guest.
See our guide for Which chat and collaboration platforms you should be using for University business.
|
|
Teams |
Skype for Business |
Zoom |
|
Usage |
Use where the Team will collaborate, meet, chat. Online meetings
|
Use for meetings with anyone who has the app
|
Use for meetings with anyone who has an account |
|
Who can join |
Anyone invited to a Teams Meeting. Access to Chat and Team Channels is restricted to Sussex staff and external Guests added to the Team |
Anyone who has the Skype app |
Anyone with the app and an invite |
|
Private Chat with external contacts |
Y (provided they have been added to the Team by the Team Owner) |
Yes (anyone added to your Skype Contacts) |
Yes (providing you share the meeting number and password with them) |
|
Private Chat with internal staff |
Y (anyone in the University or Guests added to a Team) |
Yes (anyone in the University) |
Yes (but contacts have to be manually added) |
|
Schedule meetings |
Yes |
Via Outlook |
Yes |
|
Online meeting internal and externals |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Record meetings |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Share my screen or present |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Take control of screen |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Make voice call |
Yes |
Yes |
No (but you can join meetings with audio only, e.g. with a microphone but not webcam) |
|
Make a video call |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Share document in a meeting |
Yes (when uploaded to the Channel or meeting) |
Yes (if sent with invite to be downloaded) |
No |
|
Share documents in chat |
Yes (Anyone in the University or externals added to a Team) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Share documents in a Teams Channel |
Yes (Members of your Team) |
NA |
NA |
|
Collaborative working |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Simultaneous co-author edit of online document |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Collaborative forum type area (Channels) |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
All collaborators required to install software (at least the app) |
Yes |
Yes |
NA |
|
Show colleague availability |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes (Only when users are logged into Zoom account) |
|
Number of video participant windows shown |
4 |
5 |
Depending on your computer, you can display up to 49 participants in a single screen of the gallery view. |
|
Number of participants |
250 |
250 |
300 video (up to 500 with large meeting add on) |
created on 2020-04-03 by Sam Elmer
last updated on 2021-04-20 by Sam Elmer