Online conferencing tools are used for many reasons – sales presentations, webinars and training, to name a few. Plus, if you work from home, like many freelancers and small business owners do, you face the unique challenge of needing live meeting time with clients who may be located around the world.
There are many online meeting tools out there that offer a variety of features at varying costs. Here are a few tools you may want to consider, some of their notable features and the cost for using them.
Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro- Share your screen
- Customize the interface
- Incorporate various training features (create content on the fly, track progress, reports)
- Edit recordings
- Manage the registration process
Cost: 30-day free trial with pay-per-use, monthly and annual plan options (pay-per-use is $0.32 per user per minute)
2. 
Arkadin
- Share desktop and individual applications
- Create a shared work space
- File transfer
- Brand interface with your company information
- Generate post-conference reports
- No software download required
Cost: Free trial, contact for individual pricing info
BeamYourScreen- Share your desktop with up to 20 people
- Grant remote control rights to participants
- Transfer files
- Integrate login options into your existing website
- Record and playback the session
- Generate usage reports
Cost: 7-day free trial, monthly pricing starts at $30
4. 
Dimdim
- Share documents, webcams, websites, and whiteboards
- Pass control to multiple presenters
- Record your meetings
- Send public and private messages
- No installation necessary
Cost: Starts at $9.99 per month for 20 attendees, with annual commitment discounts
5. 
Elluminate
- Share interactive whiteboard and applications
- Include audio capability
- Instant messaging
- Create content and use editing tools
- Transfer files
- Record sessions
Cost: Contact for custom pricing
6. 
eZmeeting
- Share your desktop live for someone else to see or control
- Collaborate, including the ability to mark up and redline documents
- Transfer files
- Instant messaging
Cost: 7-day free trial, monthly pricing starts at $99
7. 
GatherPlace
- Share and view desktops
- Chat
- Record sessions
- Integrate your website
- Optional install for guests
Cost: 14-day free trial, monthly pricing starts at $29
8. 
Glance
- Share your screen with up to 100 guests
- Allow control and control guests’ screens
- Includes free phone conferencing
- Add a button so guests can connect from your website
- Customize the pages guests see when joining and leaving sessions
Cost: 7-day free trial, $49.95 per month (a one-day pass option for $9.95 is also available)
9. 
GoMeetNow
- Share desktop (for presenter and guests)
- Share one application at a time
- Chat
- Includes whiteboard and annotation ability
- Record screen and voice
- No downloads
Cost: Starts at $15.95 per month for 2 participants
10. 
GoToMeeting
- Share/view desktop
- Collaborate in real time
- Instantly change presenters
- Chat
- Record and playback
- Generate attendance reports
Cost: Starts at $49 per month for up to 15 participants
11. 
Mikogo
- Share your screen
- Switch presenters mid-session
- Transfer files
- Record and playback
- Voice conferencing
Cost: Free service provided by BeamYourScreen
12. 
Microsoft Office Live Meeting
- Share a portion of your desktop or the entire screen
- Broadcast visuals of any type
- File transfer and storage
- Participants can show their desktops
- Chat
- Whiteboard, text slides, web slides, annotation and polls included
Cost: $4.58 per user per month for 5-15 users
13. 
ReadyTalk
- Share your desktop, programs and files
- Grant control to others
- Manage your audio conference through the web
- Record audio and web together
- Chat to one or all participants
Cost: $34-49 per month, with annual commitment discounts
14. 
Spreed
- Share your screen
- Remote control desktop
- Interactive whiteboard
- Chat
- Recording and archiving
Cost: Free for up to 3 participants, starts at $19 per session for up to 10 participants
15. 
Voxwire
- Share your screen, desktop and files
- Integrate video conferencing
- Record and playback meetings
- Customize screen layout
- No downloads of any kind
Cost: 30-day free trial, starts at $39 per month for up to 20 participants
16. 
WebEx
- Pass control to others
- Get integrated phone conferencing
- Add a face-to-face experience with video
- Record, edit, and playback meetings
Cost: 14-day free trial, pricing starts at $69 per month for up to 25 participants, or pay-as-you-go for $0.33 per user per minute
17. 
Yugma
- Share your desktop
- Free teleconferencing
- Chat
- Share mouse and keyboard controls with other attendees
- Change presenters
- Recording and playback
Cost: Free for up to 20 participants, pricing starts ay $14.95 per month for more than 20 participants
Have you used any of these online tools? What others should make the cut?
All prices in USD.
Image credit: Steve Woods
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You forgot Microsoft SharedView (www.sharedview.com) which lets you do screen sharing and chat, also some integration into Word for multi user editing of a document.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:49 am
Adobe acrobat connect has a free version too with a max of 5 participants. Another alternative is http://www.vyew.com
May 15th, 2009 at 6:55 am
http://colaab.com should make the cut!
