Skype for Business vs Zoom comparison

Microsoft and Zoom Video Communications are both solutions in the Virtual Meetings category. Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.7, while Zoom Video Communications is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Microsoft holds a 13.4% mindshare in VM, compared to Zoom Video Communications’s 11.1% mindshare. Additionally, 79% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Zoom Video Communications users who would recommend it.

Skype for Business

Read 62 Skype for Business reviews

2,218 Views
904 Comparison Views

79% willing to recommend

Zoom

Read 215 Zoom reviews

5,977 Views
1,083 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Skype for Business

Zoom

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

Skype for Business and Zoom are direct competitors in the video conferencing and communication software category. Zoom appears to have the upper hand due to its user-friendly interface, ease of use, and fewer technical requirements, making it more accessible for rapid deployment.

Features: Skype for Business offers comprehensive integration with Microsoft products, support for a variety of devices, and seamless scheduling through Microsoft Outlook. It is known for its VoIP and advanced conferencing capabilities. Zoom is praised for its intuitive high-quality video conferencing, screen sharing, and recording capabilities, making it suitable for both business and educational purposes.

Room for Improvement: Skype for Business struggles with high bandwidth use during video calls and limited third-party interoperability, requiring additional gateways for efficient collaboration. Improvement is needed in addressing connectivity issues and inconsistent audio quality. Zoom requires enhancements in security features, user interface improvements, and better collaboration tools. Users also hope for longer meeting durations in its free version and improved screen sharing for smoother meetings.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Skype for Business is typically deployed on-premises, although it supports hybrid and public cloud options. Users have reported configuration challenges across different locations. Microsoft provides effective technical support and account management. Zoom, primarily used in public cloud environments, is praised for simple deployment. While its technical support is generally rated well, users note areas for improvement, such as support for custom configurations and multi-user functionalities.

Pricing and ROI: Skype for Business, integrated with Office 365, offers cost-effective solutions for large enterprises through Microsoft's licensing efficiencies. ROI can be quickly realized with its diverse features. Zoom provides a free version with limited meeting times, drawing attention from personal users and small businesses. Its tiered pricing can be expensive for additional features but remains competitive compared to solutions like Cisco Webex, offering potential savings and robust collaborative capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Skype for Business vs. Zoom Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Skype for Business vs. Zoom

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 848,716 peers since 2012

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

Skype for Business

Ranking in Virtual Meetings

3rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zoom

Ranking in Virtual Meetings

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

215

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Virtual Meetings category, the mindshare of Skype for Business is 13.4%, up from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoom is 11.1%, down from 14.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Meetings

Featured Reviews

Magdalena Teodorczuk

Senior at Krajowy Depozyt Papierów Wartosciowych S.A.

Offers great audio and video quality for virtual meetings

I like the instant messaging feature in the product since I prefer to use the chat functionalities provided by the solution. It is easy to integrate the product with some of the other solutions in the market. I rate the integration capabilities of the product a ten out of ten. The product's user interface is user-friendly. I use the product at a personal level, so I can't speak about the support it provides for the maintenance part. I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.

Read full review

Kallol Chaudhuri

Principal Consultant at Oracle

Helped us tremendously in collaborating with each other and getting our work done and offers the breakout rooms feature.

We are a team located across various locations. Not in the same geographic location. We are distributed. And it's not possible to physically travel and meet people. Sometimes it's simply not possible. But Zoom has helped us tremendously in collaborating with each other and getting our work done. Without Zoom, it would have been very, very difficult. The breakout rooms feature is also helpful. For example, I have a meeting attended by hundreds of people and want to create subgroups. I typically use it for different role-play scenarios during training if we are trying to conduct some training on presentation skills. So there's a large group, which is initially trained by an instructor. Then you get instructions that the room will be split into smaller breakout rooms. I'll give you a topic, and you'll practice in these smaller groups. That's one way I use it. So it's like a simulation of a real brainstorming session I'd have in a physical space.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"File sharing and email invitations for a conference. I can have a meeting with people at the opposite end of the Earth, sharing documentation; it is quite easy."

"You can do meetings of up to two hundred people in a single conversation."

"The most valuable features of Skype for Business include its persistent chat, Edge Server, Reverse Proxy, front-end server, back-end server, and business calling capabilities, among others."

"The most valuable features are the history tracking which allows us to see who participated and who didn't in the meetings as well as the integration with Outlook."

"Our employees use this solution for a communal space to collaborate for organizational decision making."

"We like the tools our administrator can use to identify which calls had quality issues and why. This makes troubleshooting our user experience somewhat easier."

"The tool's most valuable features are its audio and chat functions. They help us save time and have good telephone integration."

"People are now able to virtually collaborate with their staff and have a conference call. We don't need a phone line to make that conference call and we are saving on that. People are able to share their presentations. Also, they can chat using the Skype"

More Skype for Business pros

"Zoom has facilitated our remote and hybrid meetings, particularly in the context of our agile processes such as scrum. In the past, estimating story points required physical presence in a room, where we would use visual cues or hand gestures. We can create polls with Zoom and share them with team members for direct input. The recording feature is also good. Additionally, features like whiteboarding allow for specific collaboration sessions tailored to different team members' needs. Auto-scheduling meetings and integration with Microsoft Outlook make organizing and attending meetings effortless. Overall, the product is good and convenient."

