Signal Messenger vs. Zoom Workplace

Signal is best when you want to keep a conversation confidential. The whole premise of Signal is privacy, based on keeping location, contents, and what's in the content private. By having the delete function and the time limit on messages, as well as auto-delete, messages that are seen are not left on the device longer than they need to be. It's not appropriate for simple regular chatting or sending files that need to be shared. That's not its strong suit. What is its strong suit is the peace of mind that your confidential conversations are meant to be kept that way.

Incentivized

* Onboarding new employees - adaptation is quick and easy for new employees - for phone and meeting use. * Administration is quick and easy as well as finding answers to the 'what ifs' * Delegation for scheduling and creating scheduler links - what an awesome process - delegation allows for ease of on-boarding new employees - pre-emptively setting up their meetings and orientations in advance of start date *AI summary - our development teams uses them for ALL meetings creating a great history and follow up process for the entire team

Incentivized

• Security - This is the main feature Signal is known for, and it's no joke. Signal's encrypted messaging is best in class and you can rest assured that it would be very difficult for a third party to intercept your messages.
• Filesharing - You can share all manner of files and audiovisual content through Signal in a secure way.
• Desktop/Mobile Sync - In order to sync your mobile installation of Signal to the desktop version, you have to use a QR Code, and do it every time you update. Old versions of Signal are no longer able to send or receive messages. This is a good and bad thing as it is a bit of a hassle, but it helps to add extra layers of security.
• Message Drafts - A nice feature where you don't lose messages you are in the middle of writing.
• Named Conversations - It's nice to be able to organize conversations
• Temporary Messages - You can send messages that will be deleted after a certain time, or when read.
• Video and Voice Chat - In addition to texting, Signal lets you make video and voice calls.

Incentivized

• It's a great way to connect around the world with minimal bandwidth consumption.
• Meeting our peers and exchanging ideas is made possible through the use of high-quality video and audio calls.
• Exceptional audio and video quality; we are recording meetings and transferring them to other storage.
• Compared to other apps, it has more features and allows for efficient file sharing within the chatbox.

• Needs to add video
• Add time zone information so you don't call at the wrong time
• Improve the interface, as it's too bland

Incentivized

• You need an app to make the calls and meetings, but it would be perfect if it had a web-based option.
• Sometimes when internet speed drops, the audio quality also drops; I would understand the video quality dropping, but the audio doesn't consume much bandwidth, so it would be nice to have a consistent audio even on low internet speeds.

Because every other conference tool is expensive, bloated, or fails to make it easy to just have a call with someone.

Incentivized

Zoom is made for the non tech office. It has features that can be made to do what you need to run things on a day to day basis. Immediately we we able to get meetings going with remote employees. The ability to be able to add smartphone connected people was a big plus. Zoom met our needs at the time.

There have been less than a handful of outages during our two years with Zoom, and whenever there was one, an email informing us of the outage went out immediately, and they had the issue resolved shortly thereafter.

Zoom has among the best performance of any video conference platform, as I've mentioned several times. Besides that, their Chat platform works great, and their back end always runs smooth. It's unfortunate that reporting can now only be done by one month at a time, but nonetheless, it only takes a second to run any kind of Zoom report, whether it's an attendee report, Poll results, a user report, a list of meetings from the past month, etc.

I've never contacted support but I see that they are on the ball for bug fixes, highly communicative in release notes, and continually releasing updates to Signal that address common user complaints. Given how responsive the development team is, and how they are continually improving Signal, I think their support is top notch.

Incentivized

Because I got a response right away, and was assigned one specific individual to work with me from the beginning to the resolution. I had an actual email address and direct contact with this person without having to start over and over every time I contacted Zoom - this singular individual remained attentive and was well informed on the subject matter and quite able to resolve my needs.

Incentivized

If you receive any pushback from higher ups, point to any of the various positive reviews like this one. Or show Zoom's excellent Gartner report, or articles describing Zoom's partnership with Sequoia capital. It's not difficult to show how Zoom is a trustworthy industry leader with best-in-class technology.

The closest competitor we've found for Signal is Telegram. We do use Telegram with some clients and individuals who prefer it. Unfortunately, in this climate where there is no clear winner and a lot of diversity in applications, if you work with a lot of clients you're going to have to install a whole suite of instant messaging apps. Still, given the choice, we prefer Signal over its competitors, specifically for applications where high security is a concern.

Incentivized

Zoom Workplace is typically on the more expensive end against other options, but it's the industry leader for a reason. It has the most brand credibility by far, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. There are limitations when it comes to technical performance, customization and video/audio quality. I prefer Slack myself for communication apps, but Zoom Workplace is a good alternative.

Incentivized

Because the Basic licenses are completely free, and because it's very easy to configure and install Zoom, and because anyone can join Zoom from a link without needing an account, scaling is a Breeze. There are absolutely no roadblocks. My company keeps adding more Zoom Pro license every week since it's so in demand. We were able to convert users from several different platforms onto Zoom with no trouble at all.

• Communication is crucial to accomplishing our mission
• Cost of similar commercial apps could be very prohibitive

Incentivized

• We have not lost much productivity in our teamwork during the pandemic because of the ability to have Zoom video calls and keep everyone in touch. This is definitely a positive.
• We are able to have more people participate in coaching sessions (described earlier) because we don't have room space limitations. This is a big positive.
• Being able to start a meeting instantly is great when we are doing support and/or training with a client over the phone and need to be able to share a visible

Incentivized