Best Free Video Conferencing Apps

One in three US adults regularly used video conferencing for work in 2022, and it feels safe to assume that number will only increase as more folks work remotely.¹

If we’re all going to use video conferencing apps so often, let’s try our best to not pay for them. The world may change, but may our appetite for free stuff never change.

Based on our researching and testing, these are the five best free video conference apps available right now.

Not all video conference apps are built the same, and not all free plans deliver everything you might need to get your work done. So, we dove into each application to learn a bit more, ensuring each one has the features you require. 

• Service compatibility
• Details of plan pricing
• Maximum meeting participants
• Maximum meeting length

When seeking out a free meeting app, start by identifying the brand and its compatibility with devices you already own. For example, if your team uses Android and iOS smart devices, selecting a service that only supports one of the two platforms isn’t too helpful.

Be sure to look at the details of each service’s free plans. While a free plan is enticing, you need to ensure that the free plan offers the features your need. Speaking of features…

Maximum meeting participants and meeting length are critical aspects to look at when selecting a free video conference app. Check how many participants can be in each free meetings and whether the meeting has a time limit, which may hinder your activities.

• Zoom Video Conferencing App Review
• 5 Best Video Conferencing Apps
• What Are the Best Zoom Alternatives?

Out of nowhere, Cisco Webex upped its free-tiered package from 50 participants to 100. You win this round, Craig.

Ever tried to explain a problem to someone over a video call and wished you could just lean over and show them?

Screen sharing allows you to do that (provided your problem exists on your computer). And the Webex free plan comes with screen sharing so you don't miss out on this oh-so helpful feature.

You can have 100 participants on a video conference at a time with Webex. That's a huge amount of people to chat with.

We’ve never seen any free video conferencing app go beyond the 100 participants at once, so Webex is at the very top of  the food chain for number participants.

Webex doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface. It’s clearly intended for work rather than casual social calls.

Cisco Webex isn’t a social platform in the same way Skype is, for example. There aren’t obvious chat features (there’s a chat function once you start a meeting) or ways to easily invite someone to a meeting. I wouldn’t talk to my elderly mother on Cisco Webex, that’s for sure.

However, for business purposes, Cisco Webex is a cut above the rest.

Skype does a great job creating a user-friendly experience that I absolutely would use with my elderly mother.

Skype was made for more casual video conferencing, and perhaps best of all, it was always intended to be free. You don’t have to stress about Skype prompting you to upgrade to paid versions every ten minutes (*cough* FreeConference *cough*).

Right when you log in to Skype, you’re greeted with your chat windows. You can easily start up video conferences by clicking the camera icon in the top right corner. Oh, and you can send emojis and GIFs super easily.

Before Cisco Webex went and enhanced their free version to have unlimited meeting times, Skype was first in the industry when it came to meeting length for free video conferencing apps. Those were the days. And 24 (!) uninterrupted hours on a free video easily beats out most other free apps (Zoom only allows for 40 minutes for free).

Once your 24-hour conversation ends (Are you okay?), you can just start up another 24-hour call if you want. You could spend full days video conferencing for free with Skype.

Skype upped the ante and is now on par with most other free plans with its 100-participant limit. The only thing is, we'd love to see more robust features offered, even if it requires a payment. Or at least we'd like to pay to get rid of those ads. We'll enjoy 24-hour video access in the meantime.

Zoom is the most popular video conferencing app for a reason—it’s because it runs so dang well.

Zoom offers a super reliable streaming experience. I’ve experienced latency issues, albeit small latency issues, with Cisco Webex, Skype, and FreeConference. Zoom consistently holds low latency rates on its video conferences:

Latency refers to the amount of time it takes to send and receive data. Per our report indicated above, it took about 17 milliseconds for the data to travel from my computer to my friend’s computer. Think about it this way—if you and I were having a video chat and I made a thumb’s up gesture, it would take about 17 milliseconds before you saw it. Likewise, if you made a thumbs down gesture back to me (how dare you), it would take me 24 milliseconds to see it.

According to Cisco, the old rule of thumb is anything above 250 milliseconds is considered unacceptable.² Well, Zoom absolutely destroys that number and delivers the lowest latency video chat conversations we’ve seen.

Zoom matches Webex with its 100-person meeting capacity for free video conferencing. Hopefully this becomes a bit of an arms race and either Zoom or Webex increases their free meeting capacity soon.

If someone from Zoom or Webex is reading this, we promise to give you our number one recommended spot for free video conference apps if you up the ante to 150 participants. You’ve been challenged! [Editor's note: Not a real challenge.]

With all of its popularity, Zoom has become a major target for hackers. It’s become so common that Zoombombing has become a verb in our nomenclature, much like Uber, DoorDash, and Netflix. Despite the fact that the Pentagon no longer uses Zoom as its video conference app of choice, we remain cautiously optimistic that Zoom will improve its security measures.

In fact, Zoom just bought a security company called Keybase (its first acquisition) in an effort to enhance their security over the next 90 days. We’ll be watching if the number of Zoombombing instances dramatically drops with these efforts, but it would be wise to stay off Zoom for sensitive calls for at least the next 90 days.

If you just want to get as many people as possible on a conference call and talk as long as you want for free, FreeConference can help make that happen.

At the cost of what you give up in terms of video conferencing capabilities, FreeConference makes up for it with 12-hour meeting lengths with its free-tiered plan. It's no Skype with a 24-hour limit, but you can carry on with your conference call worry-free.

Hopefully, Zoom is taking notes about what other video conference apps are doing. Nobody likes having their meetings abruptly cut short. Thankfully, that’s something you won’t need to worry about with the free plan FreeConference providers.

You’re limited to only five video conference participants at a time, which is devastatingly low. The rest of your participants (up to 100) can only listen in.

As a free option, VideoConference doesn’t make much sense for folks who know they want to do video conferencing. You’d be much better off going with Zoom or Webex if you always want to host video conference meetings.

Stick with FreeConference for audio conference calls for free, but look elsewhere for free video conferencing.

Regardless of what free video conferencing platform you use (though Zoom is the most reliable option overall), you’ll need a reliable internet connection for things to run smoothly. There’s a chance you’re paying too much for your internet and not getting good enough speeds.

Put in your ZIP code below and do a little internet shopping to see if there’s better options in your area.

Isn’t it great that free video conferencing is a thing that exists? It’s surprising how much you can do with these video conference apps for free. Here’s our recap for the best free video conferencing platforms.

• Best features: Cisco Webex leads the web conferencing pack when it comes to free features. You can have 100 participants and talk as long as you want for free with Webex.
• Best user experience: Skype is the video conference app I would use with my non-tech-savvy mother. It’s the simplest user experience and offers easy-to-use chat features, and it’s completely free.
• Best performance: Zoom will consistently deliver the lowest amount of latency for your video conference calls. You can have 100 people on at once in a video conference call, and you can keep in touch for up to 24 hours a day if you wanted.
• Best audio conference support: FreeConference supports 100 people at once for free audio conference calls. You can also have five people on at once for a video conference, which isn’t great, but it’s nice when paired with the huge capacity for audio conferences.

We've made sure to analyze multiple factors to help you find the best available free video conferencing app.

It is essential to keep an eye on free-plan limitations, as well as overall compatibility with the devices your company utilizes so that there aren't any roadblocks.

Essential features that we analyzed included:

• Service compatibility
• Details of plan pricing
• Maximum meeting participants
• Maximum meeting length