Real-time online collaboration and review over a wide range of resources including office documents, video, PDF, web pages and *very* large images.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Having done a lot of research in trying to find a reliable web conference solution, I’ve tried several of the above mentioned offerings. What we rarely see online are actual comparison reviews which can be frustrating. Web Worker Daily fortunately covers new releases but not a lot of side by side comparisons.
There are few solutions that can a) offer VOIP & telco so international folks can join in, b) full screen sharing (try showing Adobe Illustrator), c) allow more than a couple of people to talk at once, and d) offer for Mac/PC/Linux.
I’ve tried DimDim (which allows up to 4 talkers) but could be spotty, Yugma (VOIP is frustrating w/Skype), WebEx (best communication but info is hard to come by and VOIP not for lower solutions), and GoToMeeting which was pretty easy. GTM was the easiest for people to use but occasionally needs screen refreshing.
I have heard of Adobe’s offering but had heard its hard to use in past reviews. Hoping someone will comment hear about their experiences.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
The best product, the one I use now all the time for online meetings is TeamViewer -> http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx
Business versions are priced reasonably, but there is also fully functional FREE version for personal use.
If you need to speak with the person you are meeting… just use Skype.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Thanks for your valuable listing of web meeting services. It really give a good overview about the best solutions available.
I personally like and use spreed.com, since they also put a strong focus on non-Windows users. Their offering for free 2 user meetings is pretty good and gives a excellent impression about their offering (http://www.spreed.com).
spreed perfectly fits for webinars and sales events since there’s no software installation required for anyone and it also supports any operating system. So you don’t have to care about your attendee’s rights or environment at all.
Steve
May 15th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I use Yuuguu, http://www.yuuguu.com because:
Really easy to use
It’s cross platform – so PC, Linux and Mac screen sharing
Really fast
Free
Integrates all big instant messaging systems so I can screen share with all my buddies from GTalk and MSN very easily via my instant messages
Pass control
No downloads
May 15th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Thanks for your valuable listing of web meeting services. It really give a good overview about the best solutions available.
I personally like and use spreed.com, since they also put a strong focus on non-Windows users. Their offering for free 3 user meetings is pretty good and gives a excellent impression about their offering (http://www.spreed.com).
spreed perfectly fits for webinars and sales events since there’s no software installation required for anyone and it also supports any operating system. So you don’t have to care about your attendee’s rights or environment at all.
Steve
May 15th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Hi Alyssa,
Thanks for including both BeamYourScreen and Mikogo in your list of online meeting tools. Btw, we just released the possibility to have up to 200 participants in a BeamYourScreen meeting.
If you would like further info on our online meeting solutions, feel free to contact me.
Cheers!
Andrew Donnelly
The Mikogo Team
andrew(at)mikogo.com
Twitter: @Mikogo
May 15th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
DimDim!!!
May 15th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
How about drop.io’s new present.io service? I checked out the screencast yesterday and it looks really nice. I’ve been using GoToMeeting for a while but it’d be nice to be able to load up videos and sound clips like present.io has.
http://drop.io/presentation
May 16th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Thanks for doing my homework for me. I have been trying to come up with a similar list. You have a number of agents I had not heard of. My goal is to find one – or any – that are accessible to people with disabilities. Most of the ones that use Flash, Java or other plug-in are not accessible to screen reader applications like JAWS or VoiceOver. Thanks again for the list and review.
~j
May 16th, 2009 at 3:08 am
Elluminate offers free use for up to three users. (No recording in free version.)
May 16th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Thankyou, thankyou, thank you!
I’m trying to evaluate what’s out there, and move our Qld based organisation’s culture to an on-line collaborative one. You’ve all done me a great service by publishing comment with “extra’s”(and the original article of course!)
May 17th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Great article. Working in a rural area where I am often trying to run meetings or trainings with f2f and remote participants I am looking for much better tech options-this gives me great tips and suggestions to explore. I like thinking about “what are we trying to achieve” each time we bring people together and whether the intention to collaborate is ruined by bad technical experiences.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Persoanlly we use VoxWire.come for our webinars, sales events, and client meetings. It allows up to six video and audio feeds. We have not had a capatability issue with any operating system or browser yet. We have alot of clients who use mac, windows xp, and vista.
From our stand point we love how easy it is to record and and play back the meetings. Plus, its unlimited storage and playback.
May 25th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Cisco Webex support 2000+ participants in one, across many platforms – Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris and any Unix OS.
Webex is the best in all online meeting tools definitely.
May 29th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
You missed HyperMeeting (http://www.hypermeeting.com) from HyperOffie
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:49 am
oops, the link is HyperMeeting Online Meetings
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:51 am
Great post with really good and useful information, but I noticed that you did not mention Comapping for collaboration. For me it’s the best tool for collaboration online, mind mapping, group projects and business process planning.
If you still did not explore it, give it a try. ;)
June 4th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Great post with really good and useful information, but I noticed that you did not mention Comapping for collaboration. For me it’s the best tool for collaboration online, mind mapping, group projects and business process planning.
If you still did not explore it, give it a try. ;)
June 4th, 2009 at 6:39 pm