What is the best free alternative to Zoom?

For group meetings, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams give free meetings of up to 60 minutes, against Zoom's 40. Jitsi Meet is free and open source with no account needed. For calls inside a team, Slack's free huddles (two people) or a virtual office avoid sending links at all.

Yes, with a personal Google account: one-to-one calls run up to 24 hours and calls with three or more people up to 60 minutes. Google Workspace plans raise meetings to 24 hours and 100 to 1,000 participants.

Does Microsoft Teams have a free version?

Yes. Free Teams lets you create a meeting link that others can join without a Teams account, for meetings of up to 60 minutes. Teams Essentials is $4 a user a month paid yearly, with meetings of up to 300 people.

How long is a free Zoom meeting?

40 minutes, with up to 100 participants, on Zoom's free Basic plan. Zoom Pro raises that to 30 hours for $14.16 a user a month billed yearly or $16.99 monthly.

Which video call app has no time limit for free?

Jitsi Meet states no meeting length limit and needs no account. Google Meet allows one-to-one calls of up to 24 hours on a free account. Paid plans on Zoom, Webex, Whereby and Google Workspace remove the short limits.

Can a virtual office replace Zoom?

Inside the team, mostly: walk-up calls and a meeting room replace the short scheduled calls. For meetings with clients, candidates and other companies, teams usually keep Zoom, Meet or Teams, because that's what the other side uses.

Zoom alternatives for remote teams. Which one depends on who's on the call.

By Jitto JosephNovember 7, 2026Comparisons6 min read

A navy video camera beside three speech bubbles, two cream and one coral, on a green background.

The best Zoom alternative depends on who's on the call. For meetings with clients and candidates, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams are the usual switch, and both give free meetings of up to 60 minutes against Zoom's 40. For the quick calls a team makes to each other all day, you may not need a meeting app at all: Slack huddles, a Discord voice channel or a virtual office start a call without a link. Every limit and price below is from each product's own page, checked on 7 November 2026. We make TinyFloor, a virtual office, so we're not neutral on the second kind of call.

Key takeaways

Zoom's free plan ends meetings at 40 minutes; Zoom Pro is $14.16 a user a month billed yearly, or $16.99 monthly.
Free group meetings last up to 60 minutes on Google Meet (three or more people) and Microsoft Teams, 40 on Webex and 30 on Whereby, which also caps free meetings at 4 attendees.
Microsoft Teams Essentials is $4 a user a month billed yearly, with meetings of up to 300 people.
Jitsi Meet is open source and free to use without an account.
For calls inside a team, a link-free tool fits better: Slack's free huddles hold two people, and a virtual office lets you see who's free before you call.

What are the best Zoom alternatives in 2026?

Here are the free plan limits and the cheapest paid plan for each, from each product's own pricing page. Google Workspace and Slack show prices in your local currency, so their paid prices aren't listed here.

Tool	Free plan	Cheapest paid plan	Best for
Zoom	40 minutes, 100 people	Pro: $14.16 a user a month yearly, $16.99 monthly	Meetings with anyone
Google Meet	60 minutes for 3 or more people, 24 hours one to one	Included in Google Workspace	Teams on Google Workspace
Microsoft Teams	Meetings up to 60 minutes	Essentials: $4 a user a month yearly, 300 people	Teams on Microsoft 365
Webex	40 minutes, 100 attendees	Meet: $144 a user a year, 24-hour meetings	Large and regulated companies
Whereby	1 host, 4 attendees, 30 minutes	Pro: $10.99 a month, 100 attendees, no time limit	Client calls in the browser
Jitsi Meet	Free, no account needed	Free; open source to host yourself	Teams that want control
Slack huddles	Two people	Paid Slack plans: up to 50, 25 on video	Quick calls in a Slack team
A virtual office	TinyFloor: teams of up to 3	TinyFloor: $29 a month for the whole team	A team that works together every day

Which Zoom alternatives suit meetings with clients and candidates?

For a meeting with people outside your team, the tool that matters is the one they can join without fuss. These five each open from a link in the browser.

