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Cisco Jabber vs Skype for Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Jabber
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Communications (7th)
Skype for Business
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Meetings (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Jabber and Skype for Business aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Jabber is designed for Unified Communications and holds a mindshare of 3.5%, down 8.6% compared to last year.
Skype for Business, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Meetings, holds 5.2% mindshare, down 11.5% since last year.
Unified Communications Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Jabber3.5%
Cisco Unified Communications9.6%
3CX Live Chat7.2%
Other79.7%
Unified Communications
Virtual Meetings Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Skype for Business5.2%
Zoom Workplace Business8.6%
Webex6.8%
Other79.4%
Virtual Meetings
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer912129 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Manager at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Stable, easy to set up, and works fine
Everyone in our company uses Cisco Jabber for phone calls and internal chat. We have around 1,000 users. For features like video conferences, schedules, and presentations, we use Microsoft Teams.  It works fine feature-wise. The Cisco Jabber features that we use work okay. There are issues in…
reviewer1854369 - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive at a government with 201-500 employees
Relying on dependable communication features for efficient collaboration
I work with Microsoft Exchange. We use Microsoft Azure, though I am not involved with the back-end operations. I work with Microsoft Exchange and ServiceNow for the service desk. I do not work with Cloud Observability or Automation Engine. We use Microsoft Copilot with Teams. We do not use Microsoft Security Copilot as it is not cloud-based. We have moved from Skype for Business to Teams recently, though some of us still use Skype for Business because it is convenient. Skype for Business is particularly useful for remoting onto people's devices. I prefer Skype for Business over Teams for screen sharing. Sometimes there are compatibility issues when running Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business together. Phone calls in Teams might ring and then go silent, or the microphone might not detect calls from either application. I rate Skype for Business a 9 out of 10 because it works effectively with minimal issues.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature for me is that it shows who is available and who is not, as well as what their current status is."
"It works fine feature-wise. The Cisco Jabber features that we use work okay."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to talk with people in real-time, instead of sending texts."
"I rate the solution's stability a nine on a scale where one is not stable and ten is very stable...I rate the solution's initial setup a nine on a scale where one is difficult, and ten is easy."
"The most valuable feature of Skype for Business is that it has many other tools that you can be integrated with it. It makes the meetings more interactive."
"There are free versions of the solution available."
"It's a good and stable product that fits my needs."
"We really like the screen sharing tool. The user experience is smooth, and user-friendly."
"It's a good product, we like using it."
"The solution is stable and scalable."
"The most valuable feature is how useful it has been for virtual meetings during the pandemic."
 

Cons

"There are issues in switching from one type of communication system to another. When I connect my wired earphone or Bluetooth earphone, Cisco Jabber doesn't switch automatically. There are some user experience issues that need to be fixed."
"I presume that very small businesses would have a tough time justifying the investment."
"Cisco Jabber is not a collaborative tool."
"Skype for Business could improve the interface. It could be easier to use. Additionally, it's hard to find the people or add people you want to communicate with."
"The integration with Outlook could be improved."
"I believe optimizing the solution for lighter endpoints, particularly for embedded endpoints on mobile devices, would be valuable."
"The cost of Skype for Business has room for improvement."
"Sometimes Skype is slow, and we cannot use other elements of our devices while using the Skype solution."
"The ease of configuration or the lack of decent tooling to pinpoint your problems is probably its biggest issue."
"If one of the users has a poor internet connection, this failure will compromise the meeting, causing delays and distortions in the communications."
"The video conferencing quality can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The cost of Skype for Business is incorporated into our Office 365 licenses."
"The pricing is really good. It is quite affordable because it came with our Office 365. It is on a per-user license, which is nice. I quite like that they have made it very granular with all of their licensing."
"The licensing is billed on a yearly basis."
"Skype for Business' pricing is reasonable."
"We had a license for every one of our users to use Skype for Business. The license we used was part of an overall Microsoft license package."
"We purchased an open license."
"We are using the subscription-based version of Skype for Business. There is a free version of the solution."
"Our company pays for a license for us to use the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
10%
Government
8%
Marketing Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skype for Business?
Skype for Business is affordable and has decent pricing. The video quality is a bit lower than Teams or Zoom, but it remains a good solution overall.
What needs improvement with Skype for Business?
I cannot think of many ways in which Skype for Business could improve in general. It works fairly efficiently for our purposes with Skype for Business. There is one issue regarding the audio settin...
 

Also Known As

Jabber
Skype for Business Plan 1, Skype for Business Plan 2, Lync Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Odeabank, Eagle Investment Systems, Pella Corporation, The Republican National Convention, avodaqAG
EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services,LA Fitness, MedcoEnergi International, Tampa General Hospital, and HopewellHoldings Limited.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, 3CX, Digium and others in Unified Communications. Updated: January 2026.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.