Google Hangouts (Classic) vs. Join.me (discontinued)

As previously mentioned, Google Hangouts (Classic) is best suited for ad-hoc, informal communications with external collaborators that would benefit from face-to-face interactions, but don’t require a record of the conversation and don’t necessarily require a high degree of corporate security. For communications of consequence, our corporate toolset is more appropriate, but Google Hangouts (Classic) serves a similar function to FaceTime or Zoom.

Incentivized

If you're on a bit of a budget the pricing for Join.me definitely makes it an easy choice. We were able to download it and get it up and running for free on a few of my teammates PCs that needed assistance with some computer setup. It can be a little confusing to access some of the features at first but once you get the hang of it it's pretty easy to use. Wouldn't necessarily recommend it for extremely large meetings, but it's excellent for smaller groups.

Incentivized

• Google Hangouts (Classic) is embedded within Gmail's scheduler, so setting up the link is as quick as a click of the button. It's a one-step process.
• Google Hangouts (Classic) is user-friendly and [has] features to share screens easily.
• Google Hangouts (Classic) is much easier to use than its competitors.
• Google Hangouts (Classic) have [a] good connection time and there are few glitches.

Incentivized

• Join.me has provided us many features that made it possible for us to communicate.
• Another plus point is its staff which is pretty good ‘professional and highly supportive and is always there for help.
• We can also connect with people outside our region and with its advanced functionality we have found it as the best audio conference software than any other software of its type.
• it has made our audio meeting experience very effective.

Incentivized

• I would like to see improved video support, so that saved videos can be sent back and forth via Hangouts more easily, without having to start a separate meet chat
• More pronounced notifications of messages would be helpful; pop up notifications are good, but once there is one, additional messages do not pop up
• Custom muting times would be great, so that if I am in a 90 minute Zoom meeting, I can set it for that time; right now, it is 1 hour or 2 hours. Easy to forget.

Incentivized

• In my experience when using the mobile app the quality drops when on cellular data, even with a strong signal. Given the current challenges, teams Face ID like to see the mobile capabilities get some improvement as it doesn’t seem to be optimized when not on a PC or wireless network.

Incentivized

This platform enables a very high ROI for the solution that it provides to our team to support our end-users.

Incentivized

The tool is almost self-implemented. It is likely to be available in every pc or mobile device a user or potential user might have, and all you need to do is adding the company's account and you are done. Once you are setted up, you have almost all actual communication methods available in one tool

Incentivized

Join.me is one of the easiest programs I've ever used. It's so easy to get it set up and installed and even easier for someone to join a meeting. The controls are very intuitive and labeled appropriately. The UIX makes sense. It's been a reliable product in my app stack-I love it!

Incentivized

Google Hangouts works great and does not require a lot of work to troubleshoot. Everything is simple and easy to use. Google provides all of the tools that one requires to utilize Google Hangouts and any information can be found in the built-in help tools. There is also a forum for users to report issues and typically, Google responds well and will try to work out any issues.

Incentivized

I honestly haven't reached out to their Support team. I get notifications of what they are working on which is good to see, but I haven't directly spoken with any of them. I think my main reason for this is that join.me gives me just what I need (not much more and not much less).

Incentivized

This is a fairly simple product which doesn't require much "implementation" work for our use cases.

Incentivized

For its time, Google Hangouts (Classic) was a fantastic product and matched up well with all of its successors. Now however, with it having been phased on within Workspace for Education, I would not advise any new users use the product. Google Chat, combined with Google Meet, have superseded Hangouts (Classic) and should be used by default due to their close knit integration with Gmail.

Incentivized

We have tried a number of online meeting platforms since 2010 when we first commenced our online and international programs. Although Join.Me was a mainstay for us at first--affordable, safe, and great way to provide remote access that other platforms failed to provide--now we have found much less utility since we use Zoom which is affordable, provides a more robust and cohesive user experience, and now also provides remote access when granted.

Incentivized

• I believe it was part of the google suite that was purchased. It was worth the cost as it was cheaper. I believe it is now free, but also becoming deprecated. It is much better to use Teams, Discord, Telegram, etc. Google does not provide enough support or features to make using hangouts worth it these days.

Incentivized

• We have been able to beat the learning curve as Join.me is almost self explanatory to most of our team.
• The cost per user ratio can feel a bit expensive but for the speed and convenience we feel it was the right investment
• The biggest ROI is time, being able to go from email to meeting in a few clicks makes Join.me feel natural and not just another "video conferencing" tool that we use.

Incentivized