Microsoft Teamsvs
Zoom
Zoom: Leading video conferencing platform with superior meeting quality and video reliability, widely adopted for large-scale meetings and external communication.
Microsoft Teams
Meet, chat, call, and collaborate in just one place
As of 30 August 2026, Microsoft Teams has a free plan and paid plans start at $4/month. Microsoft Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines persistent workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and application int. Softwr lists it under Communication. Microsoft Teams is made by Microsoft Corporation, launched in 1975, available on Web, Windows, macOS, iOS.
Overview
What Microsoft Teams does
Microsoft Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines persistent workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration. Part of the Microsoft 365 family, it integrates with Office apps and services.
What people use it for
- Remote meetings
- Team collaboration
- Document sharing
- Project management
- Webinars
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Microsoft Teams.
- Resource-heavy application; slow to load and consumes significant CPU/memory compared to alternatives
- Limited channel structure; maximum of 200 public and 30 private channels per team
- Cannot invite guest users to specific channels; guest access grants full team visibility
- Unable to chat during screen sharing; limits real-time collaborative communication
- Limited customization options for branding and interface; cluttered UX compared to Slack
- Channels cannot be moved between teams; requires manual replication for reorganization
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Microsoft Teams
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- Microsoft TeamsvsWebex by Cisco
Webex by Cisco: Unified communications platform with strong video, phone, and recording capabilities, offering more flexible meeting and channel management than Teams.
- Microsoft TeamsvsGoogle Meet
Google Meet: Integrated collaboration tool within Google Workspace with simpler UX, automatic calendar integration, and less resource-heavy than Teams.
Pricing
What Microsoft Teams costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Unlimited chat
- 100 participants in meetings
- 5GB file storage
- Screen sharing
- Together mode
Microsoft Teams Essentials
$4 /mo
- 300 participants in meetings
- 10GB cloud storage
- Phone & web support
- Meeting recordings
- Whiteboard
Microsoft 365 Business Basic
$6 /mo
- Everything in Essentials
- 1TB OneDrive storage
- Web & mobile Office apps
- Email hosting
- SharePoint
Microsoft 365 Business Standard
$12.5 /mo
- Everything in Basic
- Desktop Office apps
- Webinar hosting
- Attendee registration
- Customer bookings
Capabilities
Features
Chat & channels
Video conferencing
Screen sharing
File collaboration
Office integration
Live events
Phone system
Apps & workflows
Office 365
Integration with Office 365
SharePoint
Integration with SharePoint
OneDrive
Integration with OneDrive
Outlook
Integration with Outlook
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Does Microsoft Teams have a free tier?
Yes. Microsoft Teams offers a free Home tier with unlimited chat, 60-minute group meetings for up to 100 people, 5GB cloud storage, and basic file sharing, though limits are restrictive for growing teams.
SourceWhat are Microsoft Teams' paid plans?
Microsoft Teams Essentials costs $4/user/month (chat, calling, meetings, 10GB storage). Microsoft 365 Business Basic costs $7/user/month (includes desktop Office apps, 1TB storage). Premium plans with Copilot start at $23.50/user/month.
SourceWhat are Microsoft Teams' primary features?
Teams provides real-time chat, video and voice calling, meetings with up to 300 participants, file sharing and storage integration with OneDrive, recording and transcripts, and deep integration with Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).
What integrations does Teams support?
Microsoft Teams integrates with calendar apps (Outlook, Google Calendar), project management tools (Trello), and works with Zapier for custom workflow automation. Teams also has native connectors to many Microsoft 365 apps and third-party services.
Behind it
Who makes Microsoft Teams
- Company
- Microsoft Corporation
- Based in
- Redmond, WA
Keep looking
Where to go from Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Teams alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Microsoft Teams pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Microsoft Teams badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Communication softwareThe full category
- Best Communication softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Communication software for
Compare Microsoft Teams with
- RingCentral Video
- Webex by Cisco
- Lark
- Zoom
- Flock
- Vowel
- Kakao Work
- Naver Works
- Chatwork
- Google Chat
- Grasshopper
- Twist
- Quo
- Rocket.Chat
- Sessions
- Signal
- TeamViewer
- Naver Works
Other Communication software
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Free, then 3,000/mo12 researched notesGroup chat for global teams, built to replace email with real-time communication
Free, then $7/mo10 researched notesDeployment flexibility and compliance across regulatory frameworks
Pricing on request10 researched notesMeetings and webinars with a prepared agenda, interactive blocks and a recorded outcome
Free plan13 researched notesRemote access and support software from Germany, used for connecting to computers anywhere
Pricing on request8 researched notesKorean and Japanese business messaging with mail, drive and approval workflows in one licence
Free, then 3,000/mo12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Microsoft Teams, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Microsoft Teams pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Microsoft Teams
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Microsoft Teams badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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Per user per month
White-label community apps published under your own brand on iOS, Android and web
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