"The stability has been good overall."

"I recommend Zoom for its ability to host webinars and collaborative tools."

"The solution is stable."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

"The solution can scale easily."

"There are many valuable features. Security is one – you can lock Zoom meetings when you find that all the participants have joined so that there are no intruders."

"Important features include whiteboard control, the ability to set up lobbies, and managing how attendees join the meeting."

More Zoom pros

Cons

"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."

"Going forward, I would like to see better call quality and reliability."

"The solution should improve the chat and add more flexibility to make a call."

"Skype for Business is good for the PCs with higher bandwidth, but an improvement is required for low bandwidth usage."

"I feel that the whole look and feel of Skype should be improved, including its user-friendliness. It should also improve its scalability."

"We need a feature where you can virtually raise your hand to silently let the presenter know that you have a question."

"I would like to see an updated user interface and layout even though no functionality is missing."

More Skype for Business cons

"The product could use some more automation."

"I find while using Zoom sometimes there is a lot of disturbance while on the call. There is a lot of network issues, and sometimes the screen freezes, and you have no way of figuring out what went wrong. You have to restart the computer all over again, or you lose some of the words that someone was saying during the meeting, such as what the person is trying to say in the midst of that conversation. Additionally, there have been times it has disconnected and was not able to start."

"They may need to scale it some more in terms of global users."

"The virtual background could be more smoothly integrated with the rest of the software."

"The video side should be improved, especially if too many people log in at once."

"The free version of Zoom could be improved and offer more functionality. We would also like to have whiteboard and drawing functionality."

"It's a heavy application that requires a lot of bandwidth. I would like to see Zoom incorporate those features where you can share documents and form teams while still maintaining efficiency."

"The performance could be better."

More Zoom cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of Skype for Business is incorporated into our Office 365 licenses."

"It may be slightly costly, but the features are awesome."

"The solution is priced fairly."

"When it comes to the pricing of the solution, I rate it as a five out of ten. It falls somewhere in the middle between being cheap and expensive."

"We purchased an open license."

"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."

"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."

More Skype for Business pricing and cost advice

"There are no licensing fees required."

"Has a paid account for multiple users as well as a free option."

"The licensing fees are quite expensive."

"There is a free version of Zoom which allows you a certain limited amount of time usage and there is a corporate version of the solution where you have to pay."

"Zoom is free."

"My organization has a yearly license for Zoom."

"It is reasonable. It has a monthly license."

"There are both free and paid versions available."

More Zoom pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Virtual Meetings solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

92%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Educational Organization

91%

University

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Skype for Business?

The solution’s video quality is fine.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Skype for Business?

The video quality could be improved, possibly due to internet connection issues. However, there is no significant weakness in Skype for Business.

See all answers

LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom

Hi @Krista Thompson - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. LucidSpark is designed to do a better job managing multiple users participating ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Zoom?

The product is scalable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoom?

There is a concern about the free version's forty-five-minute limit. For education use, having more affordable access through institutions would be beneficial.

See all answers

Comparisons

Webex vs Skype for Business

Compared 27% of the time

Cisco Unified Communications vs Skype for Business

Compared 26% of the time

TeamViewer vs Skype for Business

Compared 15% of the time

GoToMeeting vs Skype for Business

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Jabber vs Skype for Business

Compared 4% of the time

More Skype for Business Competitors

Webex vs Zoom

Compared 29% of the time

GoToMeeting vs Zoom

Compared 9% of the time

TeamViewer vs Zoom

Compared 7% of the time

ON24 Platform vs Zoom

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco TelePresence vs Zoom

Compared 4% of the time

More Zoom Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Skype for Business

March 2025

Download Skype for Business product report

Buyer's Guide

Zoom

March 2025

Download Zoom product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Overview

Skype for Business offers features including presence, IM, voice and video calls, online meetings, conferencing, and telephony solutions that support enterprise-level collaboration requirements. Skype for Business Record meetings, share your screen, and annotate PowerPoint for real-time collaboration with up to 250 people and use whiteboard, polls, Q&A, and built-in IM during your business meetings to make them more productive. Skype for Business provides new client experience, Skype for Business Server provides several new features to improve manageability of on-premises servers and hybrid solutions. Skype for Business also supports the Lync client experience so that you can choose a phased upgrade approach to the new client experience for users. Skype for Business is also an integral part of Microsoft Office 365, providing PSTN Conferencing, Cloud PBX, PSTN Calling, and Skype Meeting Broadcast capabilities to Office 365 users.

Microsoft

Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done. Our easy, reliable cloud platform for video, phone, content sharing, and chat runs across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems. Message me to learn more about how Zoom can help your business or organization Visit zoom.com and follow @zoom_us.

Zoom Video Communications

Sample Customers

EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services,LA Fitness, MedcoEnergi International, Tampa General Hospital, and HopewellHoldings Limited.

Fortinet, Veeva, Proofpoint, Box, Ticketmaster, Trend Micro, Caesars Entertainment, Santa Clara University, Pandora, Stanford Continuing Studies

Buyer's Guide

Skype for Business vs. Zoom

April 2025

Free Report: Skype for Business vs. Zoom

Find out what your peers are saying about Skype for Business vs. Zoom and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Skype for Business vs. Zoom report.

See our list of best Virtual Meetings vendors.

We monitor all Virtual Meetings reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.