Google Meet. If your team is on Google Workspace, Meet is already paid for, with meetings of up to 24 hours and 100 people on Starter or 150 on Standard (Workspace pricing). On a free personal account, one-to-one calls run up to 24 hours and calls with three or more people stop at 60 minutes.
Microsoft Teams. The free version of Teams lets you create a meeting link others can join without a Teams account, free up to 60 minutes. Teams Essentials is $4 a user a month paid yearly, with up to 300 participants and 10 GB of storage each. Teams in Microsoft 365 comes with the rest of Office.
Webex. Webex Free matches Zoom's free plan: unlimited meetings of up to 40 minutes, with up to 100 attendees. Webex Meet is $144 a user a year ($12 a month), with meetings of up to 24 hours, 200 attendees and cloud recording.
Whereby. Whereby runs in the browser with a fixed room link per host, which suits client calls. The free plan has 1 host, 1 room, 4 attendees and meetings of up to 30 minutes; Pro is $10.99 a month for one host with 100 attendees and no time limit.
Jitsi Meet. Jitsi Meet is fully encrypted, 100% open source and free to use without an account. You can also run it on your own servers, which some companies need for data rules.

Which free video meeting app has the longest meetings?

Free plans differ most in how long a group meeting can run before it ends:

Tool	Free group meeting length	Free meeting size
Google Meet	60 minutes (24 hours one to one)	100 participants
Microsoft Teams	60 minutes	Not stated on the free page
Zoom	40 minutes	100 participants
Webex	40 minutes	100 attendees
Whereby	30 minutes	4 attendees
Jitsi Meet	No limit stated	Not stated

Do you need a meeting app for calls inside your team?

Most of the calls a remote team makes aren't meetings. They're "got two minutes?": a question, a quick look at a screen, a decision. A meeting app turns each of those into a link, a message and a wait, so many small questions end up written instead, or never asked. For these calls, tools that start without a link fit better.

Slack huddles. A huddle starts a call from a channel or a message. On Slack's free plan a huddle holds two people; on paid plans up to 50, with 25 on video at a time (how huddles compare).
A Discord voice channel. Some teams sit in an always-on voice channel. It's free, and on a server without boosts up to 25 people can be on video in a voice channel, with streams at 720p and 30 frames a second. It was built for communities, so work shares the app with everyone's gaming and personal servers (Discord for work, in detail).
A virtual office. A virtual office gives the team one place to be all day, so you can see who's at their desk, who's in a call and who's busy before you start talking, then walk over and call them. A meeting room that's always there replaces most scheduled calls inside the team. Zoom or Meet stays for calls with other companies. Prices for ten of them are in our comparison.

How to choose a Zoom alternative

Start from what you already pay for. Google Workspace includes Meet and Microsoft 365 includes Teams. A team on either rarely needs another meeting app for outside calls.
Check the free limits against how you meet. A weekly hour-long meeting outgrows every free plan above except Jitsi's. A 20-minute check-in fits them all.
Ask who has to join. Clients and candidates join whatever they're sent, but it helps if it opens in a browser without an account: Teams, Meet, Whereby and Jitsi all do.
Separate meetings from team calls. If most of your calendar is short calls inside the team, the fix isn't a cheaper meeting app; it's a way to talk without booking. Fewer, shorter scheduled calls also help with video call fatigue.

Sources

1.Zoom, Plans and pricing · Basic: 40 minutes per meeting, 100 participants. Pro: $14.16 a user a month billed yearly, $16.99 monthly, 30-hour meetings. Checked 7 November 2026.
2.Google Meet Help Community, Is there a time limit for meetings on the free version? · Personal accounts: one-to-one calls up to 24 hours, calls with 3 or more participants up to 60 minutes.
3.Google Workspace, Pricing · Meet on paid plans: 100 participants on Starter, 150 on Standard, meetings up to 24 hours. Prices shown in local currency. Checked 7 November 2026.
4.Microsoft, Free Microsoft Teams and Teams Essentials · Free Teams: meeting links others can join without an account, free up to 60 minutes. Essentials: $4.00 a user a month paid yearly, up to 300 participants. Checked 7 November 2026.
5.Webex, Pricing · Webex Free: meetings up to 40 minutes, 100 attendees. Webex Meet: $144 a user a year, 24-hour meetings, 200 attendees. Checked 7 November 2026.
6.Whereby, Meetings pricing · Free: 1 host, 1 room, 4 attendees, 30 minutes. Pro: $10.99 a month, 100 attendees, no time limit. Business: $13.99 a host a month, 3 hosts minimum. Checked 7 November 2026.
7.Jitsi Meet · Fully encrypted, 100% open source, free to use without an account.
8.Slack Help Center, Use huddles in Slack · Free plan: up to two participants. Paid plans: up to 50, with 25 on video at a time.
9.Discord, Account Caps, Server Caps and More · Servers without boosts: 25 people on video in a voice channel, streams at 720p and 30 frames a second. Checked 3 November 